Page 31

Alina

IT TAKES ME MUCH TOO long to find sleep, and I’m awoken much too quickly.

I’m dreaming of Raelan, of his slitted pupils and gold-flecked gaze, when something stirs me awake.

Around me, all is dark. Yuki sleeps at the end of the bed, curled into a ball with his fluffy tail over his face, snoring gently. Is he what woke me?

There’s a distant sound, down on the main floor. A knock.

My skin prickles, my heartbeat spiking.

It’s the middle of the night. Who could possibly be at our door?

Deep in my chest, I yearn for it to be Raelan. Perhaps he’s returned, having realized the error of his ways.

Maybe . . . Maybe he came back for me.

I slide quietly from bed, careful not to disturb Yuki as he sleeps. The floorboards are cold, and I ease my feet into slippers and slip into a thin robe before making my way slowly down the stairs and into the main living space. The knock sounds again at the door, making my pulse pound. Upstairs, someone sighs and shifts in bed, but no one else is yet awake.

The fire in the hearth has burned low, and the embers barely give me enough light to see by as I turn the lock and pull open the door.

And immediately, all my hopes are dashed.

Because it’s not Raelan standing there.

“Tristan,” I say, keeping my voice low. I glance up and down the stairwell, but he’s alone. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s Sir Ashvale,” he says, voice breathy with what sounds like barely contained panic. “He’s been injured on the road into Wysteria. He’s asking for you.”

Raelan’s hurt?

My muscles constrict, and my heart jumps into my throat. “What? What happened? Where is he?”

“Come, the academy has prepared transportation for you.” He steps back and gestures down the staircase with one hand. “Hurry!”

Without pausing to grab my cloak or even my boots, I step into the corridor and begin following Tristan down the spiraling staircase. We move through shafts of dim moonlight as we go around and around. He keeps just ahead of me, though he glances back often as if to check that I’m still here.

Of course I am. If Raelan needs me, I’ll go to him.

We finally reach the bottom of the stairs and start through the corridors toward the entrance hall .

“Do you know what happened to him?” I ask, barely feeling the cold of the drafty halls as I trot alongside Tristan, striving to keep up with his long strides.

“An accident with his horse, I believe,” he says.

My stomach churns.

How could something like this happen?

I should never have let him leave. I should have tried harder to keep him here.

As we move down a hall lined with portraits of current professors, I think to ask Tristan, “How do you know about this?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I was wandering the halls, and Headmistress Moonhart stopped me. She sent me to get you right away.”

If the headmistress is involved, the accident must be dire indeed.

I feel like I might be sick.

We hurry into the entrance hall, which is bathed in thin silver moonlight. Tristan pushes one of the heavy doors open for me, and I step out into the cold night to find a carriage prepared and waiting. Their livery is unfamiliar to me, but the carriage is draped in purple and silver: Coven Crest’s colors.

One of the footmen opens the door, and he offers me a hand as I climb up and into the padded interior. Immediately, Tristan slides in behind me.

The door closes with a definitive click, and in a few short moments, the carriage is moving. I clutch my thin satin robe around my shoulders. My fingers, trembling now from a mix of adrenaline and the cold, reach to pull the curtain back from the window. Outside, Coven Crest’s outbuildings pass by, and then we’re moving off of academy grounds and toward the Mistwood.

“Do you know exactly what happ—” I start to ask, turning toward Tristan.

But I don’t get a chance to finish.

Tristan holds up a hand, and as soon as I’m facing him, he blows a shimmering purple-pink powder into my face. It makes me sneeze, and my head starts to swim with dizziness. Tristan’s face blurs in my vision, an oil painting melting across a canvas.

“Sorry, Alina,” he says, but the words sound faraway and distorted, like I’m underwater or in a dream.

“What’s going...” I whisper, tongue heavy and cumbersome in my mouth. “On?”

I’m encompassed by black.