Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy 1)

Why were we so drawn together?

I opened my mouth to ask him when he looked up, finally breaking eye-contact with me and said, “Here it is. This is my place.”

54

I dragged my eyes away from his perfect face and was surprised to see that we were standing in front of an old abandoned train car—a caboose to be exact.

“You live here?” I asked, and I couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of my voice.

“It’s not much to look at from the outside,” he admitted. “But I have done some things over the years to make the inside much more livable.”

He put me down for a moment, though he kept a proprietary arm around me, and brought me up a set of three wooden steps which led to the back end of the old caboose. There was a tall, narrow door set in the wood and Griffin pushed it open easily and ushered me inside.

It was too dark to see anything and for a moment my heart began to skitter in my chest. Had I been foolish, coming all the way out here with him? Was it really incredibly stupid of me to go into a dark space alone with him, without telling any of my friends or my aunt where I had gone?

The answer to both question was undoubtedly yes but before I could get too frightened, I heard a small click and a warm, golden glow lit the interior of the old caboose.

“Oh,” I breathed, looking around, because a whole new world had been revealed.

I had been expecting a dim, shadowy place, possibly dirty and somewhat decayed since the outside of the caboose was weathered and looked at least fifty years old. But the light revealed a neat little apartment, complete with a couch which I thought probably folded out into a bed, a table with two chairs, a large bookcase crammed with books—though they were all neatly arranged with their spines pointing outwards—and, (the biggest surprise of all, as far as I was concerned) a kind of music nook. There was an upright piano, a guitar hanging on the wall, a violin and even a cello.

“Do you play all these?” I asked, wandering over to look at his collection of instruments.

In answer, Griffin sat at the piano and played a complicated-sounding classical riff with apparent ease.

I stared at him. I had taken four years of piano lessons as a kid, before my mom finally gave up on the idea of me becoming a great classical pianist so I recognized the technical skill it took to play with such easy grace. I had certainly never attained it myself. Either Griffin was a musical prodigy or he’d had a long, long time to practice.

“That’s…very impressive,” I said, listening to him play.

“Not really.” He stopped abruptly and put the lid of the piano down. “It’s easy to get good at something when you have nothing else to do…and you’re trying desperately to take your mind off…well, shall we say, other things.”

His eyes went to my throat as he spoke—I was wearing one of my long-sleeved Henleys and I had put my hair back in a low ponytail to keep it from being caught in the branches and vines earlier, so my throat was bare.

“What…what kinds of things do you mean?” I asked and then wished I hadn’t.

Griffin gave me a direct look from where he sat on the piano bench.

“I think you know the answer to that, little witch.” His eyes went to my exposed throat again.

I felt a shiver go down my spine and wondered nervously if I should let my hair down to cover my neck but Griffin had already looked away, though he seemed to have to force himself to do so.

“So…how long have you been practicing?” I asked instead, looking at the instruments.

He shrugged. “In earnest? For as long as I have been Censured.”

“And how long has that been?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know but I couldn’t help asking.

Griffin looked down at his hands.

“This Sunday it will be fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years?” I looked at him incredulously. “So you’re…how old?”

“Older than I look.” He laughed humorlessly. “But since my people age slower than yours, I’m only a few years your senior in Nocturne years.”

“But fifteen years…” I shook my head. “That seems like a really long time for a punishment.”

“There is no time limit to the Censure,” Griffin told me. “I am condemned to it for as long as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West.”

“So…forever?” I shook my head. “What could you have possibly done to get a life sentence?”

He sighed and raked a hand through his thick black hair—a very human gesture, I thought.

“I knew you would ask me that eventually but I wish we could have put it off a little longer.” He sounded very unhappy, though his face was carefully blank.