Everlasting (Night Watchmen, #1) (16 page)

“And you?” I lift my gaze to Jezi.

“Herbology,” she says without looking at me. My stomach twists so hard I have to bend over a little, clutching my arm across me. Cassie gives her a weird look, and then turns back to me.

“You okay?” she asks, her hand on my back.

I nod. “Stomach ache,” I say, staring out into the waterfall. I quickly blink and wipe my eyes. “So how do I go about finding mine?” I swallow the pain and force myself to sit straight.

“This is the quickest way to learn,” she says. “In here, you cannot lie to yourself. Truths are always truths. I can tell you by doing this.” She places her palm against my forehead and closes her eyes. Jezi steps closer to us, maybe from wanting to know just as bad as I do.

“What’s she doing?” I ask, my face flushing under the heat of her palm. Behind her closed eyelids, her eyes are wiggling furiously.

“She’s seeking out your power source. You’re susceptible to invasion by anyone when you allow them to combine their aura with yours,” Jezi explains, her tone flat as a paper.

Cassie’s eyes flicker open. “Well, it seems you have strengths in a few different things. Figures.” She flicks a quick glance at Jezi. “You have a strong ability in writing spells. The knowledge and insight you have allows this. I sense a strong connection to the elements, and I also sense a strong connection to an ability to invoke and evoke spirits.”

“Really? I don’t feel anything,” I admit, looking down at myself.

“That’s because you haven’t trained to use it yet. A Witch has to learn how to pull, how to master the art of intent. We’ll show you how. Tomorrow we’ll start with all the basics, just to bring you up to speed. Based on your strengths, it shouldn’t take you long to pick up on it,” Cassie says. She stands up, offering me a hand. I take it. “For now, it’s getting late.”

“And I’m starving,” Jezi adds.

Cassie snaps her fingers, and then disappears. Jezi does the same. I’m left standing on the edge of the waterfall, watching as the moon begins to rise, changing the color of the water to dull silver. I look at my hands, and then think of waking up before snapping my fingers.

When I open my eyes, I’m back in the room. Cassie pulls a needle out of my arm. “What the hell was that?” I ask, bending my elbow to stop the blood.

“Just a little something to help push the serum from your system. It will also lessen the groggy after effects that come with using it.” She touches the spot where the needle had been with a finger and whispers something. The hole disappears.

Jezi finishes her injection and then gets up. “Meet you in the dining hall,” she calls over her shoulder as she walks out of the room.

“Okay,” Cassie says, injecting herself. “Go clean up, kid. Dinner will be soon. We’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

The clock says that we have been out for hours. I don’t even bother to ask.

Two weeks pass in the
same grueling fashion. I wake every morning with Jaxen outside of my door holding a protein bar and an apple. We fall into a comfortable routine of little words and stolen glances, and somewhere in the middle of it all, find ways to get to know each other better. We eat, run laps around the track, lift weights, and then I get passed off to the Witches to work on beginner techniques.

I barely have time to think about anything outside of training, let alone find time to hang with Katie. She’s been scarce at dinner, so I usually take my meal back to my room just to avoid the crowds. It’s almost like I’ve been thrown into a numb state with a man who I grow closer to one minute and distant from the next.

It’s a beautiful, chaotic routine I think I’ve craved for my whole life.

After spending the afternoon learning how to weave healing spells with Jezi and Cassie, I quickly cross the campus and head back to my room. I keep my head low and avoid the many stares of passing novices. This campus is large but not large enough. The older year novices don’t try to hide their curious stares as they head to their next class. I pretend like I don’t notice.

After shutting myself behind the door to my room, I turn and gaze at my surroundings. My room looks like something out of a historic magazine, like something someone like me would only dream about but never actually see in person. But then again, what does someone like me know? I am, after all, an entirely different person than I thought I was. Or maybe it was always there, but just buried beneath the lies and the heartache.

I walk over to the window and pull the large burgundy draperies aside, letting in a wash of golden color. Minuscule specks of dust sparkle from the sudden burst of light and air. I trail my hand through the honeyed rays, letting my thoughts drift. I could get used to this.

There are no portraits or pictures hanging which leaves the room barren, unclaimed and empty, just the way the Coven likes us to be. I like it that way. I wouldn’t want to feel the eyes of a stranger spying on me at night. A cushioned chair rests under the window across the room, overlooking the courtyard below; a place to curl up at night with a good book and forget the world I’m slowly drowning in.

I drift over to my bed and fall onto it. My mind needs a moment to sit in quiet, to sit in the stillness of the room. I need a chance to absorb everything that’s happened and sort through what’s important to my future and what’s not. It’s almost too much to sort through, almost blindingly overwhelming. I could easily lose track of what’s important-my parents. I could easily stray away from my initial reasons for being here and dive into all that Mack has offered without ever looking back. 

I hope that’s not Mack’s intentions.

The mattres
s absorbs my weight and envelops me in comfort. I pull a pillow over to me and bury my face in it. Before I know it, I nod off. It’s not until a fervent knock sounds at my door that I wake. I jolt upright, coming off the tendrils of a nightmare. Vampiric fangs and sinisterly long fingers were reaching out for me, wanting to take me away from my parents. Cold, sticky sweat saturates my forehead and the back of my neck.

The clock on the night stand reads four in the afternoon. I’ve been asleep for almost five hours. The knock comes again, this time sharper and hastier. I jump up, using the bottom of my shirt to wipe away the sweat. “Coming,” I say, wiping the side of my mouth where I drooled a little. I open the door and a stack of books are angrily shoved at me, and instinctively, I take them. I nearly drop them when Nathaniel dumps three more stacks of books in my arms.

“These are from Gavin. He wants you to read them.”

“Typically, that’s what you do with books,” I shoot off, not liking the tone in his voice and the way his eyes graze over me like I annoy him by just breathing.

His eyes narrow. “Just so you know, Middleton, I’m not your errand boy,” he says, sounding out of breath. His brown eyes are almost black and squinted into two furious lines. “I’m the Head Grounds Keeper. I
keep
the grounds of the
Academy
, not the little girls who come in here demanding things and taking over.” His nostrils flare when he speaks.

I pinch my lips together. I know I should overlook his clear callowness, but little pieces of the shell that used to be the quiet me continually chip away, allowing me to be
the person I have truly always been. And that is someone who doesn’t take crap from anyone, not anymore, not after everything I’ve sacrificed in return.

“That’s all you were assigned to? A Grounds Keeper? What a shame. You must not have done well on your final trial,” I say shortly, feeling a hot flush beneath my cheeks. I’m grateful for the weight in my hands because it prevents me from covering my mouth in shock. I just spoke my thoughts out loud. I just insulted him, and the thing was, it felt good.

He runs his finger along his collar as if it’s too tight, and then stares at me for a moment. His finger lifts and his mouth opens, but then he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He looks flustered and it gives me a triumphant feeling. “Well then,” he says sharply, “good day, Middleton.” I don’t like how he said the last word, as if it was vile and poisonous. He turns and stalks off, disappearing down the hall before I can say anything more.

I kick the door shut a little too hard and stalk over to my bed. The door bounces back open and the sound of heavy steps barge into my room. “I said, I was…” I start to say, but then stop as soon as I realize who walked in.

Jaxen.

This is the first time he’s visited my room outside of walking me to training every morning. His hair is disheveled, probably from the afternoon wind. A large, dark strand rests over his forehead, hiding his green eyes, waiting for me to move it. Every muscle in his body is rigid when his eyes fall on me, seeming to pierce right through me. He’s holding a large, weathered Grimoire in one hand and a dagger in the other. My mother’s Grimoire and my father’s flux. I gasp, moving back a step.

“If this is a bad time,” he says, dropping his gaze with a frown settled on his lips. He’s always frowning, and it makes me sad for him, even when I’m annoyed by him. He carefully sets the Grimoire and the flux down on the desk by the door. He turns to leave, one foot already crossing the threshold.

“No!” I say almost too quickly, too desperately. He stops, and my heart flutters, sending heat up along with it. I swallow, evening my voice, and say, “I thought you were Nathaniel coming to bark at me again.” This time my voice is back in its normal register.

“Oh,” he says, his head tilted ever so slightly. It moves the piece of hair in his face off to the side, unveiling the brightness of his eyes. He looks ruggedly handsome and it does something to me. It makes my hands itch and my throat dry and my lips quiver.

“You can come in,” I say, trying to make it sound like a friendly invite. Something about him, the way he holds himself, tells me that he needs extra care, extra work. There’s a titanium shell around him that won’t be easily cracked. Just like me.

He shuts the door behind him and steps forward, but that’s as far as he goes. He looks like he’s standing on uneven ground, shaky and off balance, or maybe it’s nervous and unseasoned. The same way I always feel around him.

“You want to sit?” I ask, not understanding why I’m still feeling flushed.

“Sit?” He looks at the bed and a sort of panic transforms his features.

My heart picks up in speed, lifting with wings of awkwardness. “There’s a chair.” I point to the one by the window, keeping my eyes from his.

Jaxen’s tense shoulders relax a little. “Okay,” he says, walking mechanically over to it. He sits and his hands grip the edges of the arm rests. His eyes settle on the intricate pattern woven into the comforter.

“Are you okay? You seem tense,” I ask, setting the books Nathaniel brought me onto the bed. There are six and they’re each the size of a textbook. I hope Gavin doesn’t expect me to read all of these tonight. I may be a fast reader, but not that fast.

“I’m good,” he says, checking out the room. “What’s that?” He’s pointing to my acceptance letter.

“My acceptance letter to college.”

His brows dip. “Why do you have that?”

I glance down at my feet. “It’s a reminder to myself that I can be who I choose to be, that I can overcome obstacles.” When I look up, I see a hint of admiration and understanding in his eyes.

“That’s…that’s a very interesting way to deal with things.” He’s still gripping the chair, like he’s preparing for takeoff. I don’t understand why he’s so nervous, unless he’s nervous to be around me. But why? I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I don’t want to think things that will only result in disappointment.

But I also can’t avoid the way I catch him looking at me sometimes, like he’s doing right now, like I’m something on the other side of a window that he wants but can’t have.

I clear my throat. “You have my parents’ things. How?” I ask, walking over to the desk as if in a dream. I run my fingers over the hilt of my father’s flux, watching as the blade lights up from my energy. I yank my hand back. It’s never done that before. The hollow spot in my chest throbs with guilt. My father should have his flux. He never leaves without it. “Why do you have these things?” I’m almost too scared to ask, but I have to know.

“I thought you might want them,” he says. His grip on the chair loosens. “A team of Elite Watchmen were sent to your home to investigate. They’re looking for anything they can find that will hint at what happened to your parents. I caught wind of the assignment and dropped by today. I knew once they were in, your house would probably be closed off. If that happens, everything will be moved to Ethryeal City. These two
things would be what I would have taken had it been my parents, so I just figured...”

I’m shocked awake by his kindness, his thoughtfulness. I find his eyes across the room, and the argument disappears. The anger, the pride, it all falls away with just a blink of his eyes.

My words somehow find their way over the lump in my throat, and I say, “But my dad, he should have taken his flux on their hunt. It shouldn’t have been in my house.”

He drops his eyes, and his tone is dipped in sympathy. “Maybe he forgot? It was on the coffee table next to the Grimoire.”

A knife of panic twists through my heart. It takes me a second to find my words, to absorb the fact that my parents might truly be gone. All the questions swarming my mind seek release, but they will have to wait for Mack. In Jaxen’s eyes, I see he doesn’t know any more than what he has offered. “Thank you...for grabbing these.”

He nods and chews on his lip.

I move to the Grimoire. The cover is made from thin sheets of bark. A pentagram is carved in a shallow groove and covered with copper wire. Aged moss fills the cracks and crevices. I pick it up, hugging it to my chest. My mother’s secrets. Her heritage. Our family’s lineage. “I never thought I would see this book again.” The guilt deepens and spreads to my limbs, filling them with lead. I want to put the book down, to pretend it’s not there, to deny everything, but I can’t. I won’t.

“Because you thought you were Defected?” he asks intently. I turn at the sound of his voice, trying to make sense of the words he just said. It takes me a moment. A Defect. I was once, but now I am not. I was once a harmless caterpillar, but now I have changed into a poisonous butterfly.

I nod so slowly that I’m not even sure he can tell. His deep, thoughtful eyes are studying me again with such intensity, it almost steals my breath. It does steal my breath, and my thoughts, and my will. He blinks, letting me breathe again. I set the Grimoire down on my bed, scared that I’ll drop it.

I don’t understand why I feel like I know him so well, why I feel so connected and drawn to him. That’s a feeling for affinity bonds, not for someone like me. It’s been two weeks, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t shake the attraction. I can’t shake the need to get to know him better. I drop my gaze. He has a Witch, and I have my mark of separation from anyone in this Coven. I shouldn’t be feeling this. I shouldn’t see what I feel reflected back in his gaze day after day.

“I umm…” he leans forward and stands, then drags a heavy hand through the perfect mess of dark hair. “I should be going. I have to meet with Mack again about the Vamp in the forest.” He offers a sidelong glance, and then heads for the door.