Page 3 of Sorrow & Strangers

The sound of his name hurts more than any of the blades Aqua plunged into me, and I try to hold back the sobs, locking them in my throat. Alice’s hand digs into mine, mooring me.

The headmaster stops for a long moment, long enough that the sense of unease grows in the room. Alice gently nudges me, and I glance at her and then at the headmaster. His gray eyes penetrate me.

“Avalon used to be a sanctuary for those of us who never felt like we belonged. And that was shattered at the end of last year. We were shattered last year. A single act of bravery at the moment it counted, saved us. A heroism many of us could never hope to achieve. Connor Morningstar is the reason we are here today. So I don’t want to know who you truly are. I want to know what he died for. Who he died for.” His stern gaze is still locked on mine, pinning me in place. “Dismissed,” he says before finally freeing me from his gaze, and a tear finally escapes.

Something small and light drops into my lap, and I look down. I pick up the card with the words My office written in the headmaster’s script across the front.

Chapter Two

Summer

“Want me to go with you?” Alice asks from my side, and I am desperate to tell her yes. I need her with me. But this year is different, and we don’t have any overlapping classes. I don’t want her to get behind, and I’ll need to get used to going places alone.

I shake my head. “I’ll see you later,” I say, and it’s possibly the most words I’ve strung together in a long time.

Alice squeezes my hand. “Are you sure?” she asks, and I can sense her uncertainty about leaving me.

I nod and turn toward the headmaster’s office. The walk seems longer now, probably because people can’t help but stare in horror as they pass.

I am about to knock on his door when I hear his low voice from behind it. “Enter.”

I swallow and step into his office. It looks exactly the same. The same ancient books line the shelves, each radiating power. The desk still sits at the back of the room, littered with papers and magical objects, and the male sitting behind the desk is as terrifying as always. Though the emotion I feel now isn’t terror, perhaps because I know what true terror feels like.

Power billows from him as his steely gaze locks on me. “Take a seat, Miss Tuatha De Daanan.”

I don’t lift my eyes to him, but I can feel him tracking me, his gaze clinging to me as I walk across his office and sit in one of the chairs opposite his much grander armchair. I stare at my lap, unable to look up.

“You look at me when we speak. Or have you forgotten?”

Slowly, I lift my gaze to meet his mercurial silver eyes.

“You have lost yourself to your grief,” he says. It is not a question. There is no warmth or concern in his voice, only a cold, clinical fact said with derision. His stare becomes too intense, and I can hear the distaste in his voice. I look away, feeling the cold creep through me, shutting my body down.

A long, silent, excruciating moment passes before I break it, unable to sit in it any longer. “Is there a reason you summoned me?”

The silence descends on us again, his stare crushing me under its weight, waiting for me to meet his gaze. If the quiet weren’t so loud, if it didn’t make the memories so sickeningly vivid in my mind, I probably would have held on to it for longer, but I’ve been unable to be in complete silence since it happened. I look at him again.

“You made a promise,” he says, and my heart stutters. “And you have broken it.” That poor, brutalized organ completely shatters beneath the lash of his words, beneath his dark, oppressive stare. “You made a promise, Miss Tuatha De Daanan. You’ve broken it,” he repeats as if he didn’t think he’d wounded me enough the first time.

I stand from my chair, my eyes stinging. “If there’s nothing else,” I say, my voice shaking, betraying my emotion.

I stand and grab my bag, walking toward the door. I grab the handle but stop, my feet rooting to the floor as he breaks the silence again.

“He would be so disappointed in you,” he says coldly. Every syllable pierces me, made worse by the fact that I know it is the truth. Not that he would be disappointed in how I have handled his death, but by the fact that he loved someone so miserably broken and wrecked. Someone who didn’t deserve him.

His words rip into me, and my hand squeezes the handle, but I don’t turn it. I close my eyes, the tears forming familiar trails down my cheeks. “And yet he can’t be. He’s dead,” I say, my body shutting down even more, repudiating the words, denying the truths, both mine and his. Such hideous, hateful truths. Truths that match my soul.

I am desperate to get home, but the second I leave the headmaster’s office, I walk into a mass of hard muscle. My bag falls to the ground, and my books scatter. My body knows who it is even before I hear the growled curse. I pull back and look up at Max, his startled eyes locking with mine. He recovers quicker than I do and kneels to pick up the books, avoiding my gaze. I just stare at him, once more frozen in place.

He’s not there anymore, Summer. He’s gone.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking,” he grumbles, gathering the loose pages that have fallen from my bag. I just stare.

He’s not there anymore, Summer. He’s gone.

I cringe at the memory and finally regain the ability to move. I walk around him, leaving everything behind me.

“Summer,” Max calls from behind me, but I just keep walking until his large hand wraps around my wrist.