“It wasn’t all that difficult to figure out actually,” said Maeve, playing with her quill. “My Father was summoned here to the school with The Orator. Headmaster Elgin asked me to take a look at Valeria Carter’s memories. The Headmasters insisted it was strange that Warner confessed and yet had no recollection of hurting Valeria. My Father agreed.”
Mal cocked his head to one side, still smiling at her.
“Of course there were no memories of such an event, as Warner was innocent. I knew that the moment I entered his mind. Warner kept insisting, through tears, he must have blocked out the memories, but that he was horribly sorry for what he had done. Valeria was all over the place. Someone had hurt her, but she repressed all of it. I couldn’t see anything. But I felt all of it. There was a lingering trace of magic. Magic I was, at the time, unfamiliar with. Different from all else.”
“That magic,” said Mal, quietly. “Are you familiar with it now?”
Maeve nodded and whispered. “It calls to me quite often.”
A long silence passed between them, the only sound the snapping of the fire. Finally he spoke quietly. Softly.
“It was an accident.”
Mal placed his elbows on the table and bowed his head. “Why did you lie? If you knew he was innocent?”
“Because that magic. . .” she trailed off. “I couldn’t bring myself to betray it.”
“You had no idea it was me.”
Maeve nodded. “That’s true. But all the same I couldn’t do it.”
“Then what did you tell them you saw? Warner was cleared of the crime.”
Maeve hesitated and debated telling Mal the truth. His dark eyes bore into hers. Truly, it had been an accident. She knew that. That day, inside Valeria’s head she had felt it.
Exposing her own lies was a dangerous game. But his eyes. . .they begged for her honesty.
“I lied to my father. To the Double O. To all of them,” she whispered. “I said I saw the whole thing. I said that the memory collapsed as I was viewing it. That I made a mistake and broke it.” Maeve felt her stomach boil as she admitted the part she was ashamed of. “I said that Valeria tried to kill herself. And Warner saw it.”
Mal’s eyebrows rose slowly.
Maeve’s heart was racing. Mal’s eyes moved to her throat. He shook his head ever so slightly and spoke softly, concern flooding into his voice.
“Relax, Maeve.”
“It was all I could think of to clear him in the moment, and still not tell them the truth,” she said, her voice catching.
His eyes were soft. “Do you believe that I didn’t mean to hurt her?”
“Yes,” said Maeve with a strained inhale.
Mal looked down at the desk between them. “I lost control. It isn’t always easy to have this power flowing through me.”
Suddenly Mal’s constant cool demeanor made sense.
“What happened?”
Mal didn’t look at her. “She was drunk. We were arguing. She and I had been. . . I told her I didn’t care for her physical company anymore.”
Maeve hated the hot feeling deep in her stomach that bubbled up at that detail.
“She didn’t take it well. She started screaming at me. It burst from me before I could even think. I’ve never felt anything like it. I hope I never do again.”
“If you had just told them that, everything would have been fine-”
“I panicked. And you don’t know that,” he said darkly. “I do not bare the last name you do. Things are different for me.”
Maeve steadied her breathing and leaned back in her chair. They knew one another’s secret now. Betraying one would mean betraying the other.
