When we left the health centre, the rain had stopped for the first time in days. The sky remained grey, but the clouds had thinned enough for light to spread across the wet stone paths. Bellamont looked almost gentle in that light, which felt dishonest. The buildings still held all the same secrets. The cliffs still waited. Westgrave still stood in the distance with Professor Moreau’s office windows dark against the stone.
Sophia slipped the pharmacy bag into my hand. “Keep it with you.”
“I know.”
“And tell us if you take one.”
“Sophia.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.”
She stopped walking. I stopped too. Students passed around us with backpacks and coffees, their voices rising and fading through the damp afternoon. Sophia looked at me with an expression so careful it frightened me more than Daniel’s call had.
“What?”
“Did Professor Moreau know your father contacted you before you told him?”
My fingers tightened around the pharmacy bag. “No.”
The answer was too fast. Sophia heard it. I looked away toward the courtyard.
“Céline.”
“I asked him if he gave Daniel my number.”
Sophia went completely still. “What did he say?”
“He said no.”
“And do you believe him?”
I looked toward Westgrave again. The answer should have been simple. No, because Vincent Moreau had blackmailed me with Katherine’s proposal. No, because he had broken into Thad’s apartment. No, because he had already proven that my boundaries were more like suggestions he enjoyed stepping over beautifully. But that was not the whole truth. The awful truth was that I did believe he would lie to me. I also believed he would protect me. Those things should not have fit inside the same man. With Vincent, they did.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Sophia’s face softened with something close to grief. “I hate that answer.”
We walked back in silence.
At the dorm, Anya opened the door before Sophia could unlock it. “How was the medical industrial complex?”
“Deeply beige,” I said.
“Emotionally or aesthetically?”
“Both.”
Miss Astoria appeared behind her and immediately screamed at me as if I had abandoned her for several months instead of three hours. I crouched and picked her up.
“You are so exhausting.”
She climbed onto my shoulder and dug her claws in just enough to remind me that love was often painful and inconvenient.
Anya looked at the pharmacy bag in my hand and gave me a small smile I appreciated.
Sophia took off her coat and hung it by the door. “She has something for panic attacks if it gets bad. We’re going to keep things calm.”
