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“Too many bad memories,” Rory murmurs with a shake of his head. “It’d never fit all four of us, anyway.” He turns to Danny. “I know you’ve got access to the art department but I don’t want to risk it. My followers have been helping me track patrols as best we can. It depends on who’s on duty but they’ll normally patrol only the corridors and not the library. Unless it’s Baxter, and then she’s flying all about the fucking castle like a creepy old banshee. If I can figure out their shift patterns, I can get the best day for us all to meet up — but it might be a last-minute thing like tonight.”
“You’re saying we can only meet weekly?” I ask, aghast.
Finlay puts his head in his hands. “Christ, I wish we were in Edinburgh,” he mutters, and I feel his yearning in my bones. The freedom we’d had to travel the city, blend in, be nobodies… We were grown-ups there. Now it’s as though we’ve regressed. Finlay cocks his head to the side, glancing at Rory. “Ye know we canleave, right? We can just walk oot. We’re a’ adults.” They’re Baxter’s words — but Finlay has clearly given them a different, more hopeful spin.
“You may,” Rory agrees, though he doesn’t look happy about it. “ButIcan’t. Despite Baxter’s power-plays, these are still my lands and I refuse to be cleared from them.”
Finlay tugs his thick black hair in bunches. “I dinnae know how the fuck we’re meant tae make it tae exams. I already want tae bounce.”
“I get it. I do.” He says nothing for a long moment, but then reiterates, looking at each of us in turn, “Youcanleave, if this is too much for you. I won’t think any less of you. The path ahead will only get darker. But I have my followers to think about, and the only way I’ll be leaving Lochkelvin is via a body-bag.”
Nobody says anything following this proclamation, but Danny slowly stretches his hand into the center of the table. Although with a mind full of doubts, I place mine on top of Danny’s and observe our twin set of scars. Rory follows, observing Finlay through searching gray eyes the whole time, the weight of his palm comfortable as it rests against mine.
And then, with a weary sigh, Finlay extends his hand on top of the small show of solidarity. In a quiet voice, he vows, “Wi’ ye tae the end, chief.”
It’s a natural end to our meeting — but I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to walk alone to the tower, sleep alone in a single bed, eat alone in the dining hall, and endure class without being able to engage with the others. “Can we meet up?” I ask, and try to ignore the desperation in my voice. “Just to… try. I can’t go a whole week more of this. Ican’t. If we meet in the library during the day — they can’t stop us studying here—”
“We’re meant to study alone in our rooms,” Danny points out.
Finlay nods. “We’ll get oor arses handed tae us if they see us a’ together.”
“But we still need togetbooks.” I shake my head. “Even just for a moment.” I’m babbling. “I-Ineedyou. I’ll go insane without you.”
“I know,” Rory says quietly. “I feel it, too. We’re meant to be together and this is the ultimate cruelty…” He rubs his eyes again, exhausted. “I’ve got free periods in the afternoon. How about two o’clock?”
“Naw, but I can dae three,” Finlay says, and eventually we hash out a tentative plan to meet.
I loop my arms around Danny, pulling him close to me, and whisper words of love into his ear, his soft mousy-brown hair tickling my nose. I drag Finlay into the hug, holding him tight, reveling in the sensation of arms clinging around my back. I meet Rory’s curious gray eyes as he leans against our round table, simply observing.
“I’ll walk you to the tower,” Rory murmurs when I peel away from the others. I bid Danny and Finlay good luck with tongue-curling kisses and hands that glide through hair. Their exits are staggered to ensure they won’t be caught together.
When it’s just me and Rory, he clasps my hands tightly and we stand in the flickering lamplight, staring at each other. His face is less strained, more relaxed when it’s only me — but his expression is more forlorn, too, his gray eyes blank enough as to look almost hollow.I get to see all of him.He reaches out for the small candle and blows out the golden flame, and then I can’t see anything at all.
“We need to find that statue,” he tells me from the dark, and his voice is as troubled as I’ve ever known it. “The others don’t understand — but you do.”
“I do,” I confirm softly. His fingers tighten gratefully around mine.
“It’s a matter of urgency. If we locate it, and return it to its natural place, things around here will stabilize. I know it.”
“But why? What does it do?”
Rory’s quiet for a moment, but eventually he divulges, “The lion and the unicorn — they’re the heraldic symbols of England and Scotland. All things are balanced when they’re joined together. Do you remember last year, when I was talking about its skeleton?”
“Yes.”
“It isn’t just a statue. The inside of it is made up of stone — the same stones that have been collected from the loch every Samhain. It’s a tradition that each one is placed inside the animals and the plinth. It’s how the school is protected. It’s our shield.”
Lochkelvin stone.
“They targeted the unicorn because it represents Scotland, then they took it away because it represents Scotland. But the lion and the unicorn are necessarytogether. Their union is a constant throughout time. Whoever did this, their actions have awakened something they’ll never comprehend, and the repercussions are about to reverberate way beyond mere politics.”
21
I’m counting down the hours until we meet again at the library. No, it’s not sane. Yes, I have many things to do other than clock-watch. But when we aren’t together, when we’re deliberately separated because of the whims of a bitter and uncaring authoritarian, it’s as though my soul has been ruptured, has been ripped, and that the only way for it to heal is to be with the chiefs.
My daydreams about them are frequent, deep, andobscene. Flesh upon flesh, tongues against teeth, a silky union of men and me. I get the pleasing thought that the longer we’re kept apart, the more extreme our reunion will be.
I try to keep myself distracted in other ways that don’t require me to squeeze my thighs together in class. Luckily, in politics class, something unexpected happens that makes this easier.
