“Where I go and what I do is of no concern to you, Miss Marudas. You are my student, an extraordinarily powerful and gifted one perhaps, but nothing more. The ice you stand on with the headmistress is thinner than parchment. Probation is one wrong step from expulsion. Do you really want to press this matter?”
“I’ll press as hard as I need to if it means protecting Arabella. And how can you threaten me with expulsion after what you said in front of the others? What was it? Something like . . . ‘she’s exactly what this school needs . . .’”Seren repeated his earlier statement that had been rattling around the back of her skull since he’d uttered it. Saying the words out loud warmed her—she felt the hint of a blush creep to her cheeks despite having not done such a girlish thing in ages.
His brow softened only a fraction, but it was enough. Enough that Seren knew she should strike while the iron was hot. “You know what your brother’s doing is wrong. Dangerous, even, don’t you? If you tell me what’s going on, perhaps we could work together to put a stop to it,” she coaxed as gently as words would allow. While she had only a vague notion of Calder’s plans, she was wise enough to assume they spelled trouble. She pictured the way Bella had lit up that night in the courtyard, and Roxie’s frantic whisper of what she’d done to the triplets. This could only be his fault. He was changing her.
Icarus shifted back, shoulders falling as he brought his hand up to run through his tangled hair and closed his eyes. He was so clearly torn that it provoked a foreign ache in Seren’s chest. The brief temptation to reach up and stroke the sharp line of his jaw teased at her mind, but she held herself rigid as the soldiers who made up the Royal Legion. He had to know how serious she was.
When his eyes opened again, they were bright and alive with familiar calculation. A level of depth to thought that she had only ever witnessed from him. She thought of the saying . . . that knowledge is power and realized if that was the case, Icarus had the potential to be one of the most dangerous and powerful beings in all Lynoria.
“The hour is late, return to your bed.” He turned back to the shelves, to his glowing augere and the endless sections waiting to be searched.
Seren felt the stab of his words in her chest with such potency her mouth ran dry as a field during a drought. Though she wanted to argue, to rage or beg, her pride would not allow it. No stranger to doing things alone, she would get her answers another way. She would stop Calder herself and bring her sister out of this darkness–this baseless delirium.
Turning to walk away, her steps echoed in her wake. She was almost out of the faculty section when his voice stopped her, stretching across the space between them to fill her with a sharp rush of warmth she wished more than anything she could deny.
“Wait.” He’d used a spell to teleport so that he was standing right behind her, less than an arm’s length away. “Calder told me how he used you. How you took my Pavor wand for him and how he spent time in your dormitory.”
The look on his face was strange — desperation incarnate, deep with a need for her to contradict him. She could feel it pulsing in the space between them.
Seren’s heart stuttered. The anger that Cal’s lies provoked reared in her chest. Her fingers twitched against the rough material of the uniform that hugged her body. “He wasn’t–” she bit her tongue. “--You shouldn’t believe everything your slippery brother says. Are you going to petition for my expulsion?”
A line formed between his brow, but his voice was gentle when he answered, “No. But I cannot teach or feed you more information if you are still under my brother’s spell, Miss Marudas. You say you know how dangerous Calder is and ask if I know the same. I do, all too well. I know that this could be his idea of a clever trick. Or, at the very least, your ploy for revenge on him. Please, understand that if it’s the former and you are still . . . entangled with him, if he’s holding something over your head–” he hesitated. “I would feel personally responsible to make things right. Perhaps find you a transfer north, to Vellichor Academy.”
Seren sucked in a sharp breath, warmth rushing to her cheeks. “We aren’t. He isn’t. You mistake my anger for grief, I'm not upset that Calder seems to have chosen Bella over me, and I’m certainly not under his spell. Were you not there in the field with us?I’m afraid for my sister. What he has done to her. I feel responsible for letting him get so close. Bella may seem different here—stronger, braver—but I don’t think for one moment the woman who departed Little Ridge, that soft, vulnerable soul, isn’t still dwelling beneath it all.” She paused, half choking on the well of hesitation that built in her throat. “Calder is a cheat and a liar, but, I will say here and now,just once, that we are alike in more ways than I care to admit. He thought he was using me, but I thought I was using him, too. He doesn’t have any sort of special hold over me, I– I wanted that wand. For myself. I wanted the power he was willing to teach me. To fix myself. Now I only want to make things right.” Her own honesty flooded her. She waited for Icarus to recoil from the admission of darkness that tethered itself around her heart.
But it was only a fleeting look of concern that crossed his face, and to her surprise, he shifted an inch closer, as though feeling the sudden urge to protect her. “You hoped the wand would help you face your fears from that day you were telling Miss Sinclair about.” It wasn’t a question. She realized now just how much he’d heard in the dining hall, and nodded tightly, unable to meet his eyes. His hand reached up like he wanted to touch her, but then he clenched his fist and lowered it back to his side. “I’m sorry about the binding spell I cast on you that night in the courtyard, it must have been nearly unbearable after–”
“Will you help me or not?” Her words sharply cut the tail end from his apology as she struggled to harness her emotions.
“I will go to the headmistress and let her know you and I are beginning private lessons. That I’ll be working to help you get your magic under control.”
She stared up at him, momentarily stumped, her mouth fell open, ready to protest, but he was already speaking again.
“During these lessons, I will tell you what I know. We will work together to get Arabella out from beneath Calder’s influence and collect the stone before he can bind them.”
A pleasant rushing sensation worked its way from her toes to the top of her head. Excitement coursed through her veins, but then she scowled. “His influence? Do you mean to say Bella is still in contact with him?”
Darkness clouded Icarus’ face like a brewing gray storm ready to break rain. “I’m almost certain of it. If he continues, my brother will take her down a path from which there is no return. I do believe that our only choice now is joining together to stop them, though I’ll thank you to remember you are still a student, and I am still your professor. Is that clear, Miss Marudas?”
Despite the ill tidings, Seren couldn’t help but smirk at the way he stood so rigid. “Crystal clear,professor.”
She thought perhaps the corner of his mouth twitched, but it was a fleeting gesture replaced by a grim line. “So, we’re agreed then?” He held out an open hand to her, his fingers long and ink-stained.
Seren nodded and lifted her own, pressing it into his. The warmth of his touch, rough-skinned but gentle, drove wild sparks up her arm. He flinched at the unexpected jolt of power, too muted to cause any real harm but a reminder of the lightning he had already danced with once.
“I’m damned already,” he added under his breath as he turned away, almost too soft to hear. “What’s one more nail in the coffin?”
Chapter twenty
Calder Darkmore
Calstrokedthewarmleather of the grimoire where it rest on his knee and brooded in his favorite wingback chair in a hidden alcove of the library. He sat facing the window and glared at the students on the lush green lawn, lounging on blankets or throwing balls of magic back and forth. They were carefree in a way he hadn’t been since childhood since the night Cyrus had sat him down and told him his father had snapped his mother’s mind as easily as if it were a twig. Perhaps he had never been carefree. Perhaps he had been born into this world with a burdened soul. Icarus certainly seemed to have been. Were all the Darkmore men cursed?
He rolled the amber liquid in the short crystal glass in his hand mindlessly as he thought back to what his brother had said. Was he destined to the same fate as his father? Worse, was he dooming Ara to a fate worse than his mother’s? No. He was not his father and Ara was not his mother. He had the grimoire; he found the vessel, and once he had the omnis stone he and Ara could fix his mother and the world. This was not madness and the fact Ara agreed was comforting.
Expensive soles clicked across the wooden floor behind him, alerting him to Cyrus’s presence. He tucked the grimoire into the inner pocket of his jacket, against his heart, moments before his uncle appeared.
“I see you raided my liquor cabinet again, nephew. Next time, not such a rare vintage. You’re hardly old enough to appreciate the taste.”
