Unfazed by my hostility, Casimir simply shrugged, drew a gold case from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, and lit a cigarette with a click of his lighter. Smoke curled from his nostrils, reminding me of a dragon. There was a glint of humor in his eyes that told me he was enjoying this.
“You can’t smoke in here,” I admonished. I was really starting to sound like an old schoolmarm, but I didn’t care.
Casimir blew a cloud of smoke toward me. “Who are you, the hall monitor?” he snickered.
His haughty demeanor was grating on my patience, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to leave just yet. Everything about Casimir Wrayburn was calculated arrogance and charisma, and yet he possessed an inexplicably magnetic quality that drew me in, rooting me to the spot. “You never answered my question,” I pointed out. “Why did you transfer here?”
He took a long drag, surveying me over his cigarette before he shrugged and replied, “Like I said, I came for the parties.”
My gaze narrowed on him in suspicion. “Is that so?” I allowed my skepticism bleed into my tone.
My instincts told me that Casimir was lying, and yet the air between us was remarkably devoid of ash—not even the barest ember that might indicate deception. Only the heady scent of smoke, leather, and the dust of aging books lingered.
Part of my power lay in the fact that no one else, apart frommy mother and Gwen, knew about my little “gift,” and I certainly wasn’t about to reveal it to Casimir. Until now, I had never encountered anyone who evaded my detection abilities, and the whole thing bothered me more than I cared to admit. Maybe he was telling the truth? I examined his face, searching for traces of deception, but those dark eyes gave nothing away. And yet, despite the alleged truth of his words given the absence of ash on my tongue—I couldn’t shake the feeling that he couldn’t be trusted.
And that was going to be a problem.
I cleared my throat and said stiffly, “I should be getting back to my dorm. It’s late.” To underline the point, I glanced at my wristwatch. It was one o’clock in the morning.
Casimir raised his brows at my brusque manner, a hint of a smirk lurking at the corners of his mouth. He took a final drag on his cigarette before tamping it out on the mahogany table, his eyes never leaving my face.
“I hope to run into you again sometime, Arden Farrow.”
I shivered at the sound of my name on his lips. I gave him an awkward nod and all but ran toward the staircase, my spine prickling.
I didn’t turn back to see if he followed.
3
Weariness weighed on my bones as I trod up the final flight of stairs that led to the East Wing of campus and my dormitory, Ash Hall. Before I met August in freshman year, I’d spent most of my time between classes in Ash Hall or deep in the bowels of the Labyrinth, nose-deep in tales of ancient mariners, woodland faeries, and medieval kings. Gwen often teased me for my propensity for woolgathering, as she called it.
Our dormitory was messy, even by my standards. Gwen often said that it looked like a tornado had torn through the room, leaving few survivors aside from a stack of unread textbooks and an archaic lamp on the small oak desk. Silver barrettes and half-used lipsticks scattered our shared vanity. Gwen, something of an amateur botanist, had decorated our dormitory with flowers, dried herbs, crystal trinkets, and several volumes of books dedicated to the identification of poisonous mushrooms. Evening primroses and purple stalks of sea lavender were strung up to dry.
In contrast to Gwen’s delicate floral oasis, my side of the room was cluttered to the point of pandemonium. The shelveswere strewn with Gwen’s many trinkets. Seashells, coral, and fossils were precariously stacked against botany texts flanked by a pair of heavy bookends to hold the clutter together. Last spring, my mother, in a rare display of maternal affection, had sent a few handmade glass art tiles for decoration. I loved the disorderliness of our dorm, and firmly believed the mess added to the room’s character, even if it bothered Gwen at times.
I found Gwen in her usual spot, sprawled across her bed, surrounded by stacks of textbooks and loose pages torn from her notebook. She wore thick-framed red glasses and an expression of unbreakable concentration as she read, her cropped pink hair pulled back behind her ears.
As I closed the door quietly behind me, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My mother, Eleanora, often complained that I’d inherited my father’s fiery temper and a stubbornness that would test the patience of even the most pious nun. But in appearance, I more closely resembled her, with my long dark waves and striking blue eyes. Appearance was where our likeness ended. On a whim last summer, I’d asked Gwen to cut curtain bangs across my forehead. I’d desperately wanted to look like someone else—anyone else, really, other than my mother.
A sly smile tugged at the corners of Gwen’s lips. “You’re getting in quite late.”
I tossed my bag onto a chair with a sigh and collapsed onto my bed. It was hard not to adore Gwen. A stellar student, she often outperformed even upperclassmen in lectures. Her cropped pink hair and signature blue overalls made her easy to spot around campus.
I’d told her all about my illicit liaisons with August last term, knowing she would take my secrets to the grave. Like most students at Ouverham, Gwen came from a wealthy family. But unlike our peers, she didn’t bother feigning superiority; she had little interest in societies or hazing rituals. I respected her for that. It would’ve been so easy for her to join them, to beaccepted as one of them in a way that neither August nor I ever could be. As for her obsession with botany and whiney, blue-haired pop-stars—I certainly wasn’t in a position to judge anyone for their peculiarities.
Without tearing her eyes away from the book she was reading, Gwen said, “We can talk later. You look half asleep already.” She started and dropped her book. “Oh, I almost forgot! August left a package for you while you were out. I put it on your desk next to the one from your mom.”
The package from my mother, sent with a hasty note explaining the contents, had sat on my desk for over a week. She’d asked me to go through some of my father’s things, including a journal, postcards, and a few manuscripts. I hadn’t felt like wading through any of it just yet.
I opened the new package, and my heart sank. It contained an old T-shirt withThe Gargoyle,Ouverham’s student-run newspaper, emblazoned on the back, a toothbrush I hadn’t seen in months, and a book of poetry by Isadora Calloway. Things I’d left or forgotten at August’s dormitory over the course of our relationship.
“When did he drop it off?” I asked.
“He came by earlier, around three.” Gwen frowned.
So August had planned to end things at least as early as this afternoon.
“Is everything… okay with you two?” she asked.