Present Day
September 11th
Eustacia Morwormer Hall
Malcroix Bones Academy
Ihated that I caught myself staring at him again.
Fork in hand, my gaze focused with stalker-like precision. I had no idea what myactualfriends were laughing about, right next to where I sat. I kept my eyes and magic instead glued to a person all the way on the opposite side of the enormous hall, a hall I shared with him only as a technicality.
I hated that I kept noticing things about him, things that made me increasingly uneasy.
I hated thecompulsionof it, my seeming inability to look away.
That compulsion annoyed me at a level I couldn’t fully explain, but the depth of how much it bothered me felt like part of the exact same problem.
Gods, I should be better than this.
Iwasbetter than this. Wasn’t I?
How muchclearerdid he need to make things? How much more obvious and unambiguous did his message need to be?
Unfortunately, I knew the answer to that.
He’d been clear. He’d beenmorethan clear. Caelum Bones wanted absolutely nothing to do with me, and hadn’t for nearly a year. Somehow it was that thought, those memories, the rehashing of those first weeks and months after my aunt’s death, that finally pulled my eyes away from the table all the way across the room.
That was hardly a new development, either.
He always made sure to never sit anywhere near me now, or anywhere near my friends. That fact would remain true, apparently, even with the summer break between now and the last time I’d lain eyes on him at all.
Message sent. Message received.
So why couldn’t I evertrulyleave him alone?
Was Iactuallymentally broken in some way? Was it lingering shock? Trauma? Some bizarre manifestation of P.T.S.D.? Had my mind attached itself to him in some unhealthy way, after he’d saved my life in my aunt’s sitting room in Southampton?
Before I could fix whatever this was, I had to admit I had a problem, didn’t I?
But that was wishful thinking, too.
After all, I’d been admitting to myself I had a problem for a while now, and I still had no idea what to do about it. I found myself picking around the edges of it instead, trying to understand, or maybe just using that as an excuse to try and understand him.
Was this because I’d never had a real relationship? Had my mind somehow made our bizarre interactions over those handful of months into something approximating one? WasI such an uncompromising perfectionist within myself that I couldn’t accept rejection?
I found him physically compelling. I could admit that to myself.
He had interesting features.
Gorgeous features, if I were being honest. It was difficult tonotsee him when he entered a room, and not only because of his platinum-blond hair. Then there were those damned, feline-gold eyes, and something riveting about the way he moved, the way he took up space. He had a kind of athletic grace to him, even apart from the harmony of his features.
The fact that I occasionally thought I saw something in those leonine eyes that didn’t quite resonate with the rest of him, or fit the sneer at his lips, or the utter indifference on his face, didn’t make that perceptionreal.There had to be a ninety-nine percent chance thatanyglimpses of emotion I thought I caught, any hint of actualfeelingflashing in those irises, came from pure wishful thinking on my part, if not outright delusion.
That, or maybe one of the other royals was having a good laugh at my expense, twisting my reality and perceptions with a skillfully-made chimaera, one that apparently made me even stupider and more delusional than I was already.
I swore his eyes danced with gold and green flames more of the time now.
Delusional. No one else seemed to notice, if they did.
