by Cate Corvin
It was an untarnished gold locket shaped like an oval, with a wreath of apple blossoms engraved on the front. I flipped it over to the backside, my fingertips picking up another engraving.
Josephine Locke was inscribed in delicate, flowing script. With growing excitement, I used my thumbnail to pry the oval open, kneeling in front of the fire to see better.
Roman made the connection before I did, making a stifled noise of surprise. I looked first at the smiling dark-haired girl in the tiny painting on the left, her skin flushed with life, lace dress revealing her collarbone and the gold locket I held. A spray of lavender decorated her hair.
Then I realized why Roman made that noise, when I looked to the right and saw the portrait of a man, his bronze skin glowing with health and true life, eyes brown instead of amber. He wore similarly old-fashioned clothes, a lace cravat and a burgundy velvet waistcoat, wavy hair tied back.
But there was no doubt that man in the portrait was Locke.
Chapter 13
Lu
Shane’s arm settled possessively around my shoulders as I chewed my pen, staring blankly at the chalkboard. For once, Fundamentals lay unopened before me and my notebook blank.
Josephine’s locket and finger bones were safely hidden with Dominic’s coven ring, and all I wanted to do was go back to my room and examine the tiny oil paintings inside.
Rationally knowing that Locke had once been a Lockheart warlock didn’t change the shock of seeing him as a human, how he’d looked before the vampire virus ate through his cells and immortalized him as a beautiful, bloodthirsty predator.
And, perhaps irrationally, there was a part of me that jealously wondered who Josephine Locke was to him. A lover? His wife?
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a lover’s token, the golden oval inscribed with blossoms and filled with two lovingly painted portraits.
I struggled with my feelings, disgusted with my jealousy over a dead woman. Locke wasn’t from my time- of course he’d probably loved another in his human lifetime. Her spirit was in pain, raising itself from the grave over and over just to reach out to someone.
I had to show him the locket.
Shane interrupted my whirling thoughts when his fingers slipped under the collar of my shirt, sliding over my skin and tracing the line of my collarbone. “You seem distracted, love.”
“Maybe just a little.”
I was stewing over a portrait of a once-living Locke and the girl haunting me, and exhausted because Demonseed had spent all night climbing the curtains and trying to turn my hair into a nest.
And because Roman was being nice.
If it hadn’t been for Demonseed shrieking for food after we left the library, I was sure he would’ve tried to kiss me again, and my body and emotions seemed caught in a tenuous war over that idea.
Lu’s Body said hell yes, kiss him back, touch every inch I could get my hands on.
Lu’s Heart said fuck no, hold him back with a ten-foot pole and stop talking to him now before it was too late.
He’d walked me to the galley kitchen behind the cafeteria to raid for canned fish, which Demonseed ate with gusto before passing out in his arms, the indignity of being carried in Roman’s mouth apparently forgotten.
Luckily, the sleeping kitten had made it difficult for Roman to get any closer than he was, which was more than close enough for me already.
Shane raised an eyebrow, but his humor didn’t quite touch his face today. He looked more somber than I’d ever seen him, the chiseled planes of his face hardened. “You’ve been staring into space for over forty-five minutes and haven’t taken a single note. For you, that qualifies as an earth-shattering distraction.”
A shiver ran down my back as his fingers tickled my neck. I leaned back against his arm, enjoying the warmth of him surrounding me, and he leaned forward to bury his face in my hair.
And froze.
“Why do you smell like my twin, Bambi?”
His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on my shoulder and I turned my head to look at him.
Shane looked hopeful, a bright spark burning in the depths of his shadowed eyes.
“Because he brought me a kitten while I was trying to research,” I grumbled, settling back against him. “And it’s tearing up my new room right now.”
Even if I was dead tired from Demonseed walking on my pillow all night, having the little hairball around was rather pleasant, and cats were traditionally used as familiars. I already had plans to search the library for the familiar ritual tonight.
“Roman brought you a kitten.” Shane sounded nonplussed, a line between his brows as he considered it. “He’s finally groveling. It’s about time.”
“You call saddling me with a screaming fluffball groveling?”
Honestly, I loved the loud creature, but the last thing I needed was for Shane to report back to his twin that the ramparts were crumbling, and he was free to storm the castle.
Not while I was still trying to cling to that last vestige of rage and embarrassment that would save me from future rejection at his hands. I wasn’t sure if I was entirely ready to open back up to Roman yet.
Shane didn’t answer.
I glanced at him and recoiled.
He was staring at the middle of the room, his eyes unfocused and pearly white. I’d never seen a clairvoyant possessed of the Sight before… let alone one up close.
It was extremely unsettling to see the small muscles of his jaw and neck flex, like an unbearable tension ran through his body while he watched the future play out in front of him, but no other part of him moved. His lips had parted slightly, revealing the gleam of a half-exposed fang.
Almost a full minute later he blinked, and when his lids opened his eyes were their normal color again, but his dusky skin had paled.
“What did you See?”
Shane looked down at me with such emptiness that my chest felt like it was filled with freezing water. “Shane?” I whispered nervously.
He shoved his chair back and stood up. “I need… I need to go.” Then he walked out of the room without so much as a backwards glance.
I stared at the door, frozen in place, and Lissa and Clarimond both giggled. “Did you upset one of your boy-toys, Lulu?” Lissa simpered.
Daphne had watched the whole thing as well, but surprisingly, she didn’t say anything, just looked back at her book with a veiled expression.
Dominic never cared about Shane coming and going at will, but now his hooded gaze rested on me, sharp with curiosity. I studiously opened my book, trying to ignore that my stomach felt like it was full of stones. What had Shane Seen that was so awful?
When class was over, I waited until everyone else had left before shutting the door and cornering Dominic. “We need to move up our mirrorwalking plans. I have the remains of a Lockheart witch.”
He lowered a stack of essays to his desk, his hazel eyes boring into mine. It was hard to keep my serious face on when I remembered how they smoldered when he’d told me he loved me. “As in, physical remains?”
I dug in my inside jacket pocket and pulled out the bones. “These are Josephine Locke’s finger bones.”
Dominic picked up one of them, rolling the smooth ivory in his fingers. “What makes you so sure these belonged to a Locke, Miss Darke?”
I crossed my arms over my chest as he examined the bone that had been unceremoniously tossed in with the rest of the divination supplies. How had the bones of one of the last Lockes even been mixed in with it, if the rest of Josephine had ended up in the Historical Society of Waverly? What had been done to her when she died?
“She gave it to me,” I said, and now all his attention was focused on me instead of the ivory.
“You’ve seen her in corporeal form?” Dominic paused. For a moment I thought he might not give the bone back, but he finally held it out to me. I tucked them safely beside the locket and nodded.
“How many times?”
I should’ve t
alked to him sooner. He was going to kill me. “Um. Almost every day?”
And sometimes a little more up close and personal than I’d like, but Josephine just wanted help, I was sure of it.
Even though his expression only shifted minutely, I read the exasperation of his emotional state all too clearly. “When were you going to mention this, Lucrezia?”
“When I figured out what she was trying to tell me,” I said defensively. “You exorcised her, Dominic. You can’t stab a ghost in the chest and expect her to get friendly with you!”
He passed a hand over his face, a tiny betrayal of emotion before he began rummaging around in his desk drawers. “Yes, because exorcisms are what I’m paid to do. That she’s returned from the deadside multiple times is what concerns me. Does her physical appearance appear warped in any way?”
“No,” I said, watching him dump salt into a jar. “She looks like a normal girl, if a little blurry when she’s close.”
“How close?” He added a handful of dry, crushed herbs to the salt and sifted it around.
“Close enough to touch.” I was getting a little irritated by his treatment of Josephine. She wasn’t just a spirit- she was a woman in pain, whose eternal rest was being disrupted by an injustice done to her. “She’s never tried to harm me.”
Dominic sealed the jar and handed it to me. “Take a bath with this. She may have formed a spiritual connection to you and latched on. Some spirits act as hitchhikers, or leeches- once they’ve dug their hooks in, they have a much easier time dragging themselves back through the mirror. The salt should cleanse the connection between the two of you.”
I put the jar back on his desk. “I don’t want to cleanse the connection. I want to go into the deadside and speak to her. I think that’s why she led me to the second bone.”
“If she’s a Locke, then she’s been dead for over two hundred years,” Dominic said, his tone dangerous. “The older the spirit, the more cunning it becomes. She might not be as innocent as you believe her to be.”
“And maybe she’s just a girl who was killed before her time. Please, can you just trust me?” I thought of the smiling dark eyes in the portraits of Josephine and Locke, how alive and happy they both looked. “She might have the answers I need, D- sir.”
The door swung open right as my lips were forming his name, but I caught myself just in time.
Professor Bloom slid into the room, all taupe silk and pearls, her gaze flicking back and forth between us. “I hope I’m not interrupting?” she asked, giving Dominic the coy smirk I was coming to hate.
I took a deep breath as he nodded to her, and relief fluttered behind my ribs. He didn’t look at her with the heated regard I’d come to think of as mine, but I still didn’t like that he was willing to entertain her nonsense.
“Of course not, Ivy. Miss Darke, I’d be pleased to answer your questions later this week.” Dominic gave me a dismissive nod that had my hackles rising, patting his jacket pocket.
I was halfway to the door and seething over Bloom’s arrival and my subsequent dismissal when she lightly touched my shoulder. It took everything I had not to jerk away from her touch.
“Your new classmates should be arriving soon,” Bloom said. “Perhaps you should represent our school and go greet them?” She raised her eyebrows, her smile all plastic, and shut Dominic’s door in my face.
My stomach felt like it was full of liquid fire, embers drifting up onto my tongue. I swallowed the wildfire back down where it belonged and turned away.
He loved me. I didn’t believe he would lie to me about that just for information. Although he was lying about something, he was clearly struggling with it, and not even Dominic was such a good liar that he could fake the blazing heat in his eyes when he kissed me.
Bloom would find herself in for disappointment in she thought he’d just give in. Dominic would never be the first one to break in a contest of wills.
I still ended up gnawing my lip, a stone churning in my gut as I pictured her trying her damndest to seduce Dominic into a handfasting match, until a hand shot out and grabbed my arm.
Holly pulled me into an alcove. Her eyes were red-rimmed and watery, and she shoved her sketchbook in my hands. “Look at this.”
I obediently examined the drawing as Holly sniffled.
The figure in the picture was almost unrecognizable. It took me a moment to place him. “Professor White?”
She sniffed again and wiped her hand across her eyes. “Yes. Lu, he said if he could get me out of here, he’d send me to Whitefawn for work. He was going to find me a new coven.” Her face twisted. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t let this happen!”
In the drawing, Professor White had been almost entirely consumed by brambles and vines.
Was it possible to stop a Seen future?
“Holly…” For once, I was at a total loss. “I’ll put the Frosts on it. They’re always outside. At least one of them can lurk around the conservatory and step in if anything goes wrong, okay?”
She nodded, closed the sketchbook and hugged it, but her features remained drawn as we walked together.
I was sure Shane would be willing to help her out.
Maybe even Roman, too, if he was serious about making up for his asshole behavior to me.
“I’m going to go see him,” she said, sounding completely miserable. I had no idea how to comfort her- what did you say to someone who could always See what would happen and know it couldn’t be stopped?
I touched her arm. “Shane and Roman will watch out for him,” I promised. I hoped with all my heart I wasn’t promising too much. Holly already had enough to deal with.
She gave me a weak smile and traipsed off to the new conservatory, and I braced myself and headed for the South Entrance, the sparkling hallway I’d first entered when I’d come to Cimmerian.
A small, petty part of me wanted to disregard Bloom’s order entirely and just go to the library, but the curious part of me was much stronger. I hoped Shane and Roman were already there.
No such luck, and I’d missed the new students as well. The front doors were wide open, letting in a warm breeze scented with flowers.
Daphne was still in the foyer, only feet away from me, her arms crossed over her chest as she scowled up at a Warden.
My heart stuttered and seemed to stop for a moment, then started hammering as my stomach lurched. Daphne glanced at me as I slowed to a halt, and the Warden turned his head, following her gaze.
He wore the enspelled black leather armor that made him look even taller and more imposing than he already was. A heavy Warden’s medallion hung on his chest, a silver ouroboros with ruby chips for eyes.
A shock of bright red hair marked him as a Vega. They were clearly cousins down to their expressions: Daphne scowling, the Warden wearing a smug smirk.
I’d seen him before. He’d been one of the Wardens assigned to watch me while the Tribunal debated their verdict, but he hadn’t been one of the kind ones. He’d laughed as they walked me and my covenmistress out of the Deepwood Sanctum, while tears silently ran down my face and Alicia Darke sighed, already plotting how best to get rid of me.
There was no recognition in his eyes. To me, he was the face of uncaring punishment. To him, I’d just been another day on the job.
I felt like I was going to vomit as he looked me up and down. “You didn’t tell me they made them like that here, Daph. Maybe I should bring the losers in more often.”
Before I could move, he snatched my wrist, knocking my books out of my hands and spilling my satchel to the floor.
“It’s a fucking halfway house, Lyle.” Daphne’s lip curled. “If you try preying on anyone here, you’re an even sicker piece of shit than I thought.”
He slapped her hard, right across the face. Her sneer vanished and was replaced with wary anger.
I wasn’t sure what was worse: that Warden Vega held me close enough to press against him, his fingers digging painfully into my wrist, or that Daphne didn
’t even look shocked by his sudden violence, only resigned. Her left cheek was bright red.
“What would Uncle think if he saw you like this?” she asked, pressing a hand to her face. Any surprise I might’ve felt for Daphne defending me was hidden under the pain of the Warden’s grip.
My mouth tasted like bitter bile and ashes and I struggled to keep the wildfire from exploding. Burning a covenmaster’s son had earned me life under guardianship- burning a Warden would mean a sentence to Obsidian.
No matter how hard I tried, my skin began to warm.
“Father wouldn’t think much of anything. Unlike you, Daphne Duck, I made something of myself. All you did was embarrass our coven.” He looked down at me, sliding a finger under my chin to force my face upwards.
Despite the anger and nausea swirling in my abdomen, I wanted him to acknowledge me as a person. I was a person he’d laughed at on the worst day of their life, rolling his eyes at me after I’d left the Tribunal’s presence and asked for a tissue to dry my tears.
My tongue had abandoned me, all my words turned to dust. It was all I could do just to hold the wildfire in check.
“Pretty enough,” he said dismissively. His fingers slid down my neck, lingered in the hollow of my throat. “What’s this?”
The Warden pushed my collar aside, revealing the shadow of a faint bruise from Dominic or Shane’s teeth. His slow grin was far more bone-chilling than the entitled smirk, and his fingers sank in hard enough to bruise. “Someone’s already had a bite. Let’s say we find a nice, private closet for a few minutes and-”
“Stop it, Lyle!” Daphne’s nails sunk into the leather armor on his forearm.
He flung his hand at her and she flew backwards, propelled by a cutting gust of wind, and slammed into the wall.
“Don’t mind my cousin, pretty girl,” he crooned. I was frozen in panic, my wildfire guttering out as his hands slipped down over my hips and lifted the edge of my skirt. “Just hold still for a minute.”
He wouldn’t. He was a Warden. It was like Jonathan Arrow all over again.
