6

The anxiety is relentless.

Feels like worms writhing in my belly. It pumps through my veins, tearing me apart as though icicles spear through me.

Dread .

Sheer, total, and utter dread consumes me.

You’d think I’d be used to feeling this way by now. But all I want to do is curl up into a ball and hide the rest of the year away. I don’t want to leave the dorm room. I want to stay right here, tucked up under my blankets.

But I have to go to the bathroom, bad .

My thighs are clenched tight, and I’m twisted at the oddest angle, all to hold it in.

The weight of my bladder has started to turn on me, more than pressure, sharp pains sear my insides now.

I can’t just go, though.

To get to a bathroom, or even just a closeted toilet, I must walk through either the grand parlour (the biggest common area in the Living Quarter) or cut through the cigar room (open to everyone in their university years).

Dray could be in either one of those rooms.

I’m certain he hasn’t retired for the night, because Serena’s bed curtains are still pinned back to the posts, and her sheets are undisturbed.

She isn’t in the dorm room.

I have no doubt she’s with the Snakes down in the common areas.

And it’s already past midnight.

I don’t know if I can hold it much longer.

How bad would it be if I peed the bed?

A horrid groan twists through me as I roll onto my front. My hands have found their way between my legs, as though I can physically hold it back.

“Oh, gods, just go!” Asta snaps from her curtained bed.

I throw a glower over at her. Of course, she can’t see it from the thick black drapes partially pulled around her. But she can sure hear me writhing and twisting and whining.

“Close your fucking drapes,” I groan. “Then you won’t hear me and have anything to complain about.”

Her response is ice, “If you don’t stop kicking about—” I hear the thump of her fist on a pillow “—I’ll let them in here myself!”

I scowl into my pillow.

Ridiculous, of course.

All sorts of enchantments block the male students from going into the female dorms, even the staircases and corridors that lead to our dorms are shrouded in that magic. To them, there’s an invisible solid wall blocking their way.

Same for us going anywhere near the guy’s quarters.

That means frequent uses of old, empty rooms in the abandoned Faculty Quarter for hook ups, or—my personal experience—a storage cupboard. Not that I get a lot of attention that way.

Best to steer clear of me.

I happen to have a cursed effect on people. Like Corutney and James. Would they be targeted as much as they are if they weren’t friends with me?

Probably not.

Still, they haven’t kicked me to the curb. So I buy them extra nice gifts for New Year.

“Olivia, you’ll be fine.” Courtney’s rough voice is thick with sleep. “Go to the cigar room, it’ll be empty at this time.”

I flip onto my back. And I swear a little pee escapes me.

I huff up at the canopied roof of my bed.

“Where’s Serena?” I groan out the question through gritted teeth.

Asta’s answer is a smushed-pillow-murmur, “With your brother.”

I sit up, legs tangled. “Where?”

“I don’t know,” she groans and chucks a pillow.

It flies through a gap in the drapes and hits the foot of my bed. I watch it lamely topple off the side and hit the floor.

“Last I saw,” she says, “they were headed out of the Living Quarter. They didn’t say where to.”

The implications aren’t lost on me.

Probably gone to a find private room somewhere.

A groan tugs out of me as I roll off the bed.

The moment the blankets slip from my body, the frozen air chills me. The bare flesh of my legs prickle into tiny bumps. I could change into more than just shorts and a t-shirt, but I heavily suspect the slightest bend for the drawers will release all the wee and I’ll wet myself right here.

My only saving grace is the pair of thick bedsocks slumped around my calves. At least the floorboards aren’t ice-blocks on the soles of my feet.

I rush out of the room and— sorry Courtney, but fuck you Asta —slam the door shut behind me.

The wall shudders from the impact.

I’m quick to scurry down the corridor, like a mouse in the dead of night. Hm . That’s about right, actually.

I rush past the first staircase, the wider one whose steps are sheathed in fitted rugs, and I head for the small, narrow one that’s tucked away at the end of the corridor.

I take those down to the cigar room.

Oliver likes an audience, so I’m guessing—and hoping —the Snakes will be in the grand parlour, where the large fireplace roasts everyone, and there are all kinds of card games and pool tables to distract us from our assignments.

The smaller room is the smoke-friendly one, whose windows open to the freshest bursts of winds, but it’s mostly used for quiet moments, isolated drinks, light reading, and letter writing.

In my shorts and t-shirt, even with the heating on blast in this ice-manor, it’s still the Swiss Alps, and I’m freezing my ass off by the time I’m creeping down the last of the steps.

The corridors are quieter than a graveyard before a ritual. All the doors I pass are firmly shut and few have slivers of light wedging out from under them.

I make it to the cigar room in one piece, unharmed.

The door is slightly ajar, letting out a fiery red glow from the fire that must still be burning in the hearth.

I inch towards the door.

My thighs are pressed tight as I peer through the gap.

The flames lash at logs stacked in the hearth. The chairs angled around it, like the leather sofa, are empty.

I push aside the door and take a single, soft step over the threshold.

And I still.

My heart is thrumming in my chest. I feel the beats bobbing in my throat.

I inch my head around the side of the wall.

There, sprawled on the couch pushed against the wall, is a gentry senior, Mikal.

A choppy sound cuts through me and I freeze, as though stuck in the battering winds beyond the walls of Bluestone. But then firelight dances over his freckled face, his eyes shut, lips parted, crimson hair dishevelled, and I recognise that he is deep in sleep.

Still, I hesitate.

Mikal’s reasons for being in this room past midnight might not bode well for me. He might be on the lookout for me. Could be that I’m so conceited that I delude myself, and he really did come in here for some peace, then drifted off.

But then a pained pang strikes my bladder, and I stifle a groan. Takes every clamping muscle in my body to not double over where I stand.

My exhale is a shaky one as I slip through the crack of the door and dash to the other side of the room. The door to the toilets is tucked behind a tapestry that wasn’t here just yesterday, a silly and harmless prank, probably a junior.

I don’t find moving tapestries and furniture all that amusing, but sometimes an original prank rears up from the mundane ones and I might smile a little.

This is not one of those times.

I am quick to drop onto the toilet.

The relief that slumps me is enough to lull my lashes over my eyes. It’s a relaxing thing to finally go after hours of holding it.

My bladder feels the ease, and I feel lighter when I move for the porcelain sink and wash my hands.

I almost forget I’m supposed to be in hiding.

But that familiar fear creeps up my spine once I dry off my hands, and my muscles tense at my shoulders.

Plan: race back to the dorm room as quickly as I can.

I push through the quiet door, freshly oiled hinges an ally, then slip around the tapestry. It crumples behind me, falling back into place.

And I don’t move another step.

My gaze lands on the couch against the wall…

Mikal is gone. No longer sprawled over the cushions.

A sickly wave washes through me.

Now, a dark-haired beauty with skin like olive oil lounges on that very couch.

Serena picks at her glossy, manicured nails. She doesn’t bother to look up at me with her bored gaze, not even turn her face my way. She keeps her cheek to me.

Two armchairs flank the couch.

Landon on one.

Oliver reclines in the other.

And they do look at me, the pair of them.

Landon frowns. The hairs of his brow knit in the middle of his mahogany-hued face, and his thumb flicks over a tear in the arm of the chair.

My brother wears a rare glint of pity in the emerald sheen of his eyes, his mouth flattened into a crooked line.

The audience.

Not the attackers.

I understand it the moment I see them.

Slowly, I turn my cheek to my brother—and I look at the door across the room.

It’s all the way closed now.

And blocked.

Dray is leaning against the door, my only exit, arms folded, ankles crossed, a brooding statue ready to spring to life and cut me down.

My throat thickens with a swallow. A gulp, if I’m completely honest.

Head bowed, Dray’s deadly stare lifts up from beneath his lashes and pierces through me like polished swords.

The silence is deafening. It’s thick and suffocating, and I hardly hear the crackling fireplace through it.

Tremors steal my hands. I clench them into fists at my sides.

For a coward, I’m pretty damn foolish, too. Just never could snuff out that snark in me. Not with Dray, not with Oliver, not even with my father at times.

I get myself into all sorts of bother with this tongue.

“You must have tedious days if you’re seeking me out,” I start, as though my voice doesn’t croak under the weight of my pounding heart, as though he doesn’t see the thrum of it below my clavicle. “Not enough to fill your time?”

Dray’s mouth whispers into a curve.

His smirk is so small and slight that it sends chills down me, all the way to my tailbone. Tiny hairs erect all over my body, as though a thousand invisible spiders are scrambling all over my flesh.

Dray keeps his stare locked onto me from beneath his lashes, a dangerous shadow cast over his face from the dim orange firelight.

“The tray wasn’t meant for you,” he says in a glacier voice, a careful enunciation of each word, and every one feels like a warning. “It was meant for the shrew .”

I don’t flinch at the slur.

It’s one I’m used to in my circles. A ghastly term for a made one. But it’s hardly bothering me right now.

I’m not too concerned with slurs.

I’m concerned that Dray might just shove me into the hearth and watch me burn.

“I know that.” My whisper betrays me. The reveal of my cowardice, like I just need to make myself as small as I can, and then he might leave me alone.

He never does.

Dray arches a shaped, dark eyebrow. Even that feels like an arrow notching. “And you still saw it fit to stop me?”

Dray kicks from the door. In one step, just one step that has my whole body clenching, he unfolds his arms from his chest, then slips his hands into his trouser pockets.

Slowly, casually , he advances on me.

The suspense of it is a torture in itself.

He knows it. That’s why he does it. To quicken my heartrate, to curl my toes, to set my teeth on edge.

“I don’t like my plans to be interfered with, Olivia.” The firelight deepens the dark hues of his sweater, the cashmere turning to spilled ink. “I especially don’t like little waifs —” I frown at the harsh infliction behind the word, like the muscles under my face just won’t submit and twist fully into a scowl. “—spoiling anything I do.”

I lift my chin with the courage I don’t possess.

It’s just attitude, that’s what my grandmother says. ‘ Born bad, this one, a rotten attitude.’

Still, my bottom lip trembles with my voice, “There was a time you didn’t mind anything I did.”

Dray’s smirk fades from his pink lips.

Out the corner of my eye, Oliver shakes his head, a slight gesture. Serena stills, pauses picking at her nails, and slowly, turns her chin to her shoulder.

The scoff comes from Landon, his shoulders jerking with it. A scoff, not of laughter, but disbelief.

I shouldn’t backtalk at all.

I should shut my fucking mouth and get on with it. Take my punishment. But…

I just can’t help it.

My teeth grit around words I force out, “I remember a time you thought everything I did was magnificent, when you thought I was magnificent.”

A dark look settles over Dray’s face, like a conjured storm settles down on the room.

I can’t stop the shiver from clutching me.

He takes a step closer.

My shoulders curve inwards, as though I can cringe away and fall back into safety.

Purely for survival reasons, the last thing I should have done is throw his old childish favouritism in his face. But it’s the only ammo I’ve got, and his sore spot is once fancying a deadblood.

Sometimes, my mouth gets the better of me.

This is one of those times.

“It seems to me,” Dray starts, and his voice is as hard as his steel gaze, “that you not only enjoy bringing dishonour to your family name by being what you are…” His full lips warp around the words, as though rancid on his tongue, “a rotten waif, no better than a krum,” he adds darkly, “but that you also disgrace your society by protecting unworthy shrews.”

“You’re the unworthy one,” I spit back at him, but he’s blurring right in front of me, and when I blink, and feel the heat of tears rolling down my cheeks, the flush of shame is quick to burn my face. I swallow, thick. “Deadbloods happen, and I still carry the magic inside of me. You’re the only disgrace here, Dray. All that power and society at your fingertips, but you waste your time on making my life a living hell. Can you spell pathetic ?”

His eyes flash, and he moves for me.

The warmth of his beige complexion darkens as he leaves the firelight and backs me into the tapestry.

A shuddering breath catches in my throat as he closes in.

He raises his hand, fast.

A flinch strikes me. I stagger back, throwing my hands up to shield myself from a hit that doesn’t come.

That’s what I expect. Dray’s hand to strike across my cheek and knock me to the floor.

But his hand swipes in front of me, the air gusting at the tip of my nose—and I still.

I don’t blink. I don’t cry out.

I don’t move a muscle.

Because I can’t.

Fucking makut.

He froze me.

I’m stiffer than a marble statue against the tapestry.

The arches of my feet are lifted from the floor, all my weight pressing down on my toes, my back twisted to turn me away from him, hands raised to shield myself—and I am stuck this way.

The breath is strained in my chest, but my lungs still inflate and deflate. My eyes don’t move, they are fixed around the side of my hand, at him.

I’m locked in a solid stare with Dray and his mutinous face.

He draws in a long exhale through his nostrils, as if to steady himself. At his sides, his hands curl into fists for a beat, then relax.

But his face doesn’t.

He closes the distance between us in one final step.

Looming over me, the graze of his nose tickles my hairline.

His breath is hot on my skin as he says, “I do hope that the first one to find you here has good intentions. For your sake.”

My lashes would flutter with the shock—but I can do nothing as his mouth presses to my forehead, then lingers. Not a kiss, not quite, but a statement. A mockery, even, of what once transpired between us, the very thing I threw in his face. Our past. Na?ve children who held hands and snuck a chaste kiss here and there, because once upon a time, before it was revealed that I am a witch without magic, before he turned on me with the hatred that rots him inside, we fancied ourselves betrothed.

The kiss he lingers is bitter.

His lips push against my skin, firmer, as he drags his kiss to the curve of my ear. “Don’t ever get in my away again,” he hisses, ice-cold, “ you little, fucking waif .”

The curl of his lips brushes my cheek, his mouth twisting into a silent snarl.

An ache blooms in my chest.

If I could move, my mouth would wobble with the fresh spill of tears streaking down my cheeks, catching on my jaw.

But I can’t move.

Not even as Dray draws back and eyes me over.

The cold burn of his eyes sweeps across my clavicle for a moment, brushes the tears that gloss my lips, then drag down the flimsy t-shirt that does little to conceal my body.

My heart races.

It’s thundering against the shelter of my ribcage.

If I could move, I would barrel through the door at my back, scramble through the tapestry, and lock myself in the water closet.

But I’m forced motionless as his gaze runs down the shorts clinging to my lower body, shorts meant for bed, for the privacy of the girls’ dorms, not for his eyes.

There, his gaze lingers for a moment before they snap up—and a breath of fright cuts me.

It’s enough.

A smirk ghosts over the pinkish hue of his lips before, finally, he turns his back on me.

Tears obscure my sight. I feel them dance in my eyes like watery ripples before they spill down my hot cheeks.

Still, I watch them go, the Snakes.

Landon is first to the door. He holds it open.

I see each of them leave. I count them, Serena, whose glacier pace is too at ease, then my brother, who seems to shove his shoulder into Dray’s as he passes by, but still, my brother leaves me—he always does.

Then the devil himself pauses at the door. His chin turns to his shoulder—and looks back at me, face like stone.

He holds my stare for a moment. One heartbeat, two, then his jaw clenches, tight, before he’s shoving through the door.

It slams shut behind him.

Then clicks with a lock.

I am alone.

I am solidified.

And already, I am fucking sore.