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The first week back at Spearcrest goes by impossibly fast, torturously slow, the noose of hopelessness I carry around my neck progressively getting tighter.
Then, Monday morning, I emerge from the sixth form boys’ building on my way to my classes and almost trip on something. I look down to see a blonde girl hastily stand up.
Inessa. Her lips are pale, and her eyes are red and bloodshot.
“Do you know where she is?” she asks without preamble.
I shake my head. “She’s gone.”
“Butwhere?” Inessa’s eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t think she would leave—I didn’t know this would happen.”
My blood runs cold, immediately followed by a red-hot rush of adrenaline. “What did you do?”
She shakes her head, her mouth opening and closing as if she’s trying to speak. She explodes into sobs, burying her face in her sleeves, her shoulders bouncing. I watch her, every part of my body turned to ice, bereft of any sympathy.
Because I knowexactlywhat she’s done.
“You told her father.” There’s no doubt in my mind, and the sentence comes out of my mouth as a statement, not a question. “She toldyou, andyoutold her father.” I stare at her, a cold disgust making my skin crawl. “You’re the person she trusts the most in Spearcrest. You’re her best fucking friend. She loves you. I thought you loved her.”
“I do love her, of course, I love her!” Inessa glares at me through her tears. “But her father—he wants what’s best for her, and Theodora will never find a good husband if she’s—if she’s not a virgin, and—”
“Theodora deserves a husband that will value her for more than whatever price he puts on the idea of purity. Themythof purity, Inessa—because it’s not a real fucking thing and it certainly doesn’t dictate Theodora’s worth as a human being.”
“It’s easy foryouto say!” Inessa cries out, wiping her tears with her sleeves. “Nobody cares what boys do, nobody will judgeyoufor sleeping around. But it’s not the same for Theodora! She has a future to think of, she’ll have to get married, and then—”
“Do you really think that’s what she wants? All this time you’ve spent with her—you’re her best fucking friend, and youstillthink that’s what she wants for her future? To be some fucking trophy for her father to pass to some other man who’ll also treat her like property?”
“And what about you?” Inessa sneers at me. “You think you’re any better? You also used her like some object, just another girl for you to fuck!”
My fists clench at my side. Blackwoods may not believe in physical violence, but I have the cold, deadly urge to have her buried alive just for saying that.
“Theodora isn’t another girl,” I grit out through clenched teeth. “She’sthegirl. She’s my match, my equal, my partner in fucking greatness. And if she let me, I would marry her, not for her name or her father’s power or the worth of her body. I would marry her because her mind and soul are worth more than all the money in the world, all the stars in the fucking sky. I would marry her if she had sex with another man, and if she had sex with a hundred other men—it wouldn’t matter. I would marry her because there’s nobody else in this world I love more than her and because she deserves that love more than anybody else.”
Inessa’s cheeks are bright red, and she doesn’t have the audacity to question my sincerity. I laugh in her face, a cold, ugly laugh. “And to think Theodora wasted her love on you.” I sweep her with a look of disgust.
Inessa’s eyes fill with tears again, but there are no sobs this time.
“Please. Don’t tell her.”
“I don’t know where she is, and I won’t give up on finding her. But when I do, I can swear to you I won’t say a word about what you did. Do you know why?”
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to; it was a rhetorical question.
“Because she loves you—even though you don’t deserve it, even though she’d be better off loving a poisonous snake. And it would break her fucking heart to know you were the one who betrayed her trust. And unlike you, I love her. I love her with all my heart and soul—something you clearly don’t know how to do. And the only thing I want for her is happiness and safety, even if it means protecting her from the ugly truth of what you’ve done.”
Inessa’s lips and chin tremble uncontrollably. I shake my head and clench my jaw, untouched by her sadness. Then I turn and walk away, the sound of Inessa’s quiet sobs vanishing in the wind.
Chapter 46
Primrose Cottage
Zachary
Anotherhollow,exhaustingweekpasses. I try to call Theodora every single day, to no avail. It almost becomes a ritual of sorts, a way of acknowledging the ghost of her. Before I go to sleep, I find myself reading Keats, murmuring lines out loud as though they were incantations to summon her.
Friday night, I try to go to the library but quickly give up, unable to concentrate on any of my work. I’m on my way back to my room when I almost bump into Iakov, who’s walking away from my door.
“What’s up with your Zaro?” he asks without bothering to greet me.
