My face grew cold, and I sat on the edge of the bed.
“How?” I asked. “I tried to tell them what happened and they didn’t care. Why’s Malakai getting away with this?”
Roslyn started pacing in my place. “I don’t know, Anna. This is all complicated. There is no way anyone should have been able to access her in that room. It doesn’t make any sense. I swear to you, we are searching for her. And Malakai is being questioned, but right now, he has an alibi.”
I scoffed. “Alibi? What about what I saw? Doesn’t that matter to anyone?”
“It does,” Roslyn whispered. “If someone is covering for him, we will find out. Stay together, okay?”
Roslyn left.
“Have you talked to Blake about this?” Isabella asked.
“No, I don’t want him to shut me down from looking further into it,” I said, returning to pacing.
“You know what’s odd?” she asked.
“What?”
“Everyone missing has been from our intake group. We all went over the Falls together. Does that freak you out?” she asked quietly.
I stopped. So, she noticed too.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, it does.”
I spentmost of my time studying and staying in my dorm with my door locked. Roslyn was never there and I had to force myself to stay up late to catch her one evening when she got in.
We’d barely spoken since the night I’d found her in Ezreal Kalmont’s tower, except for when Malakai was being questioned.
Roslyn was an Aurkai, and because of that, there was a barrier between us that, despite our budding friendship, was not to be breached. Seeing her leaving Ezreal’s tower, disheveled, had breached that barrier.
I took a deep breath as I stood before her door, unsure of what I wanted to say to her. All I knew was that I needed to talk to her. I needed a friend.
I braced myself and knocked softly in three short taps. There was a pause before I breathed a sigh of relief when she called out.
“Come in.”
I opened the door, peering in before entering the room. She was sitting at her vanity, her hairbrush in her hand. She smiled at me softly, indicating it was okay to enter.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. I moved into the room, noticing the odd state of disarray. The other times I’d been here, everything had been in perfect order. I sat at the edge of the bed; my foot bent under my knee as I angled my body toward her. I caught her gaze in the mirror as she combed her soft curls.
The same tone as the last time we met still hung between us, and I realized there was no avoiding what I’d seen. Sighing inwardly, I took the plunge.
“So, you and Kalmont, huh?” I said quietly.
She didn’t look up, her hand idly fidgeting with the hairbrush.
“It’s a lot more complicated than it looks,” she muttered.
“When you mentioned there was someone back home, I never would’ve pictured someone like Ezreal,” I said.
Roslyn looked at the floor. “Well, that’s because he isn’t the guy from back home. His name is Asher, and honestly, the entire situation is a mess.”
I heard the shame in her voice and my heart ached as I grappled with what to say. The rumors about him sleeping with a student, and the subsequent rumors that it was me, were practically being shouted through a loudspeaker in our ears.
