“You’re not allowed in here,” I said. This time, it wasn’t something I’d made up. There were strict rules about being in the dorms of the opposite sex. Forcing my feet to move, I tried to appear nonchalant that I was holding my bathrobe draped over one arm with some panties tucked in my underarm.
“What happened to your room?” Max asked. “I can’t scent a single thing in there.” How in the world did he know something had happened? The façade of nonchalance that he’d always affected was gone from his voice. He was every inch a merciless alpha lion at the moment.
“Nothing. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
He tried to reach out when I slid past, but the look I gave him was scathing. His hand curled into a fist mid-air. He didn’t drop it entirely. We looked like we were standing in the hall playing a game of rock, paper, scissors. I’m sure he was used to doing whatever he wanted. It must be killing him not to just grab me and shake the answers from me.
“Did somebody try to hurt you?”
“I don’t know. I’m really tired.” It couldn’t be further from the truth. “Do you mind?” I inclined my head towards the door. He’d need to get out of my way so I could pass with all the stuff I was holding on to. Even though the hallway was dim, the night-glow quality of shifter eyes meant that I could see his perfectly. They were an intense moonlit grey that watched me with unwavering focus.
“I heard the guards say something clawed up your wall.” I didn’t say a word. “Sophie!”
The way he said my name made something inside me snap. “Listen,” I said. “I’m not really sure why you’re here.” I held up the cauldron past my hip. It really was weighing me down. “This isn’t really edible.”
This time he did grab me by the wrist. The cauldron was out of my hands before I knew it. He took a long sniff of the contents. His eyes widened. No way. There was no way he could distinguish the ingredients under the cover of all that chilli.
“Why are you making a chilli with winterflower?” Oh this was not good. He had the best sense of smell I’d ever encountered. I gulped.
“I’ve been feeling really tired. It’ll help me catch up on my Potions assignment for the end of the year.” I tried to sidle past.
“I don’t smell any fatigue on you.”
“That’s about the creepiest thing anybody has ever said to me.” I took the cauldron back. “I need to go.” I paused with my hand on the doorknob. After what had happened tonight, everyone was a suspect. Yet I couldn’t help turning around. “The guards are going to be passing by routinely.”
I didn’t hear him leave after I closed the door. To be fair, I hadn’t heard him move while he was there so who knew whether he was actually gone. He was right about one thing, the room looked like it had been sandblasted clean. Professor Mortimer had probably just magicked everything away. There was no scent. I dropped my clothes on the new bed that the Nephilim had to have teleported in. The cauldron went on my empty nightstand. I’d had a photo of my parents but the glass frame had been shattered. Moving to the wall, I placed my hand against the plaster. It was just a coating. The wall itself was made of stone. Everything felt hospital sanitary. Yet I swore I could feel the residue of something not quite right.
I raised my palm and traced the word remember with my fingers. Curling my hand into a fist, I grit my teeth. Okay. If I couldn’t remember what it was I needed, I would just have to stay awake until it came back to me.
It took me a few minutes to set up the circle. Unlike in a normal school, there were no rules against open flames here. It would have been impossible to enforce. I’d picked up a few candles and some chalk at Professor Mortimer’s cottage. His cupboard was a spell worker’s dream.
I placed the cauldron down on the floating wooden floorboards. Around it, I drew three wide concentric circles using pink chalk. Each circle was bigger than the other until they took up all the available floor space. I drew six lines bisecting the circles at even intervals. At the origin of each line on the outermost circle, I place a white candle. Runes was a subject I was still trying to get my head around. To be honest, they all kind of looked the same to me. At home, I’d spent more time trying to decipher the moods of the shifters than I’d spent learning the arcane language.
I had to use a textbook to pick the ones I needed. After drawing the marks in each of the quadrants around the circle, I sat down on the chalk outline with the cauldron in front of me. “Ignite.” As soon as I spoke the words, a small pink flame burst beneath the bottom of the cauldron. I wasn’t a fire mage but being a kitchen witch had some advantages. I couldn’t make the flame any bigger than my palm but it would be enough to heat up the chilli.
Closing my eyes, I directed my magic at each of the candles in turn. One by one they flared until each was lit and the room was bathed in a soft pink glow. I took in a deep breath. Exhaling from my nose, I forced my eyes around this small room that had been my home during the school year. I might not have loved it here socially, but the fact I was able to call forth fire so readily was a testament to the education I was receiving.
Nobody was going to make me
