I want to tell her I’m fine, to put on a brave face and not show her how I really feel, but for some reason I have a strong urge to let myself be vulnerable with her. Who knows, once I walk out of this infirmary, I might not get the chance to let myself feel my true emotions again. Emotions are a weakness, and if I’m in Malachite, there will be no room for weakness. It’ll get me killed.
‘No,’ I find myself replying honestly. ‘Not really.’
My brother is dead. I’m in a place where everyone hates me and won’t bat an eye when someone tries to hurt me. I was physically attacked by a stranger to the point where I became unconscious and notoneperson tried to help me. Not even the person I thought I could count on. They all just left me there as if I wasn’t worth stopping for.
‘I’m so sorry, I wish I knew what happened earlier but I—’
‘Don’t,’ I stop her. ‘You have nothing to apologise for. You didn’t do this. In fact, you seem to be the only person at this academy that’s giving me the time of day.’ I still don’t understand why that is, if I’m honest.
‘You say that as if it’s a surprise.’
‘That’s because it is. Everyone else looks at me like they either hate me, or they fear what I might do to them.’ I saw the way they looked at me as I walked toward the dais, like a snake was in their midst.
‘Well, I’m not everyone,’ she states softly, a flicker of defiance in her eyes. ‘I don’t blame you for what happened here and if I was afraid of you, I wouldn’t be here. If I’m honest … I already feel like I know you.’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
Her lips purse, then she whips her head around, her curls bouncing with the sudden movement. She scans the empty vicinity before she leans in, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘I dreamed of you, Arianell. More times than I can count these past few months. But you can’t tell anyone that.’
I blink.She what?
‘You … dreamed of me?’ I ask in disbelief. ‘Are you sure? How?’
‘Positive. At first, I had no clue why this white-haired figure kept popping up in my dreams. I get recurring ones often, sometimes evenlucid ones, so I brushed it off at first. But one morning—’ She swallows and looks around the room once more. ‘One morning, I went into my aunt’s office to find her, and there sitting on her desk was a picture ofyou. You were standing with your brother and parents in the picture.’
My skin prickles.
‘I immediately made the connection that you were the figure in my dream. I didn’t just make you up in my mind, you were real! Then I saw you outside the Grand Hall and it was like I was being pulled back into a memory that I had lived over and over. My dreams are never just dreams, Arianell. It’s why I chose Opal. My aunt thinks I could become a seer if I master my Divination classes.’
A seer?
Stars, I was in her dreams.
How did a picture of my family find its way inside her aunt’s office?
My fingers find my temples and begin to rub in small circles. Everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours is causing my brain to throb. It’s a lot to take in. I feel like I should be freaking out right now, throwing questions at Tilly left, right and centre, but oddly, I’m numb. Maybe it was the loss of oxygen to my brain last night, or the fact that someone dreaming about me is at the bottom of my totem pole of concerns. The top of it being: someone tried tomurderme.
‘Arianell?’ she prompts, making me realise I’ve been silent for a while.
‘Aria,’ I correct, dropping my hands into my lap. ‘Just call me Aria.’
A soft smile curves her full lips. ‘I know this is a lot to take in but I need you to understand that I already feel protective over you. Which I know might seem strange because you’ve only just met me,’ she says a little sheepishly. ‘But I feel like our paths were supposed to cross, and I dreamed of you because we were meant to find each other in this place.’
‘I’m not so sure being friends with me is a good idea.’ I say it as a warning, not a rejection of her offer of friendship. Hell, I need a friend right now. ‘I mean, look at where I am, for instance.’
Tilly laughs. It’s light and airy, refreshing after all the heaviness I’ve felt recently. ‘Aria! This isexactlywhy I think we’re supposed to befriends.’ She gestures to my bed. ‘You need someone on your side, and I firmly believe it’s supposed to be me. I can feel it, in here.’ She presses a hand to her chest. ‘Now what do you say? Are you ready to get out of here and show those assholes that they didn’t win?’
SEVEN
After I agreed that I was ready to face the students of Valmora Academy, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed where the cold floor bit into the soles of my feet, reminding me that I had no idea where all my belongings went. Tilly told me to wait where I was and left, returning a little while later with a pile of folded clothes in her arms along with a set of black lace-up boots. Apparently, each Malachite student gets given a uniform for training purposes.
The items are plain, simple. Black pants with enough stretch that if I were to run or jump, they’d move with my body, not restrict me. The t-shirt is dark green, lightweight and fits against my body like a second skin. The boots and black socks are my exact size, too.
As I look in the small mirror within the narrow bathroom inside the infirmary, I realise that I look like one of them – the Malachite students that surrounded me as Harley attacked me. I’m dressed in their clothes but with a special addition: bruises spread around my throat like a collar.
Part of me just wants to walk back to the bed and lay down to hide. Wouldn’t that be easier? But then I realise Tilly is right. I don’t want them to think they won. I don’t want them to have the satisfaction of knowing they scared me. I want them to see the bruises around my throat and know that Harley didn’t break me. I want them to know thatI didn’t run the other way. I’m no fucking coward. Malachite’s values are courage and resilience, and if I am anything, I am resilient.
Tilly and I walk out of the infirmary, and I discover it’s a separate building, not actuallyinsideOpal’s tower like I assumed. Instead, the infirmary is attached by a long corridor, giving the Opal students easy access to it while also making it accessible to students from other units.
