CHAPTER TWENTY: SOSKIA
Igottheinvitation to Kylu X.
I toss my phone onto my desk, letting out a sigh. Alik’s name pops up on the screen but I know his response is nothing but a confirmation that he got the message.
How in the hell did I allow myself to get roped into this bullshit?
I’m not quite sure, but I’m guessing somewhere between my melt down and now I lost the common sense that I was born with, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be finding it anytime soon.
It's been a week since that potion spilled on Neryssa and the girl has basically been a zombie. It makes me wonder if I’m finally getting a glimpse at what others see when I’m having an episode.
Neryssa’s lavender eyes have been dull, unseeing. She doesn’t even bat an eye when I bump into her in our dorm.
I only do it to try to get a reaction out of her, to try to bring that fire I’ve gotten used to back out. Everytime, I feel like the worst person when she doesn’t respond in the slightest, especially when I take in the way that she’s still limping slightly. Brynsyn was able to concoct a potion for her, but its working slowly. He comes over to the dorm nearly every day to make sure that she’s constantly applying it to the wound. Before it’d closed up and the skin had smoothed out some, he’d had to be the one to apply it completely.
Neryssa had thrown up all over Alik’s coach the first time she got a real glance of her mangled knee.
Brynsyn keeps insisting that if we retrieve the book from the Kylu X house that we should be able to figure out a solution to our problem.
I highly doubt it.
Problems aren’t as easily fixed here as people try to pretend they are.
Mr. Lunsen told me years ago, when I first started attending the academy, that my magic would return. I’d overused it and nearly killed it, but not quite, he said. It was still alive inside of me, it just needed time to heal.
Despite all of our lessons and attempts to repair it, it hasn’t shown the slightest sign of coming back. I can perform spells and incantations perfectly fine, but any mere fae can do that. I want my fire back, the literal flames of hellfire that I was born to wield.
But they’re as lost as an old friend.
A packet of papers slam down onto my desk and I jerk back. Lifting my head, I find Cerus Fox standing next to my desk. His fingers are resting on the top of the packet that he’s just slammed down. My brows pull together as I look at what appears to be some sort of assignment.
“You missed this one when you were out,” he grumbles and then he’s moving to a seat across the room.
I let my fingers slide over the smooth pages before flipping them open. I’d initially thought it was some sort of study guide with how thick it is, but it becomes clear that it’s an assignment that has to be graded as I flip through the pages, looking at the multiple choice questions. Each one is filled in, down to the final page.
I press my lips together, realizing the only thing I need to do is write my name at the top of the paper.
I glance over at Fox, but he’s pointedly looking away from me, his elbow propped on his desk and his chin in his hand.
I’ve shared most of my classes with Cerus Fox since our first year, besides the classes that were specific to our species. Despite the fact that we’ve shared so many classes, we’ve never talked more than we have in the last couple of weeks.
Usually, I ignore him and he does the same to me. We have no reason to associate.
I look down at the packet again. Fox would have had the opportunity to give it to me at some point after I’d come out of my haze. But he must have realised how fucked up I still was, doing the assignment himself.
I don’t like it.
I shift uneasily in my chair, seriously debating on tossing the packet in the trash and taking a bad grade.
Is he going to want something later for doing this?
More often than not, things come with an unspoken price tag around me and I don’t want to find myself owing Fox for something I didn’t ask for.
But fuck, the thought of getting a bad grade doesn’t sit right with me either.
I’ve always been an academic girl but once I lost my abilities, it became clear that my brain was the only beneficial thing I had left, so I’d poured everything into my schoolwork. I’m at the top of our class, Fox the only true competitor that I have. Him, and somehow, that damn fuck up Kellan [].
Our professor walks through the door and she greets us before telling everyone to get out their assignment packets to turn in.