Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Nati

Despite knowing it’s foolish, I make my way to the same seat in Divination as last week, hoping that I’ll end up next to Meic again. I want to pretend that it’s because he seems to be good at reading tea leaves, and I need all the help I can get, but I know that isn’t really it. There’s just something about him that makes me want to spend time with him.

“This is ridiculous, Nati,” I mutter to myself.

Frank slithers out of my hair and gives a soft hiss of agreement.

“Yes, I know you don’t like him.” Which is definitely a bit of a problem when it seems as if there’s a part of me that does like him. Though it’s not a part that I don’t like to give in to.

And I need to get it under control or at some point, his terrible lines are going to work on me. If I didn’t have snakes attached to my head and gorgon magic to contend with, I would probably have done so already and gotten the ridiculous attraction I have towards him out of the way so I can focus on everything else that needs my attention.

Students file into the room and I try not to look at any of them to see when Meic is going to join me. When the ghoul finally enters the room, he seems more serious than normal. I don’t know what it is about him today, but something seems off. Maybe it’s because his tie is actually straight and his top button is done up, which is an unusual sight for him.

“Good morning, Nathara,” he says as he takes a seat beside me.

I frown. “Since when do you use my full name?” I hadn’t even realised he knew it.

“Just trying to be serious.” He sets his books down in front of me.

“Well, unless you’re a seventy-year-old Scottish gorgon who gave birth to my mother, you can call me Nati.”

“That’s very specific.”

“Mmm, and last I checked, you’re none of those things. Unless you’re hiding some snakes somewhere.”

I wait for a joke about the snake in his pants.

“No snakes,” he responds.

I blink a few times. Really? After months of terrible flirting, he’s passing up a line that I’ve more or less handed to him. I should be relieved about that after so long telling him to stop, but instead, I just find it weird.

He may have spent months making crude comments and suggestions, and I’ve spent months rolling my eyes and telling him to stop. And now one missed comment and I’m feeling as if something is off.

Professor Bishop enters the room, making everyone fall silent. “Good morning, everyone,” he says. “We’re going to be continuing to learn about looking at tea leaves today.”

Oh good, that’s going to mean I can have more opportunities to talk to Meic and discover whether his missing one opportunity is just a fluke, or if he’s really stopped them all.

“If you turn to page sixty-four of your textbooks, you’ll find instructions and tips on the best way to interpret multiple things from the same set of tea leaves. That’s what you should start with.”

I sigh. Of course, we’re moving onto advanced stuff when I’m still yet to see anything in the tea leaves at all. I try not to let my frustration show, but Meic still seems to notice.

Somehow.

“I can help,” he says softly.

I snort. “Of course you can.”

“I know how to do this already, remember.”

“Some kind of ghoul magic?” I ask, genuinely curious. I don’t know much about ghouls, and even if I was a little curious to investigate after learning he was one, I decided against it.

He shrugs. “Maybe, I’ve never actually asked. But my Gran always used to say that anyone can learn to do anything if they set their mind to it.”

“Hmmm.”

“She also told me not to make snap judgements about people.”

“Well, Nanna told me that the best way to deal with someone annoying is to turn them into stone,” I respond.

He nods. “I guess that kind of advice makes sense from a gorgon.”

I stare at him for a moment, in complete disbelief that he’s let go of an opportunity to say something about me making him into stone without even trying.

I don’t ask him about it. Mostly because I know there’s nothing I can say, not after I’ve spent months telling him not to make jokes like that.

The cups of tea arrive, making it so that I don’t actually have to come up with anything smart, which is a relief, I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job at interacting today.

The tea doesn’t smell any better than last time, and I wrinkle my nose at the thought of having to drink it again. “You’d have thought they could at least give us decent tea,” I mutter.

“Probably too expensive,” Meic responds.

“Do the different kinds create different readings?”

“Not as far as I know,” he responds. “But I don’t know that much about reading tea leaves, just the basics.”

“Oh.” I look down at my cup. “Well, I guess it’s best to just get this part over with.” I drink down the tea, trying not to taste it as it goes down. It’s not the best, but I think it could be worse. Or that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.

The dredges of tea leaves at the bottom don’t look particularly appealing, but I know that’s kind of the point.

I stare at the bottom of the cup and try to make sense of what I’m seeing, but no matter what I do, I can’t get any divining to come to me.

“I’m never going to get this,” I mutter.

“You will,” Meic promises. “Want me to help?”

“To read my leaves for me?”

He shakes his head. “Here.” He stands up and comes to stand behind me. “You’re holding the cup too close.” He reaches out and almost touches my hand, but I flinch away, the response natural after so long spent avoiding touching people, and even overriding the inner need I have to be close to Meic.

He doesn’t press the issue and instead holds his hand about a foot away from my face. “You should hold your cup here,” he says.

I clear my throat, doing as he suggests. “Okay, now what?”

“Close your eyes.” His voice is low, and his breath tickles my ear, making me extremely aware of his proximity even if we aren’t touching. This isn’t like any interaction I’ve ever had with Meic before, and it’s making me hyper-aware of everything about him, including a fresh linen scent from his shirt, and something that must be just him.

A soft rattle comes from my hair as Frank finally makes an appearance, though he doesn’t seem as bothered about Meic’s closeness as usual. Maybe his feelings about Meic are more tied to my own than I thought, and now I’m being a bit calmer around him, so is Frank.

Or maybe he just hasn’t had enough sleep.

“How does closing my eyes help?” I ask.

“It helps you get rid of some of the distractions,” he responds.

“And introduces a lot more,” I mutter.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I respond faster than I should. “So now what?”

“Open your eyes and focus on the tea leaves in front of you.”

I do as he suggests and look down into the cup, seeing a load of shapes take form that almost make sense, but not quite.

“I don’t know what any of it means.”

“Draw it,” he suggests, pulling a piece of paper and a pen towards me.

“Really?”

He nods. “Sometimes it’ll make more sense if you try to process it that way. And even if it doesn’t, it’ll make it easier to see what it means. Especially when we’re supposed to be looking for multiple meanings.”

“Which seems extra hard when I’m yet to work out one.”

“Just try, Nati,” he says softly.

He finally steps back, and I surprise myself by realising I miss him being so close.

I sigh and grab the pen, starting to draw out the shapes I can see in the cup. I still don’t know what any of them mean, but I think I can sense that there are different sections to what I’m seeing.

Meic turns his attention back to his cup, though he doesn’t seem to be having the same issues as I am.

I pull my textbook closer and look at the instructions, trying to make sense of what I’ve drawn but coming up with nothing.

“Meic?” I ask hesitantly.

He looks up, his dark eyes piercing into me in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. There’s an intensity I’m not used to, and it seems to have a lot more depth than he normally exhibits.

“Nati,” he responds.

“Please help me.”

He nods. “What have you got so far?”

“Well, if I’m reading the textbook right, this part here is talking about my career.” I point to the part at the top of my drawing.

He nods.

“I guess that means my time here at Blackthorn?”

“Probably,” he responds. “I don’t think it’s meant to always be literal.”

“Which is why all the instructions are so vague.”

He chuckles. “Probably. What does it say?”

I frown and pick up the cup, staring at that particular part of the tea leaves. “I think...it’s saying that I’m going to fail an exam?”

“Let me see?”

I hand the cup to him, hyper-aware of how close our fingers come to touching. A tiny voice in my head urges me to let it happen, but there’s also the feeling I normally get of not wanting to touch other people either.

I let go of the cup without doing anything and he proceeds to look into it.

“Ah, I see. You’re almost there. It’s more that you’re worrying you’re going to fail an exam, but if you keep doing that, then you will. If you relax, you’ll probably pass.”

I snort. “Seriously? That’s supposed to help me pass?”

“I’m just telling you what the leaves say,” he responds and hands me my cup back.

I look back down at the drawing, comparing it to what the textbook says. “I think this part is about my...er...my sex life.” I run my finger over a few squiggles at the bottom of my drawing.

Meic clears his throat. “Yes.”

“Well, this is going to be interesting,” I mutter, picking up the cup and trying to focus on what that part says. My vision blurs and a sense of the future comes to me, stronger than before. “This can’t be right.”

“What is it?” Meic asks.

“It’s saying that I’m going to discover something new.”

“That doesn’t sound unbelievable.” He takes the cup from me and then clears his throat. “Yes, that’s what it says.”

“There’s something else, isn’t there?”

“No.” The way he says it makes me think his denial is a little too quick.

“Meic...”

“It’s nothing,” he responds. “You got that one right.”

“It’s still not believable. How am I going to try something new when I don’t have a boyfriend?”

He shrugs. “One night stand?”

“Not my thing.” And dangerous when it comes to the snakes. I wouldn’t trust a stranger’s health to chance in that situation.

“Maybe it’s something else,” he says. “Last week it said you were going to accept your fated mate.”

“Hmm. True.”

“So, yeah, maybe that’s it.” He looks everywhere but at me and fidgets in a way that makes me feel like he’s hiding something.

I frown. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason.” Only that he missed an opportunity to suggest that he could be the one to teach me something new. I don’t know what’s gotten into Meic, but it’s weird.

And I’m not sure I actually like it.