Chapter 40

40

R hi

It seems none of the students have taken Spencer’s advice. No one is sleeping tonight. The campus is alive with noise as we walk down to Stone’s cabin, groups gathered on the pathways, hanging out of windows or crammed into different rooms. They fall silent as we walk past them, staring at us like we’re unicorns or made of diamonds or are gods themselves. It makes me a little uncomfortable, but Tristan, Spencer and Renzo lap it up. In fact, Renzo keeps giving little waves or blowing kisses like he’s royalty.

I’m relieved when we make it down to the meadow away from everyone else, even if Pip does bitch about the walk through the long grass and I’m obliged to pick him up.

“Seriously,” Stone mutters, “that pig gets more love and affection than all the rest of us combined. ”

“That’s because he’s special,” I tell him.

“And we’re not?” Spencer asks with mischief.

“Hmm,” I say, shrugging and pretending to be nonchalant.

“Such a brat,” Stone says, eyes darkening and I pick up my pace, eager to arrive at the cabin.

Maybe it’s seriously morbid, but none of us knows what’s going to happen tomorrow, whether or not we’ll be successful. We can hope we will be, we can plan and pray and wish to make it that way. But there are no dreams forthcoming to indicate either way. Which means, it’s a very good chance that tonight could be our final night together, and I am determined to make it a special one.

However, any plans I may have had receive a large bucketful of ice cold water. The door to Stone’s cabin has been kicked in and there are books and possessions strewn all over the front decking.

“Seems I’ve had one or two visitors while I’ve been away,” Stone says, climbing the porch steps and picking up one of the books, tutting with disapproval as he strokes his hand over the cover with tenderness, as if he’s nursing the book. The professor, for all his sarcastic tough guy impressions, is one giant nerd.

Cradling the book in his arms, he strides through the gap in the doorway and then a minute later, strides straight back out, two more books in his arms and a massive frown on his face.

“It’s been completely trashed. Sorry, Rhi, we’re not staying here tonight.”

“Couldn’t we do a little repair job with our magic?” I ask.

“I think it best we conserve all our magic for tomorrow,” Azlan tells me .

“Then where are we going to go? I doubt my room has fared much better and it wasn’t exactly a great room to begin with.”

“It was shit,” Renzo says, eyeing up the others like that was their fault.

“My room is probably the same,” Spencer mutters.

“Then it’ll have to be mine,” Tristan says, already heading off across the meadow.

“Won’t they have trashed yours too?” I ask, trotting to keep up with him.

“I’m still the Lord Protector’s son even if I am a traitor. I suspect no one will have dared touch it.”

We go back the way we came, past all the onlookers, and inside the more glamorous of the dorm buildings – you know, one of the ones with paint work, light bulbs and curtains. Tristan’s room is up on the top floor and we find the door to his room undisturbed. In fact, the entire room appears untouched when he unlocks the door.

Azlan makes us hang back nonetheless, searching for bugs.

“Bugs?” I say.

“Not the insect kind, sweetheart,” Stone says, “the kind that listen to you.”

“Oh,” I say watching as Azlan looks under the bed, underneath the mattress and behind the blinds.

“I can’t sense any,” he says, “and I can’t see any either.”

“It probably doesn’t matter anyway,” Tristan says, tossing his jacket towards the desk chair. “They must know we’re here. They know about the prophecy, Rhianna and the five of us.” He spins around waving his hands, then halting and changing the hand gesture to something more crude. “If you’re watching this dad, you can go to hell! ”

“Isn’t that where he came from?” Spencer mutters, flopping down on the bed.

“Probably. Only seems fair that we send him back there tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” I ask him, placing Pip on the floor. “He is your dad, Tristan. It’s okay to feel conflicted about this.”

“I spent my life wishing he was dead,” he says, staring into my eyes with a steely determination and once again I’m reminded of all those healed bones and unseen scars inside Tristan Kennedy’s body.

Hell, it makes me even more determined to kill Christopher Kennedy.

The dark magic soars in my veins at the very idea, hot and violent, and I close my eyes trying to drive it away.

“Okay, Piglet?” Tristan says, coming closer.

“I … I just don’t like the idea of killing people. Even if they are shitheads.” Am I lying? My dark magic likes the idea a lot.

“Yeah,” he says. He walks back to his desk and starts to rummage through the contents. I follow him over, intrigued. I think I know Tristan Kennedy much better than I did, but there are parts of him which are still a mystery to me, parts that still seem conflicting. Partly, I realize, it’s down to that mask he’s always worn, one I’ve come to understand was necessary growing up with a dad like his.

I peek over his shoulder, curious about what Tristan Kennedy keeps in his desk drawer, somewhere I can tell by the worn-out patch on this otherwise pristine carpet; he must have spent an awful lot of his time here. On one side of the drawer, there is a neat line of rolled-out joints, a bag of marijuana and several scribbled notes and diagrams in Coach Hank and Spencer’s hands. On the other side, sits another row, this time of carefully sharpened pencils as well as a pad of sketching paper.

“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to the pad. He’s printed his name neatly in the top right-hand corner of the cover – it seems at odds with his nonchalant attitude.

“What?” he says as he scrutinizes each joint in turn.

“What’s the pad?”

His eyes flick that way and he drops all the joints but one back in the drawer and attempts to shut it. “Nothing,” he mutters. Which of course only piques my curiosity even further.

“If it’s nothing, can I see?”

“No,” he says, positioning his body between me and the desk.

“Why not?”

“It’s private,” he says, and am I imagining this or is Tristan Kennedy actually blushing?

“It’s probably his porn,” Renzo calls out from the bed where he’s made himself comfortable beside Spencer, Pip splayed out across his lap as he gives him belly tickles.

“It’s not porn,” Tristan mumbles.

“Then what is it?” I ask, with a frown, attempting to dodge around him, now convinced it’s some elaborate plan he was working on to take me out back in the days when he wasn’t exactly being nice to me.

“I told you, nothing.”

“That’s really convincing,” Spencer chuckles.

“Tristan,” I say, “you can move or I can blast you with my magic.”

“You’re meant to be conserving your magic, remember what Azlan said.”

I place my hands on my hips and glare at him .

“Fuck it,” he mutters, rolling his spliff between his fingers and going to drop down on the floor next to the bed.

I’m a little shocked he caved in so easily and open the drawer with caution, half expecting it to be booby-trapped and explode in my hands. It doesn’t. It slides open easily and I stare down at the pad. Now I feel guilty. It’s his private property. I have no business rummaging through it. That guilt lasts two seconds, then I’m cradling it in my hand and flipping over the cover. I start at the front. The first page is a detailed pencil sketch of Tristan’s face. A self portrait. I snigger. I knew the boy was vain, but seriously?

“It’s not that bad,” he mutters, puffing on the joint to get it to light.

“The drawing skills or the face?” I giggle.

“Both.”

“They are both very … striking.”

Tristan peers up at his friend. “Is that good?”

“Dude,” Spencer says, “I have no idea what either of you are talking about.”

I flip over that page and look at the next. Several light sketches of a flower, one I’ve seen growing by the side of the paths across the campus. The next one is a sketch of one of the suits of armor that stood in the Great Hall and another two of his face, then one of Spencer, followed by the academy mansion from the front.

He’s talented, very talented, capturing not only the dimensions and detail of buildings, but the personality and humanity of people too. I settle myself down on the desk chair, resting the book in my lap, completely absorbed as the aroma of weed, coffee and finally dinner fill the penthouse.

I’m waiting for all the pictures of half-nude girls, or most probably completely nude girls. Tristan’s slept with enough of them. I’m sure they’ve been more than willing to pose for him. And if they haven’t, I bet he gets sent nudes daily.

I bet they’re kept at the back of this book. I shouldn’t look. It’ll only make me mad or jealous. But once again my self-control is pitiful. I flip to the back. I don’t find naked girls. I find myself. My face staring right back up at me.

I let out an involuntary gasp.

“What?” Azlan asks, placing a bowl of noodles down on the desk next to me.

“Look,” I say, holding the book up to him.

“That’s … beautiful,” Azlan says, “who drew that?”

“Tristan,” I say, jerking my chin towards his cousin.

“Let’s see,” Spencer calls.

I twist the book around and hold it up to him.

“Shit, man,” Spencer mumbles, “is there anything you can’t do?”

“Travel through space and time,” Renzo says, scrubbing Pip’s belly.

“Bet I could learn, though?” Tristan says with a lazy smile. Renzo snorts, Pip echoing him.

I turn the book around and flip over the next few pages. That isn’t the only drawing of me. There are others. Lots of others. My face full on, tilted to the side, looking down, looking up, a sketch of my entire profile, one of my hands. There’s even one of me crouched down stroking Pip’s head.

The others have already moved onto another topic – the merits of weight training. But when I peer Tristan’s way, I find he isn’t listening, he’s watching me. I guess he’s always been watching me.

Maybe any normal girl would find that damn creepy or disturbing. Not me, I find it … I find it hot. He wasn’t lying. He told me he’s been obsessed with me since the day we met and it seems that was the truth .

“I’m keeping this one,” I tell him, pointing to the one of me and Pip, as the others chatter around us.

“It’s all yours, Piglet,” he says. “You can have all of them if you want.”

I flick back to the sketch he did of himself and the one of Spencer and decide yes, I will be keeping all of it. I close the book and holding it to my chest, abandon my untouched noodles and go to sit next to him on the floor, our backs resting against the wall. Tristan’s penthouse apartment may be big but it has a serious lack of home comforts – like chairs for instance.

“When all of this is over,” I say, “do you think you could sketch Azlan, Stone and Renzo too?”

“I’m pretty shit at it,” he mumbles, “but if you–”

I laugh. “Are you actually being modest for once, Tristan Kennedy?”

“My dad didn’t like me wasting my time with things like drawing,” he says, hooking his arm around my shoulder and offering me the spliff.

I shake my head and he passes it on to Spencer.

“It isn’t a waste of time,” I tell him. “Creating things so beautiful never could be.”

“That’s lucky,” he says grinning, “because I intend to spend a lot of time drawing you.”

“You’re not eating,” Azlan says, from the other side of the room, where he’s sunk into the only other available seating option – a beanbag, his knees almost hitting his chin.

“I’m not hungry,” I admit.

“You should still eat.”

I take the fork from Tristan’s bowl, swivel noodles around the prongs and shove the lot into my mouth. “Satisfied?” I ask with a full mouthful.

“No,” Azlan says, giving me one of his fierce looks. One that means I’ll be doing exactly as he commands and eating all my noodles. When it comes to Azlan, I have a hard time being a brat.

“Don’t they usually give you a really good meal for your final one?” Renzo says, poking the noodles with his fork, Pip watching intently, practically drooling on his lap.

“It’s ramen noodles,” Stone says. “What’s not to like?”

“It’s too spicy,” he moans and I smile to myself. Ears, spice, me. I’m beginning to gather a list of all the assassin’s weak spots. “Do you want some, little man?”

“Do not feed Pip spice!” I say, leaping to my feet.

“Why not? Will he turn into a demon?” Stone says, eyeing my pig.

“No, but he will vomit straight for several hours.”

“Remind me why you own a pet pig again?”

I don’t answer that question. It’s something I haven’t been honest about. I’m still too scared to tell them in case they make me give Pip up.

I beckon Pip to follow me and he shuffles off Renzo’s lap and follows me through the penthouse to the kitchenette area. I spend the next few minutes nosing through Tristan’s cupboards, disappointed to find, just like Azlan’s, a serious lack of chocolates and candy. I do find some cereal bars through and I unwrap them and offer them up to Pip.

“Here,” I tell him. “Eat these and do not go snuffling after noodle leftovers. Do you hear me?” He snorts as if that would never in a million years occur to him when we both know he’s been plotting it. “Pip,” he halts his demolition of the bars to look up at me, “erm, would you mind, you know, staying in here for a bit?” My pig glares at me with obvious disapproval. “Don’t look at me that way. These might be our last moments together. And they’re my fated mates. And, you know, hot.” Pip squeaks, clearly disagreeing with that last statement. “Sorry, Pipsqueak, but they are.”

Pip huffs and turns his attention back on the cereal bars. He may not be happy about it, but he’s going to give us our space and our privacy.

I look back out to the living area and take a deep inhale. My belly is full of butterflies, my nerves ringing with anticipation.

If this is going to be my final night on earth, then I’m going to make it a night to remember.