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No, I know I scare him in some ways, but this is something else.
Something else scared him.
But what?
I head to the teachers’ quarters first. I know I shouldn’t be in here but I chance it. The place is empty though, all the bedroom doors open. The teachers must be teaching.
Then the library again, then the refectory, then I’m just roaming the halls aimlessly.
His issues with me aside, whatever he was working on after he’d slept with me was what put the fear of god in him; he’d want a working space nobody else would use, perhaps somewhere with the veil thin enough to help, somewhere with a chalk circle already on the floor.
The Midnight Classroom.
I’m moving up through the Mortis fast enough that students on the ramps back out of the way as I come through.
I race all the way to the top of the tower, up the narrow stone staircase, nearly tripping on my dress several times. I tell myself what I’ve been telling myself at every landing, that he’s working, that he’s been working all night, that he’ll look up when the door opens and I’ll say something cutting and leave, but I’ll know he’s alive.
But why am I so panicked?
Why do I have a feeling something terrible happened?
Why do I feel it in the depths of my soul?
I can hardly breathe and it’s not from the exertion.
I reach the door and fling it open.
The chalk circle on the floor is half scuffed on one arc; the table has been pulled under the window with the lamp still burning low on it, a book open where it was left, a stack of paper beside it, and his coat draped over the back of the chair.
And then I see him.
He’s on the floor face down, in his white shirt with the suspenders over his shoulders.
The shirt is patched with red from the shoulder blade down the middle of his back, and I realize with clarifying horror that what’s pooling around him isn’t shadow. Shadows don’t shine crimson.
Oh no.
No.
No.
No.
No, no, no, no NO!
The sound coming out of me is a howling animal and I’m across the room on my knees, slamming down on the flagstone, both hands flat on his back on the ruined wet of his shirt, saying his name, “Baz, Baz, Baz please!” but the stillness comes through the cloth and nothing comes back through my palms, no pulse, no give, nothing of him at all.
God, gods, goddesses, anyone someone, please, please, no.
No. Please don’t let this be true.
This isn’t what it seems, it can’t be.
I have to see his face.
He’s heavy and the deadweight of him is the worst thing I’ve ever felt with my hands, but I get my hands under his shoulder and I turn him toward me and he comes slow and then all at once, his head rolling back—
His throat is open.
