The wraith’s jaw skitters, its teeth bouncing together with painful xylophonic sound, but speaks again. “Hungry.”
“For?”
“Power.”
“Always,” I grumble.
“Like you have much else to offer,” Roark says. He gives a light huff at the sight of my raised middle finger before returning his focus to the wraith. “You can’t have him.”
“Hungry,” the wraith whines. It’s eerie to watch the pale green flames of its eyes flicking between Roark and me. Eerier still to see those fleshless lips clicking out words without a tongue or vocal cords to form them. “Want him.”
“I don’t give a damn.”
I blink. Never would have expected to hear that from Roark.
Roark leans closer to the impaled monster and whispers something else in that ancient tongue. The words are swift, slick, beautiful in their primeval flow. The wraith’s eyes burn brighter and it hisses back a response. I don’t have to know the language to know it’s furious. When Roark doesn’t respond, the wraith coos something else and those green flames fix on me.
Greedy. Hungry. Just like every other damn creature that’s ever come after me.
My roommate follows its stare. His gaze holds on me for a moment. Roark’s nothing like the wraith or any of the other magickal beings who’ve ever come after me. There’s no hunger in his look...just a flash of something that’s gone too fast for me to recognize it.
The wraith whispers again, but Roark’s had enough. He pushes the rapier’s blade in deeper, pinning the wraith more fully, and recites something. At the silvery words, the wraith shatters. Its two flaming green orbs hold for a moment in the still night air before rising higher and higher, until they whisk away on a night breeze far above us.
The moment they vanish from our sight, the zombies around us collapse. They don’t go back to where they came or anything. That would be too nice. Too clean. Too much like the world had pity on me.
Instead, they collapse in place. Smoldering piles of rotting limbs or already bleached-out bones. They look bad. They smell worse.
“You’re a menace,” Roark says, staring hard at one of the burning piles of what used to be a ferret. “Six years, and you still can’t control your magick. They should have expelled you after the hydra.”
“Sorry I and the rest of the student population at the stadium didn’t have the forethought to rip apart an ancient monster with ice spears so it couldn’t regenerate—”
“Or ability,” Roark interrupts. “Forethought or ability.”
I flip him off and kneel so I can inspect my shin. Yeah, definitely going to need some rubbing alcohol for this one, maybe some superglue for the worst of the lines. I glance up. “Regardless, thanks for helping tonight.”
“Don’t mention it.” A muscle in his jaw flexes. “I’m serious. Don’t mention a word of this to anyone.”
He draws himself up and explodes into a cloud of ravens that blot out the streetlights before vanishing into the night sky above me, crowing his victory for the world to hear.
His message is clear: The Prince of Air and Darkness is back.
Chapter Three
Roark
The only thing keeping my gnawing sense of failure at bay when I head to class this morning is the knowledge that I saved Smith last night. Again. At least some things remain status quo.
Normally my return to Mathers is one of joy; on campus, despite the expectations of my title, I’m freer than when I’m back home at Court. This year, though, the weight doesn’t lift from my shoulders as I make my way down gleaming footpaths and past tall stone dormitories and lecture halls. The term’s classes have already been in session for weeks. The campus should be a busy hive of activity, students from all Pantheons mixing and mingling as they wander to and from classes. I suppose they still do, but there’s cautious distance between certain groups now, a subtle shift of seating in common areas, and more people walk with lowered heads and increased purpose.
I receive some nods of acknowledgment from those I pass, but more than a few students drop their gazes, suddenly distracted by their books or feet or the architecture of nearby buildings. While I’ve never been popular with the Seelie students, they’ve never outright avoided me. Worse, there are students from other pantheons acting the same way. Mother worried rumors would begin to spread outside the Courts’ boundaries. She’ll be displeased to hear her suspicions were founded.
The thought of bearing bad news to her again grows into an ache behind my sternum. I’ve lived free of doubt for centuries only to have my composure shattered in a scant handful of years. Disappointing Mother, being incapable of preventing Sláine’s defection, walking away from unproductive bargaining at the Accords... Every choice I make reeks with the threat of failure.
Is this how Smith feels all the time? Constantly wondering if he’s made the ri
ght decision, constantly searching for validation that he hasn’t made the situation worse?
No wonder he’s such a disaster.