‘Junie?’ Oz’s voice called from the foot of the bed.
‘Oz? What are you doing in here?’ I asked, my voice scratchy from sleep.
‘Making sure you were okay. I tried to heal you, but there wasn’t actually anything wrong. At least that my magic could detect…’
‘You can’t heal the effects of the curse,’ I surmised.
‘It seems that way, yes. How are you feeling?’
I took stock of my head and the rest of my body, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Besides the drumming. Perhaps I should have mentioned that, but I was beginning to think it was just in my head. A lingering aftershock of the curse. Except, it didn’t sit right with me. My instincts screamed that dismissing it would be stupid. Reckless.
‘Something woke me up, but then it went away,’ I admitted.
His brows furrowed, then he shifted to sit closer to me as he stared intensely, almost unnervingly, into my eyes. ‘What was it?‘
‘Drumming. Sort of. I’m not really sure, but it was like it was calling to me.’
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ he said, his scowl deepening.
I lifted my shoulders in a shrug, letting it go. ‘It’s gone now. No point worrying. I think I’ll head to my garden for a bit, though. Clear my head. It still feels a little fuzzy.’
‘Oh. Sure.’
I scanned the room, noting the tomes stacked neatly on my desk and remembered Hawthorne and Oz. ‘Hey, is Hawthorne okay? He wasn’t too freaked out by what happened, was he?’ I asked, embarrassment heating my cheeks. I suddenly couldn’t look at him.
‘He and Enid left after you did.’
‘Oh. Okay…’
He sighed, sensing the tangled mess my thoughts were becoming. ‘Just ask, Junie.’
I grimaced. There was no hiding from my twin. He knew me too well. ‘Is everything okay between you two? Things seemed… tense. Like, beyond watching the two of us randomly bleed out.’
His lips pursed into a thin line, and now it was his turn to look away. ‘Everything’s fine. It’s nothing you need to worry about.’
‘You sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘Okay. If you say so.’
It was in that moment that I noticed that the darkness in the room wasn’t from closed curtains. They were still open to reveal a dark, star-filled sky. ‘Hey, what time is it?’
He glanced at his phone screen. ‘A little after one in the morning. Why?’
‘I was out for a few hours then. I missed dinner. Did everything go okay?’
‘Everything was fine. Sweeney came back, so she stood in for you, but the dorm supervisors had it under control. I would have woken you, but she was insistent that you rest.’
‘Oh. Well, thanks, I guess. I’m sorry I wasn’t there, though.’
‘Don’t worry about it. It was better, actually. No one gossips about me andSweeneytrying to get it on,’ he grimaced, and I wrinkled my nose.
‘I didn’t realise you heard that.’
‘Unfortunately, I heard it all. I can’t wait to break this curse so people stop assuming we’re…fucking,’ he gagged dramatically, ‘just because we’re seen together.’
‘Amen.’
