“Aye,” I say. “It’s just twenty minutes from here.” As I say this, I notice there’s one island that’s not entirely familiar. It’s small, with a towering alder tree and a monolith just across from it. Before I can take a closer look, Julia turns to the next page, her face pale. I almost ask what’s wrong, but I think I already know.
Just after the email about Gustavsson went out, Julia rushed into Traquair Hall to scrape Gustavsson’s face, so perfectly captured by her paintbrush, off her mural.
Until now, if her drawings somehow managed to peer under the surface of someone close to her, like Ife with her rabbit, thissight,if it can be called that, was fascinating, even innocent. Gustavsson’s appearance on her canvas, followed by his attack shortly after, has added a sinister layer to Julia’s unusual skill. One she now appears to be terrifiedof.
Worse, perhaps, is the fact that all three of my friends saw me react to that mural in a way that did not make sense. And I still haven’t told them why.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Ife whispers, after looking around the surrounding sofas, ensuring no one can hear her.
“Whatwas me?” I ask.
“I saw you going into the Night Dean’s office,” Stephan says, scratching the back of his neck. “We’re all convinced you’re the one Gustavsson attacked.”
“My mother works in the Council,” Ife says, resting her hands on her lap. Her nails are decorated with daisies. “A few days ago, they had a hearing. Aliz Astra was there. She didn’t say your name, but she did admit to killing Gustavsson to protect a human.”
I swallow hard. The Council won’t put her in jail for killing a Vassal, will they?
“She’ll be fine,” Julia says, recognising the muted panic in my expression.
“But why hasn’t she come back?” I whisper, unable to keep the hurt out of my voice. And this is a question none of them have an answer for.
I keep wakingin the middle of the night, certain I’ll see her sitting on her coffin, slurping blood from a paper cup. But instead, I’m met with silence. So to escape this solitude, I start spending time at Elia’s place.
“Your scent has changed,” she says as she sits next to me, holding a glass of steaming blood.
“Really?” I’m pretty sure it hasn’tchanged;rather, it’s gone back to how it used to smell before I had the Familiar’s mark. But I watch her, waiting for her to reply.
She puts down her glass and lifts my wrist to her nose, inhaling slowly. “Petrichor,” she finally says, after furrowing her brows. I’ve never heard anyone describe me like that before. And as I stare at her, feeling her proximity, my nails start to ache again.
There’s pain in my stomach, too. A dark thing, lurking within me. Maybe I did some internal damage when I ate Gustavsson’s heart. But I’m not sure if this is the sort of ailment I can visit a human doctor with.
“Has there been any sign of Penny?” I ask, trying to ignore the feeling.
As soon as my old mentor heardThe Book of Blood and Roseswas kept inside the memories of a ghost, she vanished. And I still don’t know why she wanted it so frantically.
“No,” Elia says. There’s another question, one that I don’t vocalise, but she answers, anyway. “And I haven’t heard from Aliz, either.”
We stay in a comfortable silence, and my eyes burn. The thorns may have left my skin, but now they’ve tightened around my chest, squeezing hard, digging into me every time I think of her.
Elia brushes a long strand of hair away from my face. “Your roots are coming in,” she says.
The next morning, I take out my extensions in the on-campus hairdresser’s, but keep the red hair. I’m not fully ready to let go of the girl Aliz fell in love with. Even if that love was never real in the first place.
She may be gone, she may have ignored my texts, but I can still feel her in the room. Her desk is a chaotic collection of unfinished essays and annotated books. I run my fingers over her cursive and picture her biting her pen. The false window glows with a crescent moon, partially hidden behind silver clouds.
I pull out my phone once I’m in bed. Aliz’s profile picture hasn’t changed. Her black sunglasses still rest on the tip of her nose as she stares, coyly, at the camera. She took that picture before meeting me. Back when I was a cold-blooded killer, and she had a dozen girls fighting for her attention.
The person I was before Aliz no longer exists.
Online
I stare at the word beneath her name. This is the first time she’s been online in three weeks, but no reply comes my way. For a moment I imagine it. I imagine she calls me. Then I’d have her voice in my ear, and everything would be right again. Before reason can stop me, I start typing another message.
I hope you’re all right
I press my face into my pillow and lock my phone. It doesn’t vibrate or light up. When I finally look at it again, she’s left me on read.
The roof ofTynarrich Hall is windy. The moon is a perfect half crescent, ready to dip behind the black silhouette of the hills. I keep my hood up, jacket zipped above my neck. My breath turns into a pale cloud as I exhale. I’ve only been here for two months, yet I feel like a snake who’s shed its skin and discovered an entirely different pattern forming underneath.
