Much.
After I knock and he calls me in, I find out he gave me the last arrival time. The other three guys and Elodie are already inside: Professor Raith sitting behind his desk and the others standing in a semi-circle around it.
“You better not have started without me,” I remark as Iamble over to where Elodie’s standing the farthest back from the desk. I wrap my arms around her slim frame and rest my chin against her purple-tinted hair.
Her stance tenses just for an instant, and every nerve in my body jolts with the panic that I’ve upset her with even this casual embrace. But before I can yank myself back, she’s already relaxed again.
As she leans into me, letting me take a little of her weight, I can’t hold back a satisfied smile.
She might have four matches, but for the moment, she’s more mine than any of theirs.
Raith glares at me from behind his desk. Worth’s expression isn’t much friendlier. The professor’s brother just looks awkward.
I’m the only one who can hold Elodie like this, the only one who doesn’t have to worry about accidentally activating a glim with all the potential consequences. Sucks to be them.
Professor Raith clears his throat. “All right, let’s keep this brief. I looked into Kenneth’s records as we discussed. There wasn’t anything definitive, but his grades took an unexpected turn for the better in the past couple of trimesters. It’s possible that’s related to his crimes somehow.”
I scoff. “He was looking to mow down the competition? He wasn’t even in the top ten.”
The professor’s eyes narrow even more. “I don’t know what his motivations were. I’m stating the facts we have.”
Elodie sets her hand on my arm with a gentle squeeze—reassuring me that she appreciates my input or warning me not to argue too much?
When she’s touching me at all, it’s hard to care about the reason.
“Kenneth’s family invested in a new business alongside the Kingsleys and the Somersets,” she says. “None of—of my friends have done anything obviously threatening, but… I found a pen in Stella’s bedroom. In the trash, but the fact that she had it at all… It had the same strange vibe to its ephemera that Kenneth’s clothes did.”
My arms tighten around her instinctively. “That bitch is part of?—”
She squeezes a little harder. “I don’t know yet. I don’t know any reason she would want me dead. But we are looking forsomewoman who had Kenneth’s ear. I’ll be careful around her—and the Somerset twins.”
I start deciding where I’ll first jab my knife if any of those vicious princesses so much as glances at my girl wrong.
Professor Raith looks more alert at Elodie’s news. “I haven’t encountered any more of that oddness, but I’m keeping watch for it. Anything else?”
Worth lifts his head. “I haven’t overheard anything suspicious about Kenneth from the other students, here or outside of class.”
He shoots Elodie a look as if she’ll understand more from what he’s saying than the nothing it sounds like to me. She tips her head in a subtle nod.
“No one’s hung around the Devine house who looks like they shouldn’t be there either,” I put in.
All the gazes in the room snap to me. Even Elodie twists her head to glance up. “How would you know that?”
I shrug without releasing my embrace. “I’ve been keeping an eye on things when I can. Kenneth followed you from your house. Whoever he was scheming with might stop by there again.”
Professor Raith lets out a disgruntled sound. “The police are still investigating Miss Devine’s poisoning. You don’t want them catching you spying on her and thinkingyoushouldn’t be there.”
Who is this void-head to act so superior when he’s still calling his fate-given match by her last name?
I roll my eyes. “I do know a thing or two about evading law enforcement.”
Worth’s expression turns pained. The professor sucks in a breath as if to speak again, but Elodie beats him to it, lifting her other hand to brush her fingers against my jaw.
“I don’t want you sticking your neck out too far. In the whole city, my house is probably where I’m the safest.”
I frown at her, but it’s hard to argue. I can sense enough of the security spells layered around the Devine home that I wouldn’t set one foot into the yard without a good excuse.
I shift my attention to her other matches. “So what are we going to do next? How else are we tracking down this crazy cunt who has it out for Elodie? I could put the screws to Kenneth’s brother.”
