Abraxas hesitated only for a moment. Then his face snapped back into its normal smug expression. He blew her a quick kiss. “You were going to bed anyway.”
Maeve didn’t bother protesting. Abraxas followed him without hesitation back into the crowd.
Maeve holed herself in her dorm the rest of the weekend.
Sunday morning Lavinia appeared in the doorway of the third year girls’ room.
“Your room is down the hall,” said Maeve, her eyes quickly returning to her book.
“What’s eating you?”
“Many things,” said Maeve. “For starters, I’m trying to read and there is an annoying Head Girl in my room.”
Lavinia leaned against the doorway. “This was my room last year. I have better books than that if you need a distraction.”
“Pass.”
Lavinia sighed. “Fine.”
Each time Maeve’s stomach growled, Spinel opened one eye from where he slept at the foot of her bed and chirped at her.
“But that involves going downstairs for real food,” she said to him.
Her nightstand was littered with empty chocolate wrappers. Spinel chirped at her once more and laid his head back down. Dinner would be over soon. Her stomach growled so loudly that Spinel jumped off the bed and stretched, chattering at her as he slunk into the dark hallway.
Maeve set her book aside with a sigh.
She hurried downstairs and satisfied the incessant grumbling in her stomach. The essay she had put off all weekend for Alchemy needed completing. Her mind ran through the revisions needed as she made her way back up to her dorm in the darkened castle.
Mal leaned against a pillar ahead. She pretended not to see him as she approached.
“You didn’t come to your tutoring lesson.”
“Oh I’m quite done with that,” she said, breezing by him.
His voice was playful. “Nor your training.”
“Devastating, yes,” she replied without glancing back at him.
“Stop,” he said with an edge in his tone.
The command caused her stomach to turn tight. Her arms tensed across her chest and her neck lifted.
Nevertheless.
She obeyed.
His oxfords clicked across the stone corridor until he was in front of her. His hands slid into his pockets as he predatorily hovered above her.
She avoided his gaze.
“Friday evening. At the party. That was cruel. And I shouldn’t have done it.”
She scoffed, looking up at him expecting to see his eyes mocking her.
Surprise rang through her. Her face dropped. When she looked up at him, something like remorse flickered through his expression. His statuesque features were sharpened by the dim candlelight flickering off his face, sinking into the dips of his cheeks, darkening his hair.
Maeve looked at him squarely and spoke quietly, more sadness seeping into her voice than she would have liked. “Abraxas is not a pawn. And nor am I.”
