by Elena Lawson
She must have been going into town every freaking day to keep it so full for them.
Granger made a waving motion with her hand gave me a grin that told me she completely understood. “Never mind that. Boys will be boys.”
“Shifters,” I corrected. “It’s worse.”
She chuckled and thinking they’d still need at least a few more minutes, I jabbed a thumb in the direction of the stairs at my back. “I just need to run to the ladies and grab my bag. Be right back?”
“I’ll wait here.”
I ran up the stairs—making a show of hurrying, but once I closed the door on myself in the bathroom, I slumped against the counter, taking a long, calming, unrestricted breath.
Fuuuuuuuuuuck.
Running the tap for a good long while until the water came out ice cold, I splashed it on my face, sucking in a tight breath at the temperature, but it soothed some of the nerves and brought my mind back to sharp focus.
As I dried my face on a towel, I gave myself a stern pep-talk.
You got this. It’s just Granger. Even if Elias didn’t get there in time—or if he hadn’t caught on to my not-so-subtle hints—she’ll understand. And maybe you can even hide the stuff before she sees it. Just shoo her into the drawing room we never go into and go run and the hide the stuff. Easy.
You can totally explain why you’re looking at blood magic spells. She’ll understand.
The last thought came of its own accord. You can trust her.
But I knew better than to blindly believe my gut instinct. It hadn’t led me astray yet, but I couldn’t bear the thought of putting anyone I cared about in danger because I felt like I was right about something.
It wasn’t worth the risk. Not now that I had so much to lose.
After I was finished in the bathroom, I ran quickly into my bedroom. I didn’t actually need to grab a bag, but I made a show of stuffing some of the clothes I’d left behind into a drawstring shopping bag from Prada along with an ivory brush and the super racy lingerie I’d felt silly packing the first time around.
Didn’t seem so silly now. I bit the inside of my cheek as I folded the lacy bit of fabric in with the brush and other clothes and raced downstairs. “Ready!”
23
I held my breath as I opened the portal, feeling a little like I was taking some sort of unofficial exam as Granger watched my line-crafting when I drew the sigil. Nodding her approval when I finished.
Please work.
The portal yawned open and I gushed with relief as the front of the villa appeared beyond the front gates of the Abbey. If I could portal inside the gate, then hopefully that meant Elias could, too.
And it also meant I didn’t have to open the gate that was spelled with what I assumed was another bit of lost magic.
It seemed for once, luck was on my side.
It was nearing later afternoon and the sun had begun its descent down into the valley far away and below. I’d never had much occasion to look around outside in the daylight, but holy shit was it beautiful…
If the incredible scents and the radiating warmth weren’t enough to ensnare you, the beautiful foliage and sweeping vista before me was enough to put a different sort of spell on a person. It was breathtaking.
And was that a swimming pool just beyond the small grotto at the edge of the drive? I didn’t even know there was one…
As though reading my thoughts, Granger drew in a deep breath of her own and smiled wistfully. “I can see why his family chose this place. It’s truly beautiful.”
For a second I thought she might cry as she took in the stucco ivory building with the red roof and large arched uncovered windows.
Yes!
He had gotten them the message.
“Do you want to go inside?” I asked her, offering an impish grin and showing her the way to the door.
She nodded tightly. “I do,” she breathed.
The villa was quiet as we entered and I looked around in the entrance and the rooms to either side, but saw no sign of Cal or Adrian, or anyone else. I wondered if Elias had already come and gone.
It wouldn’t make any sense—and we’d have literally no excuse if Granger saw him here.
Granger gaped at the inside of the villa as though it were something out of a storybook. I wondered how many times she had imagined being permitted to come here before—when my father still lived. How many times he’d left her to spend summers and other vacations here with his parents—where she couldn’t reach him.
“Cal?” I called into the bowels of the house. “Adrian? Headmistress Granger is here for a visit!”
Maybe a little too obvious, but I felt the need to try to warn them one last time.
“I should go find them,” I said, turning back to Granger, wanting an excuse to go and make sure everything was sufficiently hidden away. “Feel free to look around.”
I hoped she would start with the rooms in the entryway—or go upstairs where there were only bedrooms and bathrooms to look at. I wondered if she would be able to tell which one my father slept in. They were all so devoid of personal affects or any sort of character besides what was already there from the stuccoed walls and warm hardwood or cool tiles.
I wouldn’t be able to tell whose room was who’s even if I’d tried. They all looked the same to me. Different bedding. Slightly different furniture. But in essence—the same.
I glanced back to find her walking into the drawing room and sighed as I rushed right into Cal. Smacking my cheek against his hard chest. “Ow,” I exclaimed, stepping back from the brick wall of him to rub my cheek.
“You should really pay more attention to where you’re walking.”
I swatted at him. “Did Elias warn you?” I whispered, still glaring.
He nodded. “He’s already gone—said he’d be back later. Took Draven with him.”
“And all of the—”
“It’s all put away.”
I could kiss him. Sighing, I tried to force myself to relax. “Thanks. I completely forgot I promised her she could come see the villa and then she just showed up at the Abbey and I couldn’t say no, and—”
“Hey,” he said, interrupting with a lopsided grin as he took hold of me by the arms with his enormous, warm calloused hands, forcing me to look at him. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I half expected them to be angry with me for making them have to run around in a frenzy to hide everything and erase all evidence of what we’d been doing—and who had been here.
“Cal,” Granger said from behind us in the hallway, and then she glanced up the stairs and added, “Adrian,” as I heard him bounding down from the top floor. “Nice to see you both again. Staying out of trouble, I hope.”
“Never,” Adrian said with a devilish smirk.
“Well, at least I don’t think there’s much trouble you can get up to all the way out here. The closest town must be a hundred miles away.”
Cal released me and I spun to face Granger, feeling suddenly awkward and…guilty…standing in the hallway of the villa with my two familiars while my Headmistress watched us with that scrutinizing way she had.
I cleared my throat. “Well, we’ll just be in the kitchen. I could use some lunch. Feel free to have a look around.”
Granger went down in the sitting room next to the library with a wistful grin, and I dragged my familiars to the kitchen with me.
“Well this is weird,” Adrian said, stating the obvious.
“She just wanted to see the house. She’ll be gone soon.”
“Yeah, but I don’t get why she wanted to see it so badly,” Cal said. “It’s just a house.”
I shrugged. I wouldn’t pretend to understand it, either. But I knew that if there was someone I cared about as much as I suspected she cared about my father, I’d want to keep a little piece of them close to my heart—I’d want to see a place they’d been alive in. It didn’t have to make sense to us. She’d done me a lot of favors since I
arrived at the academy all those weeks ago.
I owed her at least this.
“I’m going to make some tea,” I said, suddenly craving some Earl Grey—it seemed Elias’ tastes were rubbing off on me. “Is there something to eat?”
After about thirty minutes, I thought I’d better go and find Granger—maybe gently suggest that we had plans to go out this afternoon and she’d need to go? I didn’t want her exploring too much. Cal and Adrian assured me she wouldn’t find any of the things they’d put away from sight, but the fact she was still in the villa someplace without me hovering over her made my skin itch.
But at the same time, I felt I almost wanted her to find something. Not for the first time I wondered if Granger could be an ally in this. Maybe she could help.
We agreed though—me and the guys—no one else was to know about anything. Not anymore. We couldn’t be certain who to trust.
I poured an extra cup of tea as I finished mine, remembering she only took sugar in hers, and stirred it, checking to see if it was still warm. I’d bring her a tea and ask if she’d seen everything she wanted to see. Cal and Adrian had gone for a run, feeling awkward standing around in the house with their hands tied.
I wished I could do the same, but the bastards had left me here alone. I pinched the bridge of my nose as I stood to go and find her, the pain in my head had worsened since we got here, and this time no amount of food, or tea, or peace and quiet seemed to be helping it.
If I didn’t try to heal it—or have Elias heal it—it would only get worse and I couldn’t have my volatile magic bringing down this villa. There were too many important things—and people—inside of it.
Though, healing only worked to delay the inevitable with these things—I’d had them chronically when I was younger, though they never got quite to the disastrous levels they had while at the academy. Leo and Lara tried to ease my pain with healing sigils, spells, and potions. Nothing worked. And the only thing that worked at all was to knock me out completely. Lara’s strongest sleeping potion seemed to do the trick, but I could be out for days after taking it and I couldn’t afford to waste that much time right now—even if I did have the recipe for it—which I didn’t.
Sighing, I placed the teacup on the saucer and inhaled deeply through my nostrils to try and quell the throbbing ache just behind my ocular cavities—radiating over the precipice of my skull.
Voices drifted to me down the hall as I walked out of the kitchen and I followed them down the corridor that ran the length of the house to the left of the kitchen. The voices were hushed, and I wondered who Ms. Granger was talking to—I distinctly recognized her voice as it rose above the other—the whispered conversation seeming to be coming from the library.
Puzzled, I walked a bit faster, catching little snippets of the conversation through the echoey walls and tall ceilings.
“…can’t believe you…”
“…please, don’t…she wouldn’t…”
“…if…tell her, I will…”
Was that…Dee she was talking to? I couldn’t quite make out the whole of what they were saying, but as I rounded the last corner and walked past the sitting room to stand in the doorway of the library, I found I was right.
Ms. Granger stood opposite Dee in front of my father’s desk. Granger’s expression was measured—hard. Dee, by comparison seemed frail and small, cowering from the larger woman—but there was something glinting in her muddy brown eyes that spoke of defiance I didn’t know the slight caretaker possessed.
“I’m sorry, but do you know, each other?”
Two equally surprised faces swiveled toward me. “Oh—Miss,” Dee said, her face paling. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Do you know each other?” I spoke the question again, a sharp pain spiking into my head and making me wince as I watched Granger turn slowly back to face Dee, appraising the other woman with barely concealed distaste. “No,” she said finally, and I thought I saw Dee’s shoulders slump. “I thought I might’ve—but I don’t know her at all.”
“Excuse me, Miss,” Dee said in a whisper-soft voice and scooted past me into the hall.
What was that?
Granger sighed, and her gaze swept the room, looking, it seemed, everywhere but at me. Her gaze stopped suddenly on the tapestry hung on the far wall. The one that concealed the skinny cupboard behind it. It was a hideous thing—depicting a woman running a man through with a short sword, twinkling jewels in the hilt, her wild eyes full of malice, her mouth open in a feral cry.
“Kind of morbid, right?” I said with a nervous laugh, breaking through the tension in the room.
“Hmm?” Granger said, her eyes refocusing on the rest of the room. “Oh—yes. It is.”
Thinking this was as good a time as any, I drew in a breath and set the now cool tea down on the desk. “Me and the guys were going to head into the town for, um…well we were going to go and explore a bit and—”
“Of course,” Granger shook her head. “I should be getting back to the academy anyhow. Thank you for letting me come, Harper. It was nice to finally see the place Alistair talked so much about.”
“No problem,” I said with a grin. “I can walk you out?”
She waved a hand. “No—that’s alright. I’ll show myself out,” she said, and brushed past me on her way to the door. “See you in a week.”
“See you in a week.”
It wasn’t until after she’d left, and I rose to return the now-cold tea to the kitchen that I noticed two drawers on the side of the desk where Granger had been standing were open.
24
I didn’t share my suspicions with the guys. Not yet, anyway. For all I knew Dee had been cleaning out the dust in the drawers and it was her who’d opened them. Or perhaps Granger did get a little carried away with her self-guided tour of the rustic Spanish mansion, but that was all it was.
She wouldn’t have been snooping, right?
I mean, she had no reason to.
As far as you know, a voice spoke in the back of my mind, making the throbbing worsen and I groaned. I hated having to be so damned suspicious. I hated having any thoughts about Granger that would cast her in any light that wasn’t a positive one. She’d been there for me since the start.
She’d protected me. Shielded me. Helped me.
But most of all—she didn’t judge me. She understood me. Unlike all the other students and faculty at Arcane Arts Academy, she was there for me. I couldn’t bring myself to believe she had any ill intent towards me or my familiars. And I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that she would never have any part in harming the students at the academy.
I shook my head, regretting the motion immediately as it sent a thunderous pain skittering across the inside of my skull.
Shit.
It was getting really bad.
“He’s back,” Adrian said, rushing into the bedroom where I was sitting on the edge of the bed, head in my hands, trying to rein in the magic attempting to unleash itself from my skin. Sweat beaded on my brow from the force of it. It would get worse—I had a feeling this was only the start.
But I could handle it—I just needed Elias to heal me and then everything would be fine. I’d collect my strength and be ready when the next wave of pain and surgency of power hit me. Everything was going to be fine.
It feels worse than it’s ever been…
No. It’s fine. You’re fine.
Pain exploded in white hot stars behind my eyelids.
Not. Fine.
“Harper,” Elias’ voice made me almost tremble with relief as he entered the dark room. Too much light tended to make the pain worse, and when it got worse, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to quash the swell of power. I needed to control this. This wasn’t like the migraines of my youth—or even the migraine that’d destroyed a section of roof at the academy—this felt way worse.
“Elias,” I whined through the pulsing agony. “I need…you…to heal…me…” I ground out. “Migraine. Bad one…
like before.”
I hoped he understood my broken request. I couldn’t put the thoughts together to articulate what I needed from him properly. There was a broken connection someplace between my mind and mouth and I couldn’t repair it.
A bright golden glow flared behind my eyelids and I cringed away from the brightness of it, near screaming at the horrible stabbing pain in my head. I gripped handfuls of hair on either side of my head, nearly tearing it out. But I didn’t care, I needed to distract myself from the incessant throbbing.
“What are you doing to her?” I heard Cal bellow.
“Man, stop!”
“Let him do it!” Draven hissed, and I heard a few thuds that told me my familiars were not listening.
“Stop,” I managed, hoping they would hear me and understand. Stop fighting.
A warmth tickled my head and spread like a wave of bathwater down my neck and over my face and neck and shoulders. I shivered under its gentle touch, sighing at the immense relief it left in its wake. I shuddered as the healing power of Elias’ sigil did it’s work, not eradicating all of the pain, but sufficiently dulling it until I was able to lift my head, and then eventually, to open my eyes—blinking away tears I hadn’t realized I’d shed.
And then finally, to sit up, able to look into the faint light in the hallway without wanting to poke my own eyes out.
“Fuck,” I breathed, and then after wetting my lips and swallowing past the lump in my throat, I found two sets of glowing eyes, a pair of icy blue ones, and below, kneeling in front of me with eyes like the sky just after a storm, Elias pulled my hands into his, rubbing warmth into the cool skin.
“Thank you,” I told him, trying to smile, but the pain was still there, only receded, and I winced as a small lance of it ricocheted inside my head.
Totally manageable now, though. I was completely fine.
“Do you need us to get you anything?” Elias asked, rubbing soothing circles in the back of my palm.
