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Her mouth presses against mine, making my heart stutter and a sea of emotions flood through my veins. It’s a light and endearing kiss, one of forgiveness and hope. She pulls back and smiles at me before standing.
“I’ll see you at nine.” She winks and I’m so fucking tempted to follow her as she walks away, letting her fingers brush over the tops of leaves as I did, but I’m a patient man.
Kai covers his mouth as Nekane smacks Frederick’s back, hard. The long metal stick he uses to point out the vertebrae sends chills down my spine. However, I find Frederick’s protruding spinal bones and ability to flex them even more disturbing.
“Who knew anatomy class could be so hilarious,” Kai says. He buries his smile in his sleeves, but I don’t think he’d fool anyone who looks our way.
“Hilarious? It’s fucking gross. Just make sure you’re taking notes today; I’m tired of lending you my notebook,” I mutter as I write in my journal, circling that Frederick’s bones are flexible and he can contort them at will. All this information is pertinent to the second-semester exam. As much as I hate to think about it, I’ll need to know how to kill fast and efficiently. Each day that passes only shows how dangerous the other students are becoming. Distrust between the Houses has flared and more students are sticking to their own Houses as a result.
“Here, copy mine. You’re already so far behind,” Aervin mutters and rolls his eyes at Kai. Our white-haired friend sheepishly grins and jots down all the notes from Aervin’s book.
Nekane turns Frederick to face the class. “Open your jaw,” he instructs, and Frederick obeys, letting his mouth fall open.
His skin parts to his ears. It’s gruesome to watch but seems painless for Frederick, who’s not even wincing, although his jaw hangs loosely at the hinges. His teeth are sharp like a viper’s and his eyes fade into a subtle red as if the blood vessels have burst from the effort.
Nekane grins and points at the hinge of Frederick’s jaw as he goes on. “Some Shadows prefer to give you their strength directly rather than forming outside of you. Frederick here has a Serpent Shadow. They aren’t common, even less so for one to morph its host. Though it does give him a rather nasty bite, doesn’t it?” Nekane laughs at his own joke, but none of us do. “Just because a Shadow bearer has a shifting ability does not mean they can’t summon them. Don’t let your guard down around these ones.”
My fists tighten against my desk. If I get the chance to kill Frederick during the second exam I’m taking it.
Nekane goes on about more of the Shadow anatomy and has us practice letting our Shadows further in for the remainder of the class. Kai, Corvus, and I just sit and chat since we’re not exactly keen on letting our Shadows dig too far within our souls just yet. We’ll try to resist as long as possible. At least, that’s our unspoken agreement. Aervin seems willing to try, but his continuous curses tell me he’s not having much luck.
Corvus has been oddly silent for most of the class, so I press him. “Is something wrong?” I flip through a few pages in my tome, not expecting him to say much.
His black eyes narrow and he looks up at me from beneath his dark hair. “Has Terra made up with Edgar yet?” I raise a brow at him and my eyes instinctively dart to Kai’s. Aervin stops what he’s doing and turns to look at us too. He has the same questioning look I do. Why would that matter? “I had my morning class with him and… he’s different from the rest. There’s something off about him, something wrong.”
Kai leans in closer. “Well, I could’ve told you that. Haven’t you seen him talking to himself in the courtyard and the hallways?”
“Edgar told me his Shadow whispers bad things to him,” Aervin says grimly, staring at the ground in thought.
I look between the three of them. Why haven’t I noticed? I only noticed by the lake during the first Shadow riding class when he talked to himself oddly. “I guess he’s different, but you weren’t in Navasik when the Skyfell… I think he watched his parents?—”
“We all watched our parents melt, Finn,” Corvus snaps and my mouth closes with guilt. “But haven’t you felt that emotion and pain fade? Like it never happened? Do you even remember what they look like? Because I fucking don’t.”
Kai’s brows pull together. “Of course, I—wait. No, I can’t remember.” His eyes widen and he looks at me. Aervin shakes his head slowly. Him too?
I think of my mom, and as awful as it makes me feel, I don’t remember her face at all. I shake my head in disbelief. “What the fuck,” I say with a shaky breath. My father’s face comes to mind no problem though. Of all the people I wish to forget, of course I’d remember him. Can we only forget the dead? The trauma they bring us?
Corvus nods. “Each day, things are taken from within us. Specifically bad things, people we’ve lost. I’ve been keeping track. For us, the progression is slow, but constant. I don’t think that’s the case for Edgar.”
Aervin grunts. “Of course you’ve been keeping track. You and Vinnie would get along great. Bright minds and all that.” His tone is sarcastic but there’s no doubt Corvus is brilliant.
“Why do you think that it’s different for Edgar?” Kai asks quietly as Nekane glides by us, giving us questioning looks as we continue with our low conversation.
“He accused Finn of being a traitor to Heirah. You should’ve seen the hatred in his eyes. The raw fury that he was holding onto. The pain was fresh, like he could see everything and remember clearly, unlike us.” Corvus pauses and his eyes grow distant with thought. “And then he brought out his Shadow and… it was something else. It wasn’t like any of the others.” The fear in his voice is so distinct that the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise.
My throat feels dry with worry, but still, I ask, “What did it look like?”
Corvus glances up at us as a bead of sweat trickles down the side of his face. “It was a puppet of a really realistic-looking boy—mimicking Edgar. A dark mass stood behind it, holding up the puppet, making it move and look like a real person… but I saw it. Its eyes were two hollow holes with red in the center and it was using Edgar’s trauma like a toy. I’ve never been so afraid and keenly aware of anything in my entire life.” Corvus swallows hard and his hands tremble as he sets them on his knees for stability. “There’s something terribly wrong with him.”
I look to Kai and Aervin, then back to Corvus. “Terra is meeting us at nine p.m. in the Cosmos House. You should come too. We can talk to her. She’s trying to find a way to un-blight Raine, but I think she should know about this too.”
Corvus hesitates but nods. “I just hope we know what we’re getting into.”
21
Terra
The expansive corridor leading to the library is challenging to walk through as students shuffle by one another to get to their next classes. I barely manage to weave my way through and slip inside the silent library.
