CHAPTER 28
I’d figured that Elodie wouldn’t want to go back with me to see Alice again after the “my gaping chest wound, let me show you it” thing, but she surprised me by meeting me on the stairs the next night.
“So when did you meet Alice?” she asked on our way down.
“Middle of October?” I answered. Elodie nodded, like that was the answer she’d expected. “So after Chaston, then.”
“Yeah,” I said. “What does that have to do with it?”
But she didn’t answer.
Elodie came with me for the next two weeks. Alice didn’t seem to mind her tagging along, and I was kind of shocked to discover that I didn’t find her presence completely abhorrent either. In fact, I started to suspect that I might actually like Elodie.
It’s not as if her whole personality changed or anything, but she was definitely becoming a kinder, gentler Elodie. Maybe she was just using me for Alice. I mean, after just a couple of nights of training, Elodie could already make a small couch appear out of nothing, and she’d moved on to the transportation spell. Not that either of us could do it yet.
But I didn’t think it was just about the magic; I think she was lonely. Anna and Chaston were both gone, and I’d never really thought about how they were the only people Elodie ever talked to, besides Archer. And even they seemed to be spending less time together. Elodie said she was too busy with “other stuff” for a boyfriend, while Archer said he was giving her some space.
Archer and I were weird too. After the ball, something had changed between us, and the easy camaraderie we’d shared during cellar duty had evaporated. Now we usually spent the full hour actually cataloguing instead of teasing and joking, and sometimes when he didn’t know I was looking, I’d see this really faraway look cross his face. I didn’t know if he was thinking about Elodie, or if, like me, he was disappointed by the uncomfortable distance that had sprung up between us.
November at Hecate was gray and rainy, which seemed to suit my mood. Even though I was glad Elodie and I were becoming sort-of friends, she wasn’t Jenna, and I missed my real friend. About a week after Anna had been attacked, Mrs. Casnoff announced at dinner that the Council had cleared Byron of any suspicion. Apparently, he had a solid alibi; he’d been telepathically talking to someone at the Council at that time. But no matter how many times I asked, Mrs. Casnoff would never give me an answer about where Jenna was or what was going on, and I worried about her pretty much all the time.
Mom, being a mom, could sense something was up whenever I called her, but I told her that I was swamped with classes. I hadn’t mentioned anything about Chaston or Anna or Jenna; it would have freaked her out, and I knew she worried about me enough as it was.
I hated being alone in the room at night, so I started spending my cellar duty–free evenings in the library, reading up on Prodigium lore in the hopes that I could find something that might clear Jenna. So far, the only creatures I knew of who took blood from their victims were vampires, demons, and, if that one book was to be believed, L’Occhio di Dio. Since Mrs. Casnoff had already shot down my L’Occhio di Dio theory, I tried finding books about demons. But it seemed that every book about demons in the whole library was written in Latin. I tried pressing my hand to the pages and saying “Speak,” but the books seemed charm proof. The only parts I could make out were facts I already knew, like how they had to be killed with that demonglass. I sincerely hoped there wasn’t a demon at Hecate, because I suspected you couldn’t just run down to Williams-Sonoma to pick some up.
One drizzly evening in late November, just after dinner and before I was supposed to report for cellar duty, I took a few of the books to Mrs. Casnoff. She was in her office, writing in a big black ledger. Lamplight cast a warm glow over the room, and classical music was playing softly. Like on the night of the ball, the music wasn’t coming from anywhere that I could see.
She looked up when I came in. “Yes?”
I held the books out. “I had some questions about these.”
She frowned a little, but closed her ledger and gestured for me to sit down.
“Is there a reason you’re researching demons, Sophia?”
“Well, I read that they sometimes drink the blood of their victims, and I thought, you know, maybe that’s
what happened to Chaston and Anna.”
For a long moment Mrs. Casnoff studied me. I realized the music wasn’t playing anymore.
“Sophie,” she said. It was the first time she’d ever called me that. Her voice was tired. “I know how much you want to exonerate Jenna.”
I knew what she was going to say: the same thing she’d said about The Eye. I rushed on. “I can’t read any of these books because they’re all in Latin, but there are pictures in them that show demons who pose as humans.”
“That’s true. But it’s also true that we would know if such a thing was on school grounds.”
I stood up, slapping one of the books on her desk. “You said yourself that magic isn’t always the answer! Maybe your magic is broken. Maybe something has a power stronger than yours and got in.”
Mrs. Casnoff rose from her desk, her shoulders drawn back. There was a sudden charge in the air, and I was suddenly—painfully—aware that Mrs. Casnoff was much more than just a principal. She was an extremely powerful witch. “Do not raise your voice with me, young lady. While it’s true that magic is not always infallible, what you are suggesting is not possible. I’m very sorry for you, but you have to face the fact that in the three weeks Jenna has been gone, neither you nor Elodie nor any other student at this school has been attacked. You made a poor choice for a friend, but it cannot be helped.”
I stared at her, my breath coming in and out in a harsh rasp, like I’d just run a race.
Mrs. Casnoff ran a hand over her hair, and I saw that her hand was trembling. “I apologize if I seem blunt, but you have to understand that vampires are not like us; they are monsters, and I was foolish to forget that.”
Her expression softened. “This hurts me as well, Sophie. I backed your father’s decision to let vampires attend this school. Now I have a dead student, two more who may never return, and a lot of very powerful people very angry at me. I would love to believe that Jenna had nothing to do with any of this, but the evidence strongly suggests otherwise.”
She took a deep breath and pressed the books into my numb hands. “You’re a loyal friend for trying to find a way to clear her, but in this case, I’m afraid your efforts are wasted. I don’t want you doing anymore research on demons, is that understood?”
I didn’t nod, but she acted as if I had. “Now, I believe you’re late for your cellar duty, so I suggest you hurry on to that before Ms. Vanderlyden comes looking for you.”
Through a film of tears, I watched her sit back down at her desk and open her ledger. I was angry with her for refusing to admit there could be something at Hecate she didn’t know about. I also felt a bone-deep sadness. It didn’t matter what I found, or what theories I tried to work on; the easiest explanation was that Jenna had killed Holly and tried to kill the other two, so that was all anyone was ever going to believe. Anything else might mean admitting they were wrong or, worse than that, not omnipotent.
The tears were gone when I reached the cellar. They’d been replaced by a dull steady ache just behind my eyes. The Vandy was waiting for me at the door. I expected her to bite my head off—maybe even literally—but she must’ve seen something in my face, because all she did was grunt, “You’re late,” and give me a light push toward the stairs.
As she locked the door behind me, Archer looked up from behind one of the shelves. “There you are. Did the Vandy send out the hellhounds after you?”
“No.” I picked up the clipboard and headed to the farthest corner of the cellar.
“What, no witty retort? No standard-issue Sophie Mercer comeback?”
“I’m not feeling very witty right this second, Cross,” I said as my eyes scanned the shelves without seeing.
“Huh,” he said softly. “What’s up with you?”
“Let’s see, shall we? The only real friend I have here is gone and will probably never come back. Everyone is determined to think she’s a monster, and no one will listen to any other ideas.”
“What other ideas?” he asked. “Sophie, she’s a vampire. It’s what they do.”
“So you believe that too?”
He tossed his papers down. “Yeah, I do. I know she was your friend, and that it sucks, but she wasn’t the only friend you have here.”
I was so angry, I felt like I was vibrating. I crossed the room to stand in front of him. “Are you saying you’re my friend, Cross? Because I could swear you’ve barely talked to me since the night of the ball.”
He looked away, and I could see the muscles working in his jaw.
“You’ve been completely weird ever since that night.”
“Me?” He swung his gaze back to me. “You’re the one who hasn’t been able to look at me. And excuse me if I think it’s a little suspicious that as soon as Elodie started spending time with you, she suddenly breaks it off with me.”
I shook my head, confused, until what he was saying dawned on me. “What, you think I told Elodie what you said about wanting to spend the ball with me so that she’d dump you and I could have you all to myself?”
When he didn’t say anything, I gave him a light shove. “Get over yourself,” I nearly snarled. I tried to walk past him, but he caught my arm, pulling me up short so that I nearly collided with him.
For a few charged seconds we froze, glaring at each other, breathing hard. I saw his eyes darken just a little, like Jenna’s had the day she’d seen my blood. But this was a different kind of hunger; one I felt too.
I didn’t let myself think. I just leaned forward and pressed my lips to his.
He took a split second to respond, but then he made a sound almost like a growl from low in his throat, and his arms were suddenly around me, holding me so tightly I could hardly breathe. Not like I cared. All I cared about was Archer, his mouth on mine, and his body pressed against me.
I’d been kissed a few times before, but nothing like this. I felt electrified from the top of my head to my toes, and somewhere in the back of my mind I heard Alice saying that love had a power all its own. She was right: this was magic.
We broke apart to catch our breath. I wondered if I looked as dazed as he did, but then he was kissing me again and we were stumbling against the shelves. I heard something fall and shatter against the floor, heard the soft crunch of glass underfoot as Archer pushed me against the wall.
There was a sensible part of me somewhere that clutched its pearls and hissed that I better not give up my V-card in a cellar, but when Archer’s hands slid under my shirt and onto the skin of my back, I started thinking that a cellar was as good a place as any.
As if they didn’t even belong to me, my hands reached up between us and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt. I wanted to touch his skin the way he was touching mine. He must’ve felt the same way, because he backed up a little to give me better access. His lips trailed from mine to my throat, and I closed my eyes and let my head tip back against the wall as I slid my hands inside his shirt.
His mouth on my neck felt so good that it took me a while to realize that my left hand was burning.
My head felt heavy as I lifted it to look at my hand on his chest, just over his heart.
And then the haze of desire clouding my brain gave way to a numbing wave of shock as I watched a tattoo—a black eye with a golden iris—appear under my fingers.