I don’t know what I intended, if I’d planned to hug him to comfort him, or tell him I believed him, or if I’d even thought that far ahead. All I know is, when I held him in my arms, he was hot, like he was burning up from within. I looked at his eyes, watched the gold and green flame ripple through his irises.
“Hey,” I said, quiet. “It’s all right. I’m not going to tell anyone.”
He let out a low, strangled laugh.
“It won’t matter,” he said, bitterly.
I stared up at his inhumanly beautiful face with an intensity of feeling that I knew was dangerous, if not outright delusional. But I couldn’t seem to lie to myself about that anymore, either.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I repeated. “Not unless you want me to. I’m going to help you.”
I half-expected him to laugh. Really, he probably should have laughed.
He didn’t laugh, though.
He leaned down, and pressed his face to mine, right before he kissed my neck. He closed his eyes briefly as his fingers traced my features, then his arms wrapped around me like I’d done to him. He held me against him, almost tightly.
Then, all at once, he let me go.
I remained standing there when he stepped away. I let go of him the instant he did, my hands flattening on the wall behind me, but otherwise, I didn’t move. I just watched, silent, as he disappeared through the classroom door.
I don’t know how long I stood there after he left.
27
Birthday
Present Day
November 13th
Valarian College Dormitory
Malcroix Bones Academy
“What do you mean, you can’t come?” Miranda stared at me, her black eyes reflecting the firelight, perfectly matching the shade of her blue-black hair. “It’syourbirthday, Leda. We’re all going out… all of us. Why do you think the theme of the night is All Hallow’s Eve? Youtoldme that was a big holiday where you’re from. Yourfavoriteholiday.” Miranda stamped her foot. “It’syourbirthday. That was thewhole point,Leda!”
I’d expected this, of course.
I hadn’t fully connected all the dots, when Mir mentioned she was throwing a Halloween-themed “event” this weekend, but I’d known she wouldn’t be happy about me not being around the night of my birthday.
I’d honestly thought the Halloween thing was on Friday.
I’d thought I could push any birthday celebrations to that night for the same reason.
But it was more than me simply screwing up the two dates. I’d been increasingly alienating and frustrating my friends for months now, starting all the way back in summer, when I didn’t meet up with Mir, Draken, Luc, and Darragh in the South of France in August, but opted to stay in London to continue working with Alaric on our “project,” instead.
It started before that, really, when I was never able to satisfactorily explain where I’d been the night of theEleusínia Myst?riadance.
It got worse after my aunt died, then worse again when I couldn’t really explain what was wrong with me after Bones cut me out. The Second Years’ Party reopened some of those wounds when I’d gone missing again and couldn’t tell them why. And now my mysterious meetings with Forsooth, and my relative silence around my new Offensive and Defensive Magic instructor, flared up all those resentments again. All of it served to remind them, and me, too, that I wasn’t telling them the truth about a lot of pretty important things.
I wasn’t even sure if they weremadat me, exactly, or even properly annoyed, but all of those things definitely culminated in a lot more distance between us.
That distance came from my side, as much as theirs.
Maybe it was simply the weight of all the things I couldn’t tell them.
I’d tried to make it up in other ways.
