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“I don’t know,” I admit. “The staff had the one on staff look at me, but I’m not sure how inclined they were to absolve me of my crime. She claimed the damage was set too deep for her gift to alter.”
Ivy’s jaw tightens. “So you were expelled after all.”
I incline my head. “The temple school obviously didn’t want to keep me. The only reason I’m here at the college is because one of the teachers saw particular value in my work. I’ve been most interested in finding traces of the parts of the continent’s history that the Darium empire tried to destroy during their reign, piecing together fragments from journals and asides from treatises on other subjects… I’d managed to uncover quite a bit even back then. He took me under his wing privately and oversaw my continued work, and he recommended me to the scholarship division when I was old enough.”
“It’s been several years since your expulsion, then?” Ivy asks gently.
I can’t bear the compassion in her voice. “Six. But that’s no excuse. I was nearly fifteen. You knew better than to risk harming someone for personal gain by the time you were that age, even though you could have done it so much more easily.”
Ivy’s stance tenses. “I just made my mistakes earlier.”
I sweep my hand through the air dismissively. “Because you were trying to save your mother’s life and then your own. That’s the most defensible excuse there is. I destroyed a classmate’s entire future because of wretchedjealousy. If either of us is a monster, it’s obviously me. I even look the part.”
“Alek…” Ivy scoots along the table, closer to me. “You’re not a monster. You acted badly, but you saw how wrong it was, and you’ve made up for it. You’ve dedicated yourself to your work; you’ve been helping expose the scourge sorcerers. And I assume you’ve never been tempted to repeat the same mistake—you’re not spending every day holding yourself back from making another spiteful attack.”
“I’m not. But that doesn’t change whoyouare. You can’t help having the magic, but you’ve refused it, over and over.”
“All right. Maybe I can believe that you don’t think I’m a monster. Can you believe that I don’t seeyouas one?”
My throat constricts even tighter. I make myself meet her gaze. “You’ve never really seen me.”
The words hang between us for a few seconds. Then Ivy reaches out with a beckoning gesture. “Then let me see. Take off the mask, and you’ll know for sure what I make of you.”
Every particle of my body resists the idea. I haven’t let anyone see my scars in years.
The last was one of the college medics when I first arrived. Her shiver of revulsion told me plenty.
But if I say no, then what? What has this whole confession been for if I’m going to refuse to expose the clearest evidence of my transgressions?
My shoulders have stiffened. I inhale sharply, and Ivy’s eyes widen.
“You don’t have to. I shouldn’t have asked—”
“No,” I break in. “You’re right. We may as well settle this.”
And let the cards fall as they may.
I take a step toward the table and reach for my mask.
Fifteen
Ivy
Alek sets his fingers against the edge of his mask as if he’s looping a noose around his neck. I brace myself against the urge to leap in and stop him—not for my sake, but because he looks so conflicted.
Maybe taking this step will be better for him. But I don’t know exactly what he’s about to reveal.
He undoes a snap that attaches the mask’s strap around his head and eases the molded leather away from his face. His head starts to droop so his dark hair falls forward, as if he wants to hide himself as much as he can still, but he catches himself and lifts his chin.
When he lowers the mask, he turns his face so the most damaged side is angled toward me. So the full impact of the chemical burn is obvious.
Across his forehead and nose other than a strip over his eyes where he shielded them, down his right cheek to the edge of his jaw, streaks of mottled scars discolor his bronze-brown skin. Ruddy patches mingle with darker brown ridges, crossed through here and there by marks of deep gray.
In that first glimpse, my heart lurches, but only in shock. I hadn’t pictured the damage looking quite like this.
But as I steady myself, gazing at him, it doesn’t take long for my mind to adjust. There’s nothing gory or frightening about the face before me. It’s simply… different.
The swathes of different hues make me think of the impressionistic paintings I’ve seen—portraits and landscapes conveyed in broad strokes of paint that don’t appear realistic up close but merge together into a cohesive image when you take in the bigger picture.
