That didn’t mean I was happy or anything, standing there and looking at Shane’s empty fucking casket. All it meant was that my eyes were dry. Conspicuously so.
As if I didn’t already stand out enough.
I’d heard the whispers when I arrived. Twenty first-years in proper mourning colors, and here comes the Crow, wearing yet another pair of grey school sweats over his bandages. Asshole didn’t bother to dress up for his own friend’s funeral. Even Wormhole had given me a look halfway between outrage and dismay.
Wasn’t like I had anything else to wear. Wasn’t like I had any intention of telling them that either. They could go on assuming whatever the fuck they wanted.
Sometimes, I wonder how much shit I might’ve avoided if I hadn’t been so concerned with my own pride.
It wasn’t just first-years in the clearing, of course. Standing just past the casket was a row of faculty—Gabriella Stein conspicuous in her absence. And in front of his staff was the man himself, Jonathan Bard.
When I’d first met Bard outside his office, the dean had looked barely twenty—indistinguishable from any other graduate student at the Academy. Behind his desk, he’d looked closer to mid-thirties, baby face tempered by the mantle of authority.
Today, he looked almost as old as Amos, empty eyes fixed on the equally empty box in front of him.
“I met Shane when he was twelve,” he finally said, his legendary voice scratched and worn. “He was in the hospital with his parents. Not because he was sick, but because other people were, and he wanted to help. His powers were barely active back then but he spent every weekend at L.A. General, doing what he could. Listening. Talking. Showing people that they weren’t alone.” He shook his head. “When his parents introduced us, he told me ‘I’m going to make places like this unnecessary.’ Just those words, from a twelve year old who looked even younger than his age, but I believed him. More importantly, I believed he would try. Not for glory. Not for endorsements, or money, or fame, but because he saw suffering and wanted to fix it. That’s who Shane was. The man you called Unicorn.”
Bard cleared his throat.
“During Orientation, I told you all that nobody makes it out of the Cape business alive. Over the past two decades, I’ve buried far too many former students. But they were all former students. The Academy is meant to be a place of safety, where you encounter nothing scarier than Nikolai’s training sessions, or one of Amos’ infamous pop quizzes. This is where you have the freedom to learn what it is to be a Cape without worrying that you’ll pay that price prematurely. Yet here we are. Shane Stevenson is dead, and his dream is dead with him. That means we failed him. This school failed him. I failed him.” He scanned the crowd of silent first-years, his gaze touching on each of us.
“Each of you is more than the power you’ve been gifted. You are young men and women, with hopes and dreams, fears and ambitions. You matter as individuals. Unicorn was a once-in-a-generation talent, but I urge you to remember who he was instead of what. There will be other Healers. There will be people similarly dedicated to removing suffering from the world. There will never be another Shane. Remember him. Honor him. In your own ways, try to emulate him.” For the first time, Bard motioned to the faculty members behind him. “Your teachers will be having a remembrance ceremony tonight at Amos’ house, here on campus. You are all welcome to attend. In the meantime, we will leave you to say your farewells in peace. Please use this time and space to honor his memory.”
It was a good thought. Respectful. Appropriate.
Guess it won’t shock any of you to hear that it all went to hell.
Or that I was at the center of the chaos, as fucking usual.
CHAPTER 38
I don’t like graveyards. That’s a weird thing for a Crow to say, but it’s true. Never have, and probably never will. The clearing behind Bard’s office wasn’t a graveyard, the casket wasn’t really a coffin, and Shane’s body sure as hell wasn’t anywhere inside of it, but even so, a part of me was back in the cemetery where Mom had been buried.
I looked down at the empty box and couldn’t find any words to say.
I was the tenth or so first-year to visit the casket, but the others had gone in groups of two or three, clutching each other, crying, maybe even whispering some sort of goodbye or farewell, as if the little ginger was there and could hear them.
I was by myself, still dry-eyed, still silent, doing my best to ignore the eyes I could feel on me. Maybe if I’d had something to say, or if the weather had been shit, or if the other first-years hadn’t happened to go still and quiet at that exact same moment, I wouldn’t have heard her.
“It should have been him instead.”
The words were whispered, but that whisper carried through the still air.
Olympia.
Two guesses who she was talking about.
I don’t do grief well, but anger? Anger is my fucking kingdom. I spun away from Unicorn’s empty coffin, and found her standing fifteen feet back with London, her silver eyes going wide with the realization that I’d heard.
“What did you say?”
Nine times out of ten, Olympia would’ve flinched just from me speaking to her. She’d have run away, I’d have felt like some sort of monster, and the standard cycle of Lightbringer-Crow bullshit would have kept on swirling.
This time,
