I sat up and rubbed my eyes and my face. I couldn’t have slept for more than an hour, but my body felt so stiff and my mind so foggy, that it felt like I’d slept for a day and a night.
“I had the strangest dream…”
“What was it about?” Paz asked me as he helped me up.
“I met a girl who looked like me but wasn’t me, and she told me that there are many me’s in the universes around us, and that I could travel there if I wanted to.”
“You’re right. That is the strangest dream.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
On Wednesday night, it wasn’t easy to sneak out after curfew. Morningstar still hadn’t paid Crassus, so the Unseelie guard was very demotivated when it came to keeping an eye on me. I teleported outside the walls of the Academy, spent about ten minutes looking around and waiting to see if anyone was coming for me, then teleported again in Salem, right where Stepan had told me to meet him. I had to make sure that the Headmaster hadn’t found a way to track me down even if I wasn’t using my teleportation pin – which, by the way, was in a drawer in my room, lost in a pile of underwear.
“You came.”
“Of course I came,” I huffed and crossed the street to enter the first bar. He followed me grumpily. “You hoped I wouldn’t come, so you wouldn’t have to tell me the truth?” He didn’t answer, which meant I was spot on.
We sat at a table, I ordered water, and he got a beer. I waited for him to get his thoughts in order, but after he’d drunk half of his beer in total silence, I started to lose my patience. Not that I had ever been very patient… Leo, Moon in Mercury, Aries Rising. What was the opposite of “patient” again? Oh, right! Mila. Mila Morningstar, or Angelov, or Lazarov, or whatever.
“If you don’t want me to get in trouble, you better start talking,” I said harshly. “Nowadays, the new Headmaster has the Unseelie checking bedrooms to make sure the students are sleeping.” That was a terrible invasion of privacy, but since sleepovers were forbidden, what could we have to hide? At most, the guards could walk in on some VDC student jerking off.
He smacked his lips. “Ask me and I’ll try to answer. Maybe it’ll be easier.”
I cocked an eyebrow. Okay… Is it me, or has he lost weight? He got a second beer. If he has, it’s not going to stay off for long at this rate. Moving on. His health wasn’t my concern.
“Let’s start with some simple ones.” I wanted to make sure he was ready to act like an adult and tell me the truth. “Did you know that Morningstar is my real father all along?”
“What does ‘all along’ mean?” He took a swig of his beer.
I rolled my eyes. “How long did you know Morningstar is my real Dad?” He wasn’t stupid, but he sure liked to play stupid when it suited him.
“You were two years old, and we’d just moved to the US. Maybe two and a half.”
My eyes grew as wide as saucers. “You’ve known since I was two?! What the hell?! Did you also know he is a Grim Reaper?” He nodded, lips pursed. “And what else did you know? About the Academy?”
He shook his head. “No. I found out about Grim Reaper Academy the same day you did. You got that red invitation in the mail, read it out loud, and I knew. I knew he’d come for you again.”
A chill ran up my spine. “He’d come for me again…”
“Yeah.” He motioned for the waiter to bring him another beer. He’d practically gulped down the second in one go.
“He’d come for me before?”
“Aren’t you listening? When you were two. Maybe two and a half.”
I released a sigh of frustration, placed my hands on the table, and leaned in. “We’re going in circles. Just tell me already.” The waiter brought his beer. “One for me, please.”
“ID?”
Right. In the human world, I couldn’t drink yet.
“I meant… another water for me, please.” He happily went to get it.
“Here, have a sip,” Stepan chuckled, pushing the bottle toward me.
“Stop stalling. How did you two meet? And what do you mean when you say he came for me?”
He dragged in a deep, long breath, held it at the top for a second longer than I thought he was capable of, then released it slowly.