It’s simple if posh in style, gold edging around a sleek burgundy barrel, no clear identifying features. When I pull off the lid, I can confirm it’s still got ink.
Why did Stella throw it out? What magic is on it?
I risk a more focused inspection, but I can’t discern anything specific about the intent woven into the ephemera. And the rustling behind the bathroom door suggests Stella’s almost dressed.
I debate my next move for two hasty beats of my heart and then dive toward the bed. The pen slides easily under the mattress where Stella should never notice it’s hidden.
But if it turns out that strange magic ties her into Kenneth’s plan to murder me, the evidence is still here. I’ll be able to point the police to it.
I dash to the armchair and lean back as if I’ve been lounging there the whole time. I’ve just flicked my phone screen to a random website when Stella steps out.
“Much better,” she says with a laugh, combing her fingers through her lightly damp hair. “I hope you didn’t get bored.”
“Not at all,” I reply, with a sinking sensation in my stomach.
There’s not much room for boredom when the girl who’s been my best friend might be planning to off me.
Eight
Colson
The staff lounge is empty when I duck in to grab a cup of coffee from the shiny espresso machine. Unfortunately, I don’t make it out before Professor Kosilov comes lumbering by.
“Another long day, Raith?” he says in the booming voice that I think is meant to be jovial. It rattles my eardrums.
I offer a tight smile and raise my mug as if in cheers. “Always more work to be done in the service of education.”
Then I get the hell out of there before he expects an actual conversation.
I’m not sure of Kosilov’s specific background, but it hardly matters. The Luminary grads who ended up in teaching positions never fail to look down their noses at me, even thoughtheycouldn’t hack a more prestigious job. The few other Beacon grads simply swap disdain for resentment, because they all had to prove themselves with years of outside employment before the academy deigned to hire them.
It's almost always in my best interests to chat as little as possible.
And this evening in particular, I’m not doing any work my colleagues would approve of.
With the door shut firmly on my private office, I sink into my desk chair and sip the bitter liquid. Then I flip open the laptop I’ve set on my desk.
The academy-issue computer connects to the internal database easily enough. It only takes a few clicks and a clatter of the keys to bring up all of Kenneth Hearst’s school records.
I don’t think the younger Mr. Hearst is particularly missed among the staff. Despite the unexpectedness of his disappearance, I haven’t overheard more than occasional vague murmurs of concern. He certainly didn’t make much of an impression in my class, so it’s possible they barely remember who he was. Just one more little rich boy drifting along on the strength of his family’s name.
Until he decided to lash out at a little rich girl for some inexplicable reason.
My jaw clenches at the thought of the girl—thewoman—in question, with a corresponding pang in the center of my right palm that shoots unnervingly to my heart.
Maybe the reason isn’t so inexplicable. Maybe Elodie Devine simply isn’t telling even her matches everything we need to know to understand.
Because she knows we wouldn’t like the full story?
Nothing about her behavior this past month quite adds up. Her reactions to me in class… The divinations she’s come up with and her sudden talent for shielding…
Whatever witchery possessed me that one day here in my office when I had her bent over my lap and?—
I shake off the memory, not quite fast enough to stop my slacks from tightening at the groin. Gritting my teeth harder, I will down the flash of arousal.
The response is understandable now. She’s my match. We’re bound by fate.
But we weren’t bound yet when I violated every ethical standard of school and society?—
