Chapter 5: Wren - Twisted Vows

Maybe it was time to admit to herself that she was lost.

In her defense, she’d followed the map. At least, she thought she had. It hadn’t seemed all that difficult. She’d traced the path through the main foyer of Elysium Hall, up the winding stairs on the eastern side of the building. Wren had sworn she’d walked up the correct flight of stairs, but when she reached the sixth floor, she found herself standing in a narrow corridor lined with old portraits, not a single door to be seen.

Maybe the entrance to the classroom is hidden, Wren thought. It wouldn’t surprise her all that much, given that nothing appeared to be normal in this godforsaken place. She continued forward, clutching the textbooks Maya had given her, eyes darting from one portrait to the next. She was considering backtracking and starting from the main foyer again when her shoulder hit something hard, and the stack of textbooks tucked in her arms toppled to the floor. It took her a few seconds to register that the large obstacle she had run into was a person.

A boy.

Where the hell did he come from? Wren hadn’t seen anyone else in the corridor. But before Wren could apologize for bumping into him, the boy’s deep, gravelly voice echoed in the space between them.

“Watch where you’re going,” he practically hissed through his teeth. He didn’t spare Wren a glance over his shoulder as he stormed down the corridor, hands shoved arrogantly in his pockets and eyes fixed forward.

“Dick,” Wren muttered under her breath, kneeling to pick up her books, which now lay scattered across the floor in disarray. Honestly—who the hell does he think he is? A simple apology would have been nice. A mumbled sorry. But nothing? And to snap at her, as if she were the one who had rammed into him? What an absolute, complete and total—

“Excuse me?”

Wren blinked up to find the boy looming over her. His eyes, a startling shade of silver that reminded her of the evening fog that slithered through campus, were zeroed in on her, his lips curled back with palpable disdain. He was tall, far taller than Wren, despite her own average height. There was something cruel yet beautiful about his features. All angles and sharp edges. His curls were dark, almost raven black, and pushed neatly away from his face. But there was one crack in his seemingly perfect exterior. One tiny, almost imperceptible detail.

A scar. A small rope of scar tissue beneath his right eye.

As if struck suddenly in the chest, Wren felt a burst of recognition and had to stifle a gasp. It was an innate understanding. A subconscious awareness.

Augustine Hughes.

Maya had been right. Looking up at him, Wren just knew. There was no mistaking it.

This was the Demon of Blackwood.

The Monster.

The boy who would pluck your eyes out if you looked at him the wrong way. The boy who would slit your throat just to get ahead in an exam.

But then, just as the realization washed over her, another thought echoed in the back of Wren’s mind—This is the boy they fear? He didn’t look like a monster to her. He didn’t look any different from the rest of them. And despite everything Maya had told her, all the warnings and rumors, Wren couldn’t find it inside herself to feel anything but annoyance at his lack of manners.

“Sorry.” Wren cleared her throat, chin lifted high. “I meant prick.”

The Demon of Blackwood raised a brow. Wren braced for impact. She half expected him to pull a knife on her and jam the blade into her gut. But Augustine Hughes simply looked at her, a twisted mixture of curiosity and disdain swirling behind his smoke-filled eyes.

“You’re the new girl,” he said simply.

“Congratulations.” Wren snorted and continued to pick up her books. “You have functioning eyes.”

“Wren Loughty.” He said her name slowly, a hoarse quality to his voice. “I’m—”

“Augustine Hughes.” Wren picked up the last of her books, straightening herself back onto her feet. She faced him squarely and met his gaze as best she could. “I’m well aware.”

His lip rose a fraction, the faintest hint of a smirk. “My reputation precedes me.” He made a mocking bow, and it took everything in Wren not to knock him upside the head with one of her books. “And it’s August. Nobody calls me Augustine other than my family. And, well, they’re long dead.” He smiled, teeth gleaming, and Wren couldn’t help but flinch, as if he were a predator baring his teeth before sinking them into her neck.

“If you mean everyone knows you’re kind of an asshole”—Wren sneered back, head tilted—“then yes. Your reputation precedes you.”

August blinked, and Wren swore his smile deepened. Is he enjoying this? she thought, bewildered.

“You certainly like insulting me,” he muttered.

“Well.” Wren straightened her shoulders. “You’ve yet to apologize for knocking me to the floor.”

“If I recall correctly . . .” August stepped closer, looking her up and down. “It was you who ran into me.”

Wren scoffed, aghast. “That is not—” But August interjected before she could get another word out.

“Surface Illusions and Illusionary Obstructions.” He reached out his hand, gently brushing the spine of one of Wren’s textbooks. Wren couldn’t help but notice the softness in his movements . . . the way his finger delicately grazed the surface of the book. Languid. Tender. Something about it made her stomach flip. “This is rather advanced for a newbie. Did they bump you up a few classes?”

“They did.” Wren had no idea if that was actually true, but she wasn’t about to admit that to this arrogant jerk. “Why? Are you intimidated?”

At this, August’s eyes snapped up to meet hers. “Of you?”

“Of someone being better than you,” Wren replied.

There was a hitch in August’s breath. He stared, eyes boring into hers. There was something . . . disconcerting . . . about the way he looked at her. An intensity that left Wren feeling breathless.

When August finally responded, his voice was steady. “I’m perfectly confident in my abilities as a student, and even if I were worried, it wouldn’t be because of some fresh soul with an inflated sense of self-assurance.”

A sweltering anger burst through Wren. She stepped forward. “Inflated sense of—”

“I ought to be going,” August cut in. And before Wren could even process what he was doing, before she could move back and distance herself from him, August reached out his hand and delicately brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. “But I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around . . . Loughty.”

And then he was gone. From one blink to the next, August vanished, swallowed in a plume of black smoke. And all Wren could do was stand there, mouth agape, her rebuttal lodged in the back of her throat.

* * *

That self-righteous, egotistical, self-absorbed, arrogant, pretentious, brooding asshole.

Who the hell did he think he was? Inflated sense of self-assurance. That was the last thing Wren would ever say about herself. Nobody was more aware, more critical of Wren’s faults, than herself. And who was he to judge her based on a thirty-second interaction? He hardly knew her!

Wren couldn’t stop seething as she continued down the corridor. She no longer cared that she couldn’t find the damn classroom. All she could think about was that rude, insolent, vain idiot, and his stupid, definitely not handsome face. In fact, she was so vexed by the memory of their interaction that she almost didn’t notice the strange shimmer on the wall beside her. Luckily, she managed to pause her seething, detecting the effect right before she could walk past it.

Wren cocked her head in confusion.

“Huh.”

It was as if there were a translucent, iridescent gauze on the wall. It waved like rippling water, sparkling with a faint lilac sheen. Wren reached out a tentative hand, brushing her fingertips against the shimmer, and felt her fingers move past the wall, as if it weren’t solid. Wren was about to push her hand through farther when somebody cleared their throat behind her.

With a startled gasp, Wren spun on her heels to face a girl with dark brown skin and eyes that almost appeared to be golden, like honey. Her dark curls were pinned away from her face, and she was peering at Wren with a rather curious expression, her lips pinched, as if she were holding back a smirk.

“Are you going through or not?” she asked with clipped impatience.

Wren blinked, confused. “Am I . . . what?”

“Oh Jesus Christ.” The girl rolled her eyes, glancing down at her burgundy flats. “You must be the newbie. I’ll never understand why they put some of you in a course this high . . .” She shook her head, an exasperated sigh fluttering from her lips. “You walk into it.” Wren must have continued to look perplexed, because the girl sighed and added, “Just follow me.”

Without a glance back, the girl simply walked into the shimmer, through the wall, and vanished. For a moment, Wren considered making her way back to Pettyworth, unwilling to subject herself to whatever this was, but then she remembered Maya’s cautionary words. The threat of reformatory and what might await her if she failed to acclimate.

Fine. Wren thought with a sigh. Through the wall I go.

Wren held her breath as she stepped forward, following the girl. For a moment, all she saw was white, as if she’d been swallowed by a thick, oppressive fog, and then suddenly the fog subsided and she found herself standing at the front of a classroom.

Wren blinked as her eyes adjusted. The classroom was large and spacious, with wide, domed ceilings and dark wooden walls bordered with floral wallpaper trim. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the eastern side of the room, and ribbons of amethyst light trickled through the glass in prismatic rays that bounced across the walls. Students sat in even rows, a sea of sullen, bleary-eyed faces.

And standing at the front of the room, behind a tall podium, was Housemaster Russo. At least, Wren assumed that was who it was, judging by the name on her schedule. Like the rest of the Housemasters, Russo appeared to be older than the students, perhaps in her mid to late thirties. She wore a long-sleeved black shirt tucked into black slacks, and her lips were painted a deep shade of scarlet. Her brown eyes landed on the girl who had showed Wren how to enter through the shimmer.

“Ms. Sallow.” Russo pushed up the sleeves of her black shirt. “Three minutes late.”

“Apologies,” the amber-eyed girl muttered, sliding into a seat in the front row. She delicately placed her chin on the flat plane of her palm, her movements graceful and fluid. “Relocation reserve ran out faster than anticipated. Won’t happen again.”

“I’d hope not.” Housemaster Russo’s eyes skated past her, landing on Wren with a sudden intensity. “And you must be our new student. Ms. Loughty. I suppose your tardiness can be excused . . . for today.” She gestured to the two empty seats left in the back of the classroom. “Go on. Take a seat.”

Wren kept her gaze forward as she made her way to her seat, attempting to ignore the dozens upon dozens of students watching her. As she sat down, she pretended to fuss with one of her books, bending the corner of the first page over and over.

Housemaster Russo had just begun to address the classroom again when footsteps echoed at the front of the room. The swoosh of someone else passing through the shimmer.

It turned out Wren and the amber-eyed girl hadn’t been the only ones running late.

“Apologies for my tardiness,” a voice announced. Deep. Grating. Familiar. “I had a bit of a . . . hiccup . . . on the way to class.”

Wren’s stomach flipped. Her breath hitched in her throat.

Of course.