Page 51 of Immortal Consequences (The Souls of Blackwood Academy #1)

Emilio

Emilio couldn’t stop turning over Masika’s words in his head.

Stop being a coward and just tell Olivier how you feel.

Well, that wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do, considering he often found himself completely incapable of understanding his own feelings.

It wasn’t something that came easily to him.

Even in his old life. And unbottling the complicated feelings he had for Olivier was a risk that could end in utter destruction.

Or, worse, complete and total embarrassment.

It didn’t help that when he did allow himself to think about his feelings for Olivier, it often felt like standing at the edge of a precipice.

He just wasn’t sure what was waiting for him at the bottom.

Once Masika left, Emilio spent a few more minutes observing Louise.

She tossed and turned, muttering things under her breath.

After a while, she woke up, groggily stretching her arms overhead.

Emilio held his breath, waiting for her to do something out of the ordinary, but she simply made her way toward the spiral staircase that led to the dormitories and disappeared.

Emilio sighed. Well, he supposed it was time to set the next phase of his research in motion.

The Library.

But first—he needed something from his dorm.

It was silly. A ridiculous idea that had sprung into his mind earlier today—one he’d thought he’d squashed, but which now, after his conversation with Masika, reemerged.

He probably wouldn’t even go through with it, considering that the mere thought made him want to crawl out of his skin and disintegrate.

But just in case he managed to actually muster up the courage to do it, Emilio scurried into his room and scoured his desk until he found what he was looking for.

A flower.

He’d plucked the violet on his walk back to Litterman earlier that afternoon.

It had been an out-of-body experience, as though he’d been possessed by the ghost of someone much braver than him.

One second he had been walking, completely normal, and the next he was snatching the flower with the intention of giving it to Olivier.

He wasn’t even sure where the idea had come from.

Masika’s words echoed in his head: Do yourself a favor and don’t waste another second. Abruptly, he knew just how he’d take her advice. He would give Olivier the flower and ask him to the ball. He knew it was rather late, given that the ball started in less than an hour, but screw it.

He slipped the flower delicately between his fingers and sprang back out into the corridor. Unfortunately, he was so preoccupied by his own churning thoughts that he didn’t see Olivier walking toward him until his face collided squarely with the other boy’s chest.

Emilio stumbled backward, panicked. “Olivier. What…what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing?” Olivier chuckled, looking Emilio up and down. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume you were sneaking off somewhere.”

“I’m not. I’m…” Emilio suddenly became overly aware of the flower in his hand. The pressure of it digging into his skin.

“What’s that?”

Emilio tensed. “What’s what ?”

“That.” Olivier gestured to the flower. “Is that a violet?”

“It is.”

“Okay…” Olivier chuckled again, leaning against the wall. “And is there a reason you’re carrying it around?”

“I was…” Emilio cleared his throat. Don’t be a coward. “Actually, I was hoping to—”

“Wait—did you get a date to the ball?” Olivier interjected, stepping closer. “Is that who the flower is for?”

“Well, it’s…it’s not…”

“ Dammit. I should have thought of that. Aren’t you supposed to get your date a flower or corsage or some other ridiculous romantic item?

” Olivier cursed under his breath and ran a hand through his hair.

“Scarlett is going to kill me. She already thinks I’m the worst date in the world for not wanting to walk her to theball. ”

Emilio’s stomach sank.

Of course.

“You…have a date.”

Olivier nodded, though he looked rather agitated, tugging at the collar of his shirt.

“Scarlett Byrne—you know her, don’t you? From our Elemental Obstructions class. Anyway, she practically demanded I go with her. Said I owed her for getting me the answers to Birdie’s past few exams.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean, I’m not complaining…she’s gorgeous, but—”

“I have to go.” Emilio turned on his heels and bolted down the corridor, crushing the flower in his palm. The petals slipped between his fingers like water running through his hands.

What had he been thinking? Of course Olivier already had a date. He should have spoken up sooner. He should have plucked up the courage and—

“Wait!” Olivier trailed after him. “Where are you going?”

“I’m—” Don’t cry, Emilio. Pull yourself together. “I’m going to do some last-minute research.”

“Well, let me go with you.”

Emilio dropped the remaining petals on the floor. “Shouldn’t you go meet up with Scarlett? The ball is set to start soon.”

Olivier sighed.

“Scarlett can wait. Either way, she only asked me to go with her so she could make her ex-boyfriend jealous.”

Emilio stilled.

“Is that the only reason why?”

Olivier hesitated, eyes roaming over Emilio’s face.

“I can’t speak for Scarlett,” he whispered, his voice slightly hoarse. “But I can confidently say, without a shred of doubt, that there is nothing else from my end.” He stepped closer, his face deeply serious. “Nothing.”

Emilio felt the knot in his stomach loosen. The pressure in his chest deflate.

“All right, well…” He cleared his throat. “I’m actually about to sneak into the Library. It will only take a minute.”

“Emilio…” Olivier whispered his name with a conspiratorial glint. “I’ve corrupted you.”

“It’s for research.”

“Care to elaborate?”

Emilio chuckled. “How much time do you have?”

“For you?” Olivier sighed. “An eternity.”

They crossed through the evening fog, approaching the steps of the Library. Neither of them said much during the walk over. A strange tension seemed to permeate the air between them, an unspoken friction.

Olivier had taken about three steps toward the main Library doors when Emilio grabbed him by the collar and snatched him backward.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Emilio hissed.

“I thought you said we were going to the Library—”

“We are, but we can’t just waltz in there when it’s closed.

There are protective wards surrounding the main entrance.

Not to mention Ascended on guard.” He grabbed Olivier’s head and angled his gaze toward the doors.

“See? Two of them.” There were two Ascended standing side by side, a boy Emilio vaguely recognized, with orange hair and freckled skin, and a girl by the name of Dylan Blatheson.

Notoriously smart and astute. Nominated for the Decennial in her fifth year.

Their iridescent eyes glowed in the darkness, making the two look like a pair of predators ready to strike.

“We have to go around,” Emilio whispered. He guided Olivier toward the side of the building.

They walked pressed against the towering ivy-draped walls, avoiding the pockets of lavender light funneling through the trees. “Either way…we’re not going to the main part of the Library,” Emilio continued. “They don’t keep the texts I need there. We have to access the Housemasters’ section.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

Emilio revealed the iron key dangling at his waistband. “I’ve got my resources.”

Olivier raised his brow in surprise. “Emilio Córdova. I have to say…I’m very impressed.”

A searing heat crept up Emilio’s neck as they approached the familiar arched door carved into the side of the building.

Olivier inspected the surface with a scowl. “There’s no keyhole,” he muttered, hands pressed against the door. “Are you sure this is the right entrance?”

Emilio rolled his eyes. “Move.”

He grabbed the key and pressed it flat against the surface of the door.

The second the outline of the key made contact with the wood, shards of golden light pooled around the key in a swirling pattern, spreading over the door like shooting stars.

Olivier made a noise of surprise behind Emilio as the golden light exploded into microscopic sparks and the door slowly swung open, creaking at the hinges.

“All right,” Olivier sighed. “Now I’m actually impressed.”

Emilio bit back a smile. “Follow me.”

From the outside, the Housemasters’ section of the Library was enchanted to appear rather small, but as they entered, the space grew in the blink of an eye.

The dark wooden walls seemed to stretch up toward the heavens infinitely, lined floor to ceiling with ancient textbooks and scrolls.

A large orb hovered at the center of the Library, emanating a greenish glow that blanketed the floor around them in an eerie sheen.

The air was redolent with the warm scent of old books and damp earth.

“Wow.” Olivier blanched as he took his first steps inside. “This place is huge. I mean…it looks like it goes on forever.”

“I have a theory that it does,” Emilio replied.

“The towering walls are probably only an illusion, but my theory is that this space is an eternal source of knowledge. There’s no quantifiable number of books within the Housemasters’ section of the Library.

It’s like a never-ending well of…” His voice trailed away.

Olivier was watching him with a peculiar smirk on his lips.

“What?”

Olivier chuckled. “It was just an expression, Emilio.”

“Oh.” Emilio cleared his throat. “I knew that.”

Ignoring the unwelcome flush creeping onto his cheeks, Emilio charged toward the orb at the center of the room, waving Olivier over.

“How are we possibly going to find the book you need?” Olivier asked, bewildered. “It could take ages.”

“Actually,” Emilio muttered, pushing up the sleeves of his jacket, “it should only take a few seconds.”

Olivier frowned. “What do you—”

The words died in his throat the second Emilio stuck his hand into the orb.

The swirling strands of green light consumed his hand, traveling up his arm in wispy clouds.

Olivier looked on with an amusing mixture of amazement and terror.

Emilio knew he could easily have explained the mechanisms of the orb, but he preferred it this way.

Not to mention that a part of him secretly reveled in watching Olivier squirm and worry.

When the process was complete, he pulled his hand back out and the light traveled away from his arm and back into the orb.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then something clattered in the distance, the sound of paper shifting, of metal creaking. The air around them crackled with magic. The floor beneath them rumbled.

“What’s happening?” Olivier whispered warily.

“Just wait.”

The book shot out from the green orb without warning, flying over their heads before softly landing in Emilio’s hands with a thud. A film of green light enveloped the cover, but as soon as Emilio blew a soft breath of air against it, the glow vanished.

“How—” Olivier shook his head, a smile of disbelief spread over his face. “All right. You need to tell me how the hell that thing works.”

“It’s called a Seeing Orb. It’s connected to your thoughts. All you have to do is press your hand against it and think of the book you want. And if the Library has it, it appears.” Emilio couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “Cool, right?”

Olivier’s green eyes sparked with something wild and beautiful, his face split into a radiant smile.

The look on his face nearly knocked all the air from Emilio’s lungs, but before either of them could say anything else, the whoosh ing sound of a relocation spell echoed a few yards behind them, followed by the flutter of hushed whispers. Of urgent words.

“…it’s not going to be that simple…”

Emilio snapped his head up, eyes wide. Olivier seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he gripped Emilio tightly by the hand and pulled him behind a bookshelf just as two Housemasters appeared.

“I don’t care what it looks like…he’s still complicit. He has been from the very start.”

That was Russo. Emilio recognized the soft tone of her voice and the cadence of her words.

She wore her Housemaster’s cloak draped over her shoulders with the hood up, obscuring her face.

Even though the person next to her had their hood up as well, Emilio could clearly tell it was Birdie.

Her height combined with the tufts of bleached-blond hair sticking out beneath the hood gave her away. Not to mention her thick Texan drawl.

“You don’t know that,” Birdie replied. “Things change. We changed.”

They walked toward the Seeing Orb, glancing over their shoulders. Emilio recognized the look in their eyes. The tension in the way they moved. Whatever the two of them were doing, they were trying not to get caught.

“That’s different. This goes beyond everything we knew. It’s a connection beyond our understanding. He can’t escape it.”

“I guess you’re right.” Birdie took a step closer to the orb. “Not to mention, he doesn’t have much of a choice. I’m sure you’ve heard of his…situation.”

Russo hesitated. “I have.”

As much as Emilio wanted to stick around and find out what they were talking about, he knew it wasn’t worth the risk of being caught. Not to mention that they were minutes away from being late to the ball.

“We should go,” he whispered, tugging sharply on Olivier’s sleeve.

Olivier nodded, his eyes darting between Emilio and the two Housemasters. Clearly, he felt just as torn between his need for self-preservation and his unrelenting curiosity.

Russo and Birdie pressed their hands into the Seeing Orb, focusing on the light.

Emilio knew it was their only opportunity to run out of the Library without arousing suspicion.

So he laced his fingers through Olivier’s and they quickly worked their way around the bookshelves until they reached the entrance.

He didn’t look back to see if the Housemasters had noticed.

He just ran.