29
Atticus
Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.
—Charlotte Brontë,Villette
My legs stopworking somewhere around the garden. I don’t remember leaving Stone’s office, I don’t remember descending the marble stairs or passing under the ivy trellises. I don’t remember anything. It’s like I’m operating on strings. But now they’ve been cut, and I’m left hanging by nothing.
Fired. It’s over.
I’m vaguely aware of my location—a garden in the quad, surrounded by Greek statues. In the middle is a stone fountain and cold-looking benches that might as well be carved out of ice. The fountain is empty, and the statues stare down on us, their gazes filled with reproach. Dorian collapses onto a bench, fists in his hair, elbows on his knees. Raven leans on a statue, her back to me, rigid, angrier than I’ve ever seen her. Me, I’m numb. I’ve been hollowed out. There’s now a hole in my chest.
I start to pace. I still taste dirt, and ash, and my own blood. I’m chewing a hole on the inside of my cheek, and I welcome the pain. It’s the one thing I can control now.
My mom is going to be so disappointed. I can’t face her. I don’t even know how I’ll be able to break the news. Maybe I should just go into one of the steady magical trades. Being a psychic for thepolice department pays decently. Give up my dreams. They were stupid anyhow.
“But I don’t want to go to Paris!” Raven wails, then looks at us in a moment of sheer self-awareness and starts laughing.
It’s so absurd that for a moment Dorian and I laugh, too.
“Why do you have to go to Paris?” Dorian asks.
I raise my eyebrow. This is the first I’ve heard of this. I guess there are some secrets she can keep, even from me.
Raven sighs. “When we decided we were going to get jobs here, my parents tried to talk me out of it, but I wanted to come so badly, even if they disapproved. So I lied and told them I was taking a gap year in Europe. I wanted them to think that I was thinking about other schools. I’ve been sending letters to my cousin in Paris to mail home to my parents. Now I have to go there. Otherwise they’ll kill me.”
Dorian and I exchange a look. “They’re not going to kill you,” he says.
“No, they will,” she says, laughing again. “So I’ll have to go.”
She’s so spoiled, and she doesn’t even know it. Unlike me and Dorian, she can bop off to Europe. Without a degree from Sibylline, I’ll never get the kind of magical job I want. And what about Dorian? His mom’s on Medicaid. That’s the only thing keeping her alive. What is he supposed to do now?
“I just—I don’t want to leave you guys,” Raven says as tears form in her eyes.
And right then, I forgive her for still having the world at her feet. Seeing her sad makes me want to burn down the whole campus. Sibylline can hurt me all it wants, but it can’t hurt Raven.
“We’ll figure something out,” I promise. All for one and one for all.
Dorian folds her into a hug. He soothes her with quiet murmurs,and she wraps her arms around his chest and cries into his shirt. I don’t want to feel jealous of her, but I do.
My back aches, my head pounds. A migraine is coming on, and all I want to do is sink into bed, pull the covers over my head, and hope that this was all just a bad dream.
A figure approaches, wearing a gray uniform and a shiny badge. A security guard. “I’ve been asked to escort you to the public streets,” he says. “This campus is private property. You need to leave.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, throwing up my hands. “Whatever.”
Dorian and Raven walk ahead while I trail behind, determined to stay on Sibylline’s stone path for a millisecond longer, as if hoping to absorb some last bit of magic from the atmosphere. But the security guard pushes me firmly in the back, making my wound twinge, urging me forward.
I turn, look up, and see Stone watching us from his office window. Backlit, his body stands rigid as if carved from marble. I sneer at him, and the guard shoves me again, harder. Stone watches as we’re escorted all the way to the street and the gate closes behind me.
The clang of hard iron rings out in the cool autumn air as the lock slams into place, banging like a judge’s gavel.
—
We slide intoour favorite booth at the Acroteria, thankful that it’s just outside the limits of the campus. I’ve done my best to wash off the dirt, filling the bathroom sink with sand, which still lingers here and there, in my cuticles and under my nails. I pick at them idly while Dorian orders a pot of tea to share. Raven sits across from me, her chin resting on her palm as she gazes out the large window. The streets are empty. Classes should be starting rightabout now. The morning is unusually dark, the sky crammed with storm clouds that refuse to give up their rain. Greedy.
I still can’t get a proper read from Raven. Like the clouds outside, her aura is opaque, and the longer I look at her, the more frustrated I get.
