A mischievous smile lit up his face. “How am I supposed to know you don’t go around licking trees or something in your spare time? I’ve heard stranger things.”
“Hardly,” I rolled my eyes at him, and he chuckled in response.
“And I’m an exception to your ability?”
“The only exception.”
For a moment, Casimir said nothing; he just continued to stare at me with an intensity that made my spine tingle. Again, there was the sense he was attempting to penetrate my mind with his eyes alone. Then he nodded abruptly, breaking my trance.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said, lowering his chin in a clear dismissal.
I balked. “You’re just going to leave me with this?” I gestured to the brand on my leg.
His answering smirk was unbearably smug. “I suggest wearing trousers for the foreseeable future, unless you want people asking about your new tattoo. Goodnight, Arden.” And without sparing a second glance at my outraged expression, he departed from the library.
I slept fitfully that night,my dreams ebbing into twilight nightmares. A strangled yelp wrenched me back to wakefulness—myyelp, I realized. My legs were tangled in the sheets, my face and neck slick with sweat. I tried to regulate my breathing while I listened to Gwen’s soft snores and the gentle pattering of rain against the window. I dreamt that a mysterious boy with dark hair and bottomless eyes had tricked me into a magical bargain that left me branded with his name embedded into my skin. With my heart thudding against my ribcage, I slowly unwound my limbs from the sheets, flicked on the lamp and?—
There it was, glaring back at me. Making a mockery of my flesh.Casimir. The proof that nothing about this nightmare had been imagined.
I stared at the tattoo until the rain stopped and a warm glow suffused the cream-colored walls. A glance at the clock on my desk told me I had thirty minutes to change, find coffee, and make my way over to the West side of campus for class. Despite the lack of sleep, I felt jittery, rather than weary.
“Hey, we’ve got class in a few,” I called to the lump of blankets that was Gwen Riordan. “Unless you were planning on skipping today?”
The lump groaned in response. I smirked, relishing the rare opportunity to tease my supremely studious roommate, who typically accomplished half her day in a single morning, usuallyseveral hours before I dragged myself out of bed. The bulge of blankets suddenly burst open, revealing a tangled mess of short pink hair.
“What?!” Gwen cried in alarm, nearly toppling to the floor in her scramble to get out of bed. “But my cat alarm didn’t go off!” She uttered this as if it was a perfectly reasonable sentence and then hurled the fuzzy-eared monstrosity that was her alarm clock against a pile of pillows, where it landed with a soft squeak.
“Maybe that’ll teach you not to rely on furry timepieces shaped like kittens,” I teased.
“It’s not just furry,” she snapped. “It also plays the “I Love Unicorns” by Luna Star!”
“My mistake.” I suppressed a laugh at the scowl etched on her face, and at the comicalthunkof her feet as they collided with the floor. She harrumphed as she tried, and failed, to pull on a wool sock while simultaneously tugging a sweatshirt over her head.
“Where are my glasses?” she moaned.
I sighed before plucking the wire rimmed glasses off of her nightstand and handing them to her.
She accepted them with a grunt of acknowledgment. “Why didn’t you wake me?” she complained, eliciting an involuntary giggle from my lips. “Yousuck, Arden Farrow!”
I dodged the pink fuzzy slipper she aimed at my head.
“Slow down!” I laughed as she yanked on a denim jacket and sneakers, already reaching for the door. “Gwen—!” I halted her with an arm across the doorway. “Your shoes.” I pointed to the mismatched sneakers on her feet, earning a slurry of foul curses from her lips. When she’d found her yellow sneaker’s mate from the pile in our closet, she nodded her readiness.
I grimaced. “Don’t hate me, but I need to make a quick stop on our way to class.”
As Gwenand I hurried through the throng of students, sharing sips from a thermos of coffee I’d looted from the faculty lounge (which was fortunately Casimir-free), I scanned the crowds of bustling students. Devereaux, Evren, Veronika, and the other Daemons were missing from the faces in the throng. There was no sign of Casimir, either.
Gwen and I headed down another corridor and into the breezeway that connected the East and West wings, luxuriating in the daylight that filtered through the warped blue-glass windows, tinting the faces of all who wandered past.
“You got in late again last night,” Gwen observed for the second time this week.
“You’d make a great dormitory monitor, you know,” I grumbled.
“I’m not scolding,” she replied patiently. “Just curious about what you’ve been up to.”
My irritation warped into chagrin at the look on Gwen’s face. There was worry in her warm hazel eyes. She wanted to know where I’d gone, not because she’d disapprove, but because she was worried I might be spiraling after losing August and my father within the span of a year. I grimaced. If she only knew how much trouble I was really in. The guilt mingling with my gratitude threatened to overwhelm me as Gwen offered me a warm smile, her concern palpable in the slight crease that appeared between her brows.
I knew it was unfair to take advantage of Gwen’s trust when I possessed the means to demand honesty from everyone—with the exception of Casimir—but regardless, I had promised not to speak about the Order to anyone. I decided to give Gwen an abridged version of the events of the last few days. I said I’d met Casimir in the library (which was true), and that he’d commented on a book I’d been reading (which was a lie). I told her about my run in with August and his new “friends,” carefulto leave out any details regarding Devereaux Graves or his magic.