Casimir.
As though my accusatory thoughts had the power to conjure him, the devil himself appeared a moment later. Or should I say, theDaemon.
“Casimir!” I shouted across the empty corridor. Somewhere outside, a raven cawed indignantly at the noise.
“Good evening, Farrow.” He inclined his head to me in greeting. The ghost of a smile tugged at his lips as he took in my fiery mood. “What’s up?”
At that moment, I couldn’t care less how he’d found me, only that he was here and I was furious with him. “You promised me!” I hissed.
Casimir’s answering expression was smug. He knew exactly what he’d done. “Promised you what, exactly?” He schooled his features into an expression of divine innocence.
“You went after Monty! Don’t bother denying it, I just ran into him, and his hand is clearly broken.”
“I wasn’t going to deny it,” he replied, smirking in that arrogant, self-satisfied way of his. “Yes, I broke the little fucker’s hand. I never promised not to hurt him.” He rolled his eyes at my accusatory expression. “Come now, Farrow, I couldn’t have him going around assaulting women all over campus, could I?”
I lost what little restraint I had left as my temper exploded. “Don’t you get it? You just risked exposing yourself, you moron!”
Casimir merely rolled his eyes, as if my reaction was entirely unwarranted. “Any number of people might’ve broken his hand,” he drawled. “He’s not as popular as he would have everyone think.”
But I refused to relent. “Did you mess with his mind, too? He claimed he was hurt in a sailing accident.” I knew Casimir hadn’t tampered with Monty’s memories, but I didn’t care just now.
Casimir scowled. “I didn’t alter his memories in the slightest. If he’s lying about how he came to hurt his hand, well…” He shrugged. “That’s his prerogative.”
I huffed in frustration, folding my arms over my chest. “You are being impossible, Casimir. You can’t just go around breaking people’s hands?—”
But Casimir cut in. “Answer me this, Farrow. Did he deserve it?”
My lips opened and closed, but no sound came out.
Seizing upon my temporary inability to speak, he stepped closer. His eyes appeared darker in this dimly lit corridor; a deep, swallowing obsidian that pulled me in.
“You know he deserved it,” he insisted.
I couldn’t deny the truth of his words, so I settled for shooting him a menacing glare.
He leaned in closer. “You do realize that I could have made it so much worse for him, don’t you?” he murmured, reaching out to tuck a loose curl behind my ear. A stygian darkness crept over his features, drawing the smooth planes of his face into sharper relief. “He’s lucky all he got was a broken hand.”
I shivered at the light touch, so at odds with the threat of violence in his tone.
Neither of us mentioned Monty Prescott again on the walk back to Ash Hall. Following Evren’s assault on me in the biology classroom, Casimir had insisted on seeing me back to the dorms safely.
While we discussed the looming problem of the Order, Casimir insisted that the safest path forward was to hide theBook of Erebosfrom Devereaux’s prying eyes for as long as we needed to interrogate it for information.
“Speaking of Devereaux,” I said as we tread across the frost-covered grounds, “What else can you tell me about him? Aside from his family history, I mean.”
Casimir was silent for a moment as he considered. “Aside from his ambitions where his birthright is concerned, Devereaux is quite… possessive. And it’s more than the entitlement that comes with being an aristocrat. He truly covets what he cannot have. Perhaps losing everything at a young age exacerbated that unfortunate quality.”
“He called himself a collector,” I recalled. My lips twisted in disgust as I recalled the way the butterfly had twitched as Devereaux drove pins through its wings. “He doesn’t care who suffers, as long as he gets what he wants.”
Casimir nodded absently.
“What about theBook of Erebos?” I asked. “Devereaux’s bound to try and steal it before the full moon.”
“I’ve already accounted for that,” he clipped. “On the eve of the ritual, we’ll destroy it.”
“You want to destroy it?” I repeated. “That’s your solution?”
He cast me a sidelong glance. “Yes, why?”