Elodie
The walls squeeze tight against my shoulders. No human being is meant to crawl into this cramped space.
There’s nothing around me but darkness, so thick I can’t even see the shape of my knees where they’re pulled up nearly to my chin. But that only makes it easier to focus on the faint tread of footsteps on the other side of the wall. The squeak of leather as my target sits on his sofa.
I have to aim all my attention at him. Direct my glim with all the will I have in me.
Let no one get hurt but him… and me.
The faintest vibration pulses against my chest from one vest pocket. That’s my signal.
My pulse thunders in my ears. It is going to hurt—it always does.
But I don’t have a choice. The thought of what would happen if I refuse chokes me, even more suffocating than the small, dark space.
I dip my fingers into my other pocket and retrieve the vial. Brace myself as I pop the lid. Toss the liquid back as quickly as I can.
It burns down my throat with the familiar noxious flavor like ginger lemonade gone rancid.
Then my stomach is on fire. The searing agony spreads through my belly and up into my chest before gnawing into my limbs.
I have to—I have to?—
My body jerks, and my eyes pop open. I stare at the top of my canopy bed for several seconds before the sour ginger-lemonade taste fades from my mouth.
I’m okay. It was just a dream. A dream of real things, but—Uncle Nik doesn’t exist here. Not in Other Elodie’s life, anyway.
For a little while, I don’t have to worry about that one burden I’ve been carrying.
The duvet embraces my body with the subtle shift in temperature it’s enchanted to give off, gently cooling the flush of my distress. My pulse gradually evens out.
But as I push the covers away from my sweat-damp skin, my gut twists with the thought of the newer burdens weighing on me.
I still need to get back to my actual reality. To my matches, who must be getting increasingly frantic. To the world where I belong, even if an awful lot of it makes my stomach churn.
This isn’tmybed; it belongs to a dead woman. This isn’t my life.
I wrap my arms around myself, remembering the last embraces I got from each of the men I love. Then I set my jaw and start my exercise routine.
I won’t leave them hanging much longer. I’ll keep putting myself out there, making observations and asking questions, and someone will let something incriminating slip.
The second I figure out who offed my doppelganger, I’m out of here.
My determination fuels me through all my reps and a brief meditation, through breakfast and the ride to school, and through the inane chatter with Other Elodie’s friends until we split off for separate morning classes.
Then I walk into the Divination classroom, and my heart flip-flops between my throat and my feet.
Professor Colson Raith is sitting behind the vintage oak desk, his dark gray eyes fixed on the book he’s reading rather than on his arriving students. All six foot five inches of his leanly muscular frame sprawls in his chair with an air of disinterest.
I remember too well the chill that always passed through me when I’d walk into his class, the impression that he’d found all of us wanting before we’d taken our seats. Even in his first year when he was only assisting the previous Divination professor, his voice held a permanent thread of impatience.
“Is that really all you can decipher, Miss Singh?”
“I—I’m doing my best.”
“It’s a shame some of you were never taught to take this subject seriously.”
Thankfully, yesterday’s encounters with my other… past? future? …matches have honed my survival instincts better. I hesitate for only a single, startled blink before tamping down the tug in my chest and following Cadance and Madison to the seats where I assume we normally sit. My fingers curl against the sting in my palm.
