Chapter 111

KATHERINE.

I’d screwed up big time. Theo wasn’t responding to my messages and kept declining my calls, and I was starting to believe this wasn’t something I could come back from. I mean, he had looked so angry.

My stomach churned at the thought of how he’d react the next time he saw me – which might be today because I planned to go to the library to see if he was there – and I pressed my lips together before walking out of my dressing room. I paused when I saw Lenore and Satomi in the room, packing a bag, and as I debated just slinking back into my dressing room, Satomi glanced over her shoulder, making Lenore do the same.

“Lenore,” I started, remembering how Blake had rushed off with her without giving me a second thought, before grimacing as I also remembered that she had ended up in that life-threatening situation because of me and I didn’t thank her. I didn’t even bother to find out if she was alright.

“Hey,” she muttered as she returned her attention to her bag while Satomi glared at me before doing the same.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine.” She sounded like she didn’t want to talk and I set my mouth in a hard line, knowing that she must think I was some kind of bitch. She wasn’t wrong. I could have checked up on her while I was in the clinic on Friday night or anytime yesterday, but the fact that Blake had chosen to save her without even trying to help me had made me so bitter. It wasn’t like she was the one that had told him to abandon me though, she had been unconscious. I should apologize.

As I opened my mouth to speak, she picked up her bag which was now completely packed and headed for the door with Satomi. After the sound of the door being shut, filled the air, I heaved a sigh. “Crap,” I muttered, leaning back against the door of my dressing room. When I stood upright once more, I told myself I’d find her after leaving the library to apologize profusely and thank her, and with that, I also headed out of the room.

****

Being a Sunday and the day students from Staerdale and Dumein were leaving, the library was nearly empty, and I was grateful for that because if Theo was here, I didn’t want anyone around us while I talked to him. There was also the fact that I was carrying a book I should ‘not’ be carrying. Anxiety settled on me the moment I walked into the art section and I held my breath till I got to the stone table Theo was always at. He was there. I slowly inhaled and first took a moment to look around without him noticing me, making sure there was no one else here to listen to our conversation, before going back to where Theo was.

“Theo,” I started just as his gaze snapped to mine and he scowled before focusing on his books once more.

“I don’t want to be bothered. I’m busy,” he said in a clipped tone and I walked over to him before setting the stack of books in my hand on the table.

“I’m sorry.”

“I just said I don’t want to be bothered.”

“Theo,” I called, moving closer to him and he immediately moved away like I had a contagious disease. It made me feel even worse.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Fuck off, Katherine.”

Okay, ‘that’ made me feel even worse. I pressed my lips together and swallowed before folding my arms across my chest. “We’re in a public space,” I replied and the look he shot me made my shoulders sag. He did ‘not’ look like he found that funny… friendly. “Please listen to me,” I said and he drew his brows together at his book, like he was reading something incredibly interesting. “Theo–”

“Fine.” He suddenly turned to face me and I almost jumped at how fast he moved. “What? What do you want to say? Why were you going through my things?”

I worried at my bottom lip. I had been going through his stuff because I thought Hunter’s stuff could be there and I wanted to go through Hunter’s stuff because I wanted to discover his involvement or lack of involvement in the death of those students. I didn’t want to say that I thought his friend was a murderer to his face… but I didn’t have a choice now. “Hunter drew them,” I said and he raised a brow. “The dead students. Before they went missing, so I thought–”

“That he did ‘that’?” he asked in a tone that said ‘are you for real?’ and I shifted my weight from one foot to the other as I nodded. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”

‘Where’s the right place?’ I wanted to ask, but instead I said, “I’m sorry for going through your stuff. I’m sorry for going through Hunter’s stuff. I’m sorry for invading your privacy. I shouldn’t have done that. It was really stupid, rude, and shitty. Please forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven. You can leave.”

I wasn’t forgiven. That was clear from his tone. “Theo,” I called and he exhaled harshly before facing me once more. At least he wasn’t glaring now. “...What are you doing with a dark magic spell book?”

“I don’t owe you any explanations.”

“Yes, you don’t, but I… I just want to understand.” I’d spent the night thinking about why he was with a book like that and what he could be doing with it but I’d come up blank. Well, not blank, I’d first thought that it belonged to Hunter but the fact that Theo had reacted that strongly and that it’d be ridiculous for Hunter to keep something like that in a not-so-hidden place in Theo’s side of the room made me cancel that thought. Then I thought that Theo could have helped the Hellaton-Heltons with the spell book, but that had also been ridiculous.

“Why?” Theo asked, narrowing his eyes at me, and I slowly took a deep breath before I removed the dark magic spell book I’d hidden in between my stack of books, and slid it across the table. Theo’s brows shot up. “Where did you get that?”

“Renfield Hall. When we went there to get the ghosts that shouldn’t be there. It was in a hidden compartment in a wall. There’s a weird poem on–”

“And you didn’t turn it in?” he asked and I drew my brows together.

“I could ask you the same.”

“You could get in a lot of trouble for being with this.” He slid the book back to me and moved closer to place a book from my stack on it.

“I could tell you the same.”

“Stop being so fucking annoying,” he muttered before I pouted at him and his gaze dropped to my lips. It was then that I realized how close we were and my gaze also dropped to his lips. I wanted him to kiss me again.

‘Whoa!’

Theo averted his gaze and cleared his throat as he moved backward, fixing his gaze on the book on top of the spell book. “Don’t carelessly show this to anyone.”

“Yes, sir,” I said and he gave me a dry look that made my smile widen before I asked, “You’re not really an elementalist, are you?” I’d thought about how Lenore had been so sure that he wasn’t an elementalist and wondered if he’d lied to me when I asked him if he had lied to me. He didn’t reply so I took it as a ‘yes’.

“Why did you hold on to it?” he asked a moment later, gesturing at the dark magic book, and my smile slipped off as the reason I did that came to mind.

“My parents… I uh, went through it and saw a spell that one can use to speak to the dead, and I uh… I want to speak with them. It’s a bad idea, I know.”

He nodded. “It is.”

“I wasn’t really going to do it. I…” I heaved a sigh as my parents’ faces flashed through my mind and I swallowed. “I just miss them… a lot.”

Theo stared at me without saying anything after that and as I blinked back the tears that threatened to gather in my eyes, he spoke. “I also found mine in Renfield Hall. The book.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted to turn it in. Told Lenore and Hunter that I would, but then I got to the library and changed my mind.”

“Why?”

Again, he stared at me in silence for several moments before heaving a sigh and sitting on a stool next to the table. “My uncle raised me… Lenore’s dad. I never knew my dad and when I was three, my mom decided to finish uni so my uncle took me in. That uni was Blackwood and a year after she came here, she disappeared,” he said and my eyes went round.

“Oh!”

“Yes. No one’s been able to find her since, so she’s probably dead.” A pained expression crossed his face when he said that and I couldn’t help but place my hand over his on the table. He glanced down at my hand and blinked at it, but didn’t move his hand away. “I held onto the book because I want to find her.”

I nodded my understanding and gave him a small smile. “It’s a bad idea.”

“It is.”

“Perhaps we should help each other with what we want, so they wouldn’t be such bad ideas anymore.”

Theo slightly raised his brows and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Perhaps we should,” he replied and I held out my hand which he glanced at before shaking it, and tingles erupted in my hand. I had to stop myself from grinning like an idiot.

“Perhaps we should.”

****

Theo and I hadn’t talked about the kiss. I pursed my lips as I stared at him, playing our kiss through my mind several times and remembering how soft his lips were, and my cheeks heated up.

“What?” Theo muttered. We were still in the library and we were still alone, so I was going through the dark magic book while watching him through the corner of my eyes. Seeing as he’d noticed that I was staring at him though, I hadn’t been subtle enough.

‘We kissed two nights ago,’ came to mind as my response, but instead, I said, “I think Lenore’s mad at me.”

“Lenore rarely gets mad at people,” he replied with his eyes fixed on his book and I found myself focusing on his lips again after his tongue darted out to wet them.

“Are you sure about that?” I asked absent-mindedly and when several moments passed without him responding, I finally slid my gaze from his lips to his eyes to find him staring at me. My cheeks grew warmer and I cleared my throat as I sat upright on the stool. “I didn’t check up on her when she was in the clinic and I didn’t call to ask how she was.”

“Oh.” He hmmed and shrugged before looking away.

“Does that mean she’s mad?”

“Probably.”

“Damn,” I muttered, heaving a sigh before getting to my feet and hiding the dark magic book. “I’ll be back in a minute. I need to get some water.”

The water fountain was on the first floor, right in front of some floor to ceiling windows, so I headed there and when I was done, I noticed there was no one outside. There were always people around the library, so I found it a bit odd before assuming they were saying goodbye to the students from Staerdale and Dumein who were leaving today, before heading back upstairs.