Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy 1)

“Would…would you rather not tell me?” I asked carefully. “Do you, uh, want me to withdraw the question?”

Griffin shook his head and rose from the piano.

“No, you deserve to know the answer—though you may wish you hadn’t when you hear it. Come…” He went over and sat on the couch, which was covered in a black spread, neatly tucked in. Sitting on one end, he nodded me to the other.

I would much rather have sat beside him and held his hand, but I realized he was putting some distance between us for a reason—though I still didn’t understand why.

I had a feeling, though, that I was going to find out.

55

“I lived with my family back then—before the Censure,” Griffin began, looking down at his hands. “I went to Nocturne Academy, though at the time I was living in the North Tower with the other Nocturnes. It was the weekend—a Sunday evening, so I was here in Frostproof. I was spending a little more time alone before going back to the crowded, noisy life of the Academy. The last thing I remember before it happened is walking in the woods—the same woods we just passed through,” he added, which sent another shiver down my spine. “And the next thing I remember…”

He stopped for so long I wondered if he was ever going to go on.

“It’s okay,” I said as gently as I could. “Whatever it is, I’m not going to judge you.”

“Oh, I think you might, little witch.” He gave another of those humorless laughs that sounded jagged and painful coming out. “I don’t think you’ll be able to help it.”

“Look, just tell me,” I said impatiently. There was a terrible fluttering feeling in the pit of my stomach—the feeling of not knowing something you are sure is going to be awful but something you need to know all the same.

“I woke up near dawn with the taste of blood in my mouth.” Griffin spoke in a low, monotone voice and he kept his eyes on his hands, I noticed—not looking at me as he spoke.

“And?” I prodded mercilessly.

“And when the sun came up, I saw the bodies.” He looked up at me then. “Two of them. Young girls around your age, Megan. They had been…” His voice dropped. “They had been slaughtered.”

“Oh my God.” I put a hand to my mouth. “But you didn’t…I mean, you couldn’t have—could you?”

Griffin shrugged.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember doing anything to them. In fact, I had never seen them before in my life. And of course, I had never done anything like that before. We Nocturnes do not generally drink directly from humans, even when we take their blood. We get bagged blood instead.”

“Why?” I asked, wanting badly to change the subject. “Why not just…bite them directly?”

He shrugged. “Bagged blood is less messy. Also, biting a human—Norm or otherwise—over and over can lead to problems such as accidental vampirism. That is, creating a Made vampire. All proper Nocturnes are born, not made. And any Nocturne who makes a vampire, as well as the vampire he or she made, will be shunned by all of Nocturne society.”

“Oh,” I said. “I had no idea it was possible to really turn a human into a vampire. Tell me more about that.”

Griffin gave me a direct look.

“I think we’re getting off the subject, somewhat. You need to know what I was accused of.”

“You told me already,” I said, frowning. “And I’m sure you couldn’t have done it—you must have been framed or something!”

“But I had their blood in my mouth and all over my hands…” He turned his hands with their long, white fingers in front of him, as though he could still see the crimson smears and streaks. “Anyway, the Elder Council certainly thought I did it.”

“I…I don’t believe you did,” I said, trying to make my voice firm, though I honestly wasn’t sure what I believed. It flashed through my head again that it had been very, very stupid of me to come here and be alone with him. But how could I have known that he’d been accused of a double homicide?

And why didn’t that knowledge change how I felt about him? How I wanted to be with him?

“That’s very kind of you to say,” Griffin said dryly. “But the evidence was overwhelming. The only reason I wasn’t put to death was that the girls were Norms—if they had been Others, it wouldn’t have gone so well for me. Before he turned me out of the house, my father hired me the best attorney money could buy—a Fae gentleman who traveled all the way from the Realm to take my case. He was able to get me off with a Censure—the terms of the punishment being that I will wander the halls of Nocturne Academy forever, never graduating or going free, except during nights and weekends, which I spend here.” He nodded at the renovated caboose.