Chapter Thirty-Eight
BY THE time Eva had finished screaming at Al, Elliot almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Al might not have intended to do anything really wrong but Elliot couldn’t help replaying Callie’s words about Eva probably not trusting men after this. After all, it wasn’t just Al who had hurt her with his bizarre behaviour. The real Nolan hadn’t even cared enough after a year of dating her to bother breaking up with Eva, otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible for Al to take his place.
“You have a right to decide what happens to Al now,” Lila said to Eva, a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want us to go to the Vice Chancellor or the police or what?”
“I don’t know about the police but the Vice Chancellor should definitely know,” she said, a flinty look in her eyes that had Al avoiding her gaze. “He’s deceived the university too.”
Farlden kept a hand on Al’s back, keeping him moving forward, presumably thinking he might turn and run given the chance, but all the spirit seemed to have left Al since the confrontation with Eva. When they got to the Vice Chancellor’s office, Farlden said, “You and Eva can explain what’s happened. We can’t all troop in there.”
Elliot had a feeling he thought the Vice Chancellor would be more likely to listen without the Nean brothers there and, unfortunately, he was probably right. They knocked on the door and went inside. The Vice Chancellor was hanging up his coat as if he’d just returned from somewhere. He eyed Elliot with a grim expression, lips pursed, then his gaze moved to Eva and then Al. “Students are supposed to make an appointment if they have something urgent to talk to me about.”
“We’re very sorry to interrupt you,” Eva said, “but this boy-” She nodded towards Al “-has been lying to the university and everyone else. He has magic.”
That got the Vice Chancellor’s attention. He listened with growing interest to their tale and Al confirmed that it was true in a broken voice, cheeks red and gaze locked on the carpet. Finally the Vice Chancellor said, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll deal with the situation.”
Elliot glanced at Al, suddenly uneasy. “Will he face criminal charges?”
“I don’t know,” the ginger-haired man said, adding firmly, “but your part in this is now over.”
They left the room, leaving Al alone with the man, and told the others what had happened.
Eva began to walk away and Lila said, “Will you be all right? Do you have a friend you want us to call to hang out with you?”
“I can phone my friends later but I just need to be on my own to take in everything that’s happened. It’s been a shock.”
Clearly that was an understatement. The striking, rather arrogant girl they had first met who had loved her boyfriend enough to turn to complete strangers to help him had been replaced by a pale ghost and she would doubtless be haunted by the events of this year for a long time.
“Maybe you should phone your parents and go home early for the Christmas holiday,” Elliot suggested, feeling helpless to make anything better for her.
“I might.” She gave a smile that obviously took effort. “Thank you all for finding out the truth.”
It didn’t feel as if they had done her any good with the information and Elliot frowned as he watched her walk away, a small vulnerable figure.
“Let’s get out of here,” Farlden suggested and they all agreed at once. They still had over half of the lunch hour left – the entire discovery of Al’s real identity, confrontation and the reporting of him to the Vice Chancellor had take less than twenty minutes. It was a scarily short amount of time in which to ruin two lives.
It was far too cold to sit outside so they went to Callie’s halls of residence, which was beside the main campus. She made them all drinks and sandwiches in the kitchen and they sat around a modern, flimsy table. Elliot resisted the urge to get a cloth and wipe the crumbs off it.
“I can’t believe Al did something so stupid,” Lila said when she’d finished eating.
“He was in love,” Barve said, sounding as if he could at least slightly understand why Al had acted as he had.
Elliot could imagine doing a lot of things to win over Farlden if only the other boy cared about him, but this seemed insane.
“Even if he’d got away with it, it still wouldn’t have been him Eva liked,” Callie said. “She would always be looking at Nolan’s face and thinking about the real Nolan. How long did Al think he could go on with the whole farce?”
“I doubt he thought that far ahead,” Barve said. He was obsessive and crazy but I feel sorry for what he’s going to go through now.”
“He can’t really be arrested, can he?” Elliot asked. “He impersonated someone else but he didn’t do it to steal money or anything like that. The university isn’t really any the worse for what he did and I don’t see what charges Eva could bring against him.”
“He’ll probably just be expelled,” Farlden said, drink raised half-way towards his mouth, “but he seemed to love his studies, so that would still be a blow to him.” He took a sip from his mug and Elliot did the same, the tea warming him.
“It’s the least he deserves,” Lila said and Elliot remembered that she had been cheated on recently. Perhaps this was reminding her of it, or else she just felt bad for Eva.
“His magic was strong,” Elliot said after another silence. “I suppose it was connected to minds the way mine is, if he was affecting how people saw him.”
“He was older than us and he probably developed it from a younger age,” Farlden said. “Magic gets stronger the longer a person has it.”
Dervyl must have told him this. Another secret Elliot hadn’t been told.
“Well, I suppose we should at least be pleased that we solved the mystery about Nolan and Al,” Farlden said and got no response.
Elliot looked round at the others: no one looked happy.