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“What do you want me to say? She’s fucking hot, why shouldn’t I kiss her? It’s not like you’ve claimed her for yourself.”
“Nobody gets to claim her. She’s a person, not athing.”
“Exactly.” Luca pushes back a strand of bone-pale hair from his forehead and gives me a shark’s grin. “She can kiss me if she likes. She can do whatever she likes, and if she wanted to fu—”
I grip him by his collar before he can even finish his sentence, half pulling him out of his seat.
“Touch her again and I’ll make sure the rest of your life is short and painful.”
He stares at me, unsure for a moment, and then he laughs a raspy cackle.
“If you say so, Blackwood.”
I release him and walk away under the bewildered stares of our friends.
But just in case Luca doesn’t believe me, that night, I pay a visit to the Spearcrest greenhouse. There’s an oleander tree there—it’s no longer in bloom, but that doesn’t matter. I only need a single leaf to slip Luca a small dose of oleandrin.
He’s violently unwell for the following week, so unwell he has to leave campus for a while. If he draws a link between my threat and his sudden medical emergency, he never mentions it.
Afterwards, I don’t feel any guilt whatsoever. If anything, I feel like he’s quite lucky.
I only used the leaves of the oleander. If I’d used the bark, I could have poisoned Luca with rosagenin.
Which is almost as deadly as strychnine.
WhenInextseeher Theodora, at our weekly Apostles lecture, we sit on opposite ends of the small lecture room in the Old Manor.
This month, we’re learning about aesthetics and ethics (ironic, considering my poor ethical choices recently). Mr Ambrose ends his lecture by writing out a question on the blackboard.
What makes something beautiful and why?
He turns to face us with a grave smile.
“This time, I don’t want you all to consider this question too theoretically. I don’t want vague and rambling explorations of what might make something theoretical beautiful to some theoretical someone. I wantyouto tell me what makes something beautiful in your eyes. I want you to give me a specific example of somethingyoufind beautiful, and I want an exploration of that. What is that thing? Why is it beautiful? How do you define beauty, and how much value do you give it?”
My eyes seek Theodora of their own volition.
She’s sitting with her chin in one palm, her eyes fixed on Mr Ambrose. But her eyelids are a little heavy. Her mouth is relaxed into a pout, slightly smushed by her palm. The heavy cloak of her hair falls over her shoulders like moonlight.
I tear my eyes away with a sigh.
In general, I’ve approached all of Mr Ambrose’s assignments with honesty and vulnerability. But there’s no chance I can possibly be truthful for this particular assessment.
Because if I was, I would need to admit that beauty for me is a quiet girl with a brilliant mind, a debate team captain with a calm voice and textbooks covered in colour-coded annotations. Beauty for me is a girl with cold skin and a faraway gaze, a girl who loves children’s books but rarely laughs. Beauty for me is sage-green silk and soft white wool and forget-me-not eyes.
My definition of beauty starts and ends with Theodora.
And as for the value I give her, it’s immeasurable. She is worth dying for, living for. Killing for, probably, or at least poisoning for. She is worth every academic failure, every restless night, all the suffering and yearning and hopelessness.
She isn’t worth everything. Sheiseverything.
So how could I possibly stay angry at her?
I’mabouttosetoff to the library for my pilgrimage of redemption when my phone starts vibrating on my bedside table. I finish pulling on the thick woollen jumper I just fished out of my wardrobe and pick up my phone to see Zaro’s name flashing up at me.
We’ve barely spoken since she arrived in Spearcrest. The most I’ve received from her have been curt half-texts that scream resentment and barely repressed anger.
I answer immediately.
