Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Shy and Roundtable

I’d left home early so I could get to school and search for Vera, but I haven’t exited my Jeep before Natalie shoves her phone in my face. She stands there, glaring at me while I read through a stream of intimate messages between one of my best friends and a human boy from our rival school. I press my lips together, jaw locking tight. A headache’s forming at my temple, fueled by the pain pulsing up my arm from the hellhound bite I received last night outside Anora’s house. I used a small amount of Mom’s medic supplies to doctor my arm, but apparently not enough.

I’m not going to have a good day.

I don’t need to ask where Natalie got the screenshots, I know well enough—Roundtable.

“Has—?”

“Jacobi crashed the site,” Natalie says, guessing my thoughts. “It’s back up, of course, minus the conversation, but the damage has been done.”

Not surprising. I’m sure there are a number of students who saved the images just as Natalie had done. And even though Jacobi can work magic, I’ve long suspected part of the reason Roundtable isn’t taken down for good is someone in the Order finds it beneficial for “gathering information.”

“Where is Lily?”

“Bathroom in the library. She won’t talk to me.”

I sigh, rubbing my temple where the pain has gone from a dull ache to a sharp pain. I get out of the Jeep and reach for my bag.

“Did you know?” Natalie’s question takes me by surprise, and I turn to face her.

“What?”

“Did you know she was seeing a human?”

I shoulder my backpack and walk past Natalie toward Covington, where the library is located.

“Why do you think Lily would share that information with me?”

“She shares everything with you.” Her voice is tinged with jealousy.

“Not that.” Lily and I have a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. It’s a safety measure for situations just like this.

Lily was one of Natalie’s closest friends, but they’d become distant over the summer. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s when her relationship with the human began. Lily probably didn’t want to face Natalie’s judgment.

“It isn’t like I could have kept her from seeing him anyway.”

“She should have known better.”

“And you wonder why Lily won’t talk to you? The righteous prophet.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Shy. You know the rules just as well as me. This is serious.”

I know it’s serious, but you can’t tell me Lily’s the first Valryn to mess around with a human. She just got caught. Now she’ll have to face the elites and her father, who is a commander like mine. She will be questioned about the relationship and forced to give details that will only add to her shame. The “severity” of her “disobedience” will determine her punishment, which will range anywhere from probation to exile.

The embarrassment of having her relationship advertised on Roundtable is all extra.

The details of Lily’s relationship aren’t for me to speculate, and I’m not going to be the one to ask Lily how far things went. She is going to get enough of that just as soon as the Order becomes aware of her…transgressions.

Just using that word feels like a betrayal in itself.

Entering Covington is like stepping back in time. The walls alternate between dark wood panels and white stucco. The ceilings are arched, exposing decorative woodwork. As I top the stairs leading to the first floor, I turn to the right and head downstairs. The girl’s restroom is directly to the left of the stairwell. I knock on the door and call, “Lily! It’s Shy. Open up!”

I pause for a moment, giving her a chance to answer. Just as I start to knock again, the door opens, and Lily appears. Her eyes are watery and swollen. Her usually clear skin is red and patchy, and she holds a shaky hand over her mouth and nose.

Seeing her like this makes everything in my chest hurt.

“Shy—” Her voice breaks, and I pull her to me, turning so her back is to Natalie, who stands aside, hugging herself, looking very much alone.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Lily buries her head in my chest, and my shirt soaks through with tears and snot and saliva. We stand like this for a long while, and when Lily finally pulls away, Natalie has left, either because I accomplished something she couldn’t or because she doesn’t want to be late for class.

“I should go,” Lily says quietly, not meeting my gaze as she wipes her swollen face with the backs of her hands. She takes a deep breath that trembles as she exhales and then says, “I didn’t sleep with him.”

“I wouldn’t care if you did.”

She smiles, but it doesn’t touch her eyes. “Sometimes I don’t want to be what we are.”

I nod. “I know.”

There are definitely days when I hate what I am. Yesterday was one of them.

Lily takes a deep breath and retrieves her bag.

I offer to walk her to class, but she insists on going alone. As I approach Emerson, Vera’s empty noose remains overhead, and I’m reminded of my agenda for today: Vera is not present over the doors of the building. Her rounds are like clockwork—she hangs until ten and then wanders until school ends at three. I turn and move toward the woods nearest Emerson, sliding my backpack off my shoulder. I shift into my raven form, flying the path Vera takes through the woods, straying from time to time to check thicker brush, but do not find her.

Not that I expected to—I’ve mostly been hoping. A missing soul isn’t good, but there are a number of reasons she might be gone. It is no secret Vera is an old spirit, and her energy attracts all sorts of creatures. What if she summoned a darkling beyond the power of our barrier? Or a death-speaker decided to harness her energy for some dark purpose of their own? There is a third possibility, but with Roth so close to becoming luminary, I don’t want to consider it. Not yet.

I’m not looking forward to my next move. I’m going to have to ask Natalie if she reported Vera’s absence to the Order, something that is going to open the floor for interrogation. At the very least, she’s going to want to know where I was last night. For now, I’ve got to get to class and at least pretend I’m a normal high school student who cares about being here.

After my last class of the morning, instead of finding Natalie or doing what the Order would expect of me, I go in search of Anora. The tug in my chest is a reminder that she’s here, and the need to see her is a clawing, almost desperate thing. There are too many questions spinning through my head, and Anora seems to be at the heart of all of them.