AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I keep hold of my tongue and stare down at my tablet.
A moment later, Enzo is up and out of his seat, heading toward the back of the room. I keep my eyes glued to my tablet and don’t look up until he returns.
He carries an armful of herbs, both dried and fresh, decanted spirits, and a variety of glass jars. “I got everything we need for a vanishing potion. I hope that’s alright.”
“It’s fine,” I say and scroll to the pertinent recipe.
“It says it needs to cure for at least a week,” Enzo says as he lays the items on our desks.
“Why don’t we move to one of the bigger tables over there?” I nod toward the apothecary benches at the other end of the room, where the other students have already gathered.
“What’s wrong? Afraid to be alone with me?”
Yes, but I’ll be damned before I admit that. “There’s more room, Enzo.” I do my best to sound like I’m speaking to a two-year-old, but he remains unaffected as he gathers the items and saunters to the apothecary benches.
The other students give him a wide berth as he sets the items down, each sidestepping away like a slow, choreographed shuffle.
Enzo doesn’t notice. I approach to find he’s scrolling through the text, checking the diagrams against the live plants.
“Is this right?” he asks, holding a sprig of purple-leafed rigmonoia against the scientific drawing. “I think it’s right.”
“It’s right,” I say, mesmerized by the baby-faced demon whose eyes reflect a disconcerting degree of madness.
I can’t quite say what quality led me to such a conclusion. Perhaps it’s his pinned pupils, always focusing on everything like it’s prey. Or his constant unaffected stare.
But in his gaze, there are equal parts intelligence and psychopathy.
I see it just as clear as my own image in the black mirror of my tablet.
He smiles, a sweet, reckless thing, and picks up the butcher knife only to twirl it around his long fingers.
I glance at the blade, but only for a moment before I’m drawn back to his eyes. “I usually only let the other heirs see me,” he says so quietly, I’m leaning in to hear him. “And I don’t know why I am now, but there’s something disarming about you.”
The knife spins faster, his smile grows sweeter, and a second later, his gaze is normal.
Like he put the curtain back up. The mask.
I swallow, not sure why my insides are fluttering as if that was a compliment.
A moment later, Enzo sets about mutilating the leaves and stems of the innocent plant, mashing them with the back of the knife until it’s a goopy pile of fibrous liquid.
“What are you doing, trying to make a smoothie?” I ask and reach for the knife. I intended to take it and do the work myself. But my fingers brush his as I take hold of the handle and I freeze in place.
So does he.
Our eyes meet, his round and surprised, shoulders shaking with tattered breath.
We jerk away from each other and busy ourselves with the potion.
Like a ribbon of joy tied in a knot of lust didn’t just streak right through our middles.
“Go get another rigmonoia.” The order comes out on a husky breath, and I clamp my lips together, hoping Enzo didn’t notice.
But he did, and a greedy, heated smile caresses his lips.
“Axe was right,” he murmurs.
My insides go icy, chilled all the way to the roots of my teeth. What exactly was Axe right about? I’m about to ask him, but Enzo’s already walking away.
