Chapter 51

VALERIA.

I lean closer to my hand, inhaling deeply as the scent of Eden’s blood creeps up my nose. The smell is almost intoxicating. I bring it against my mouth, and slowly, I part my lips….

“What are you doing?”

Eden’s voice snaps me back to reality. I flinch and look around, then I find her exiting the bathroom with a roll of gauze and a bottle full of liquid disinfectant. She’s staring at me with wide eyes, her gaze flitting from my face to the blood on my hand. We face each other like we’re sizing each other up. Suddenly, everything starts to dawn on me. What happened and what I did. Or about to do.

I was about to taste Eden’s blood.

Questions start to flood my mind. I want to run out of the room and perhaps have some time alone with myself to ask all of it, but I find that I can’t move.

Eden is staring at me with badly suppressed fear in her eyes. “What were you doing?”

Should I tell her the truth? That I was tempted to taste her blood for some reason, that its scent attracted me? What even is the truth at this point? Should I lie and play this off as something else?

I lower my hand gently and say after a pause, “Nothing. I was just looking at your blood. I thought I saw something weird.”

That lie just came out on its own.

“Right.” Eden doesn’t sit next to me. She doesn’t even take a step forward. “I need to clean my cut. It’s hurting pretty bad now.”

Like an idiot, I ask, “Do you need help?”

“No,” she says instantly, her voice coming out a bit aggressive. “I don’t need help,” she adds in a calmer tone. “I will go now. You can go back to sleep.”

With that, she slips back into the bathroom and slams the door behind her. I’m left sitting on her bed with the blood still on my hand, now drying fast and leaving a stain, like a reminder of what I almost did.

* * *

STEFANO

“Still nothing?” Celeste asks with a sigh, plopping on the chair in front of my desk in the Student Government headquarters. She’s been spending more and more time here asking me about the status with Valeria, but the more days pass, the less answers I have. “You are sure you left the note in her locker, right?”

“I am sure,” I say, setting down the documents I can’t bring myself to focus on. “She just didn’t respond, and I’m not sure she wants to.”

Celeste basically deflates against the chair. “Well, what are we supposed to do now?”

I don’t say anything, because frankly I don’t have a clue anymore.

I regret everything. I regret what I said about her on that day behind those doors. Celeste and I shouldn’t have said anything bad. I hate that I did it, and I don’t even have an excuse. It’s such a shitty thing to do and I was completely carried away by the mystery of it all that I forgot who was being talked about.

I haven’t had proper sleep in a while. I can’t stop thinking about it. It haunts me every minute of every day and I just want to talk to her to bring an end to things. I won’t even ask for forgiveness at this point, because I know that it’s impossible now. I just have to live with what I’ve done. I stare at the papers, hoping for the words to grab my attention and finally start making sense. Of course, Celeste knows that I’m not getting anything done, so she reaches for the papers and tries to take them away from me.

But then a knock sounded on the door.

She and I look at each other, and the hope in our faces is almost comical.

It could be Valeria.

“Come in!” I call out, my voice breaking a little bit because of nerves.

The doorknob turns and someone comes in. I try to fight off the hopeful smile on my face, but it all falls naturally when I see that it’s Eden who came in.

“Hi,” she says in a small voice.

Celeste starts to choke on her own tongue. “Hello, Eden! Um, why don’t you sit here?”

She gets up and motions Eden to occupy her seat. I can tell that Celeste is about to make a quick exit as soon as Eden is settled, so I flash her a sharp look. She looks like she wants to argue, but she just grimaces and sits on the other chair.

“So, Eden, what can I do for you?” I ask.

She bites her lip and fiddles with her hands. It seems that she doesn’t want to say anything, but at the same time she’s dying to divulge whatever it is on her mind. In the end, the latter wins, and she whispers, “Something about Valeria.”

My ears perk up. “What happened? Is she okay?”

“She is… I guess.” Eden shakes her head as though getting rid of a pesky fly. “Something happened last night. Something that I can’t explain. But first you have to promise me that none of this ever gets out.”

Celeste and I exchange glances. “We promise.”

“Well,” Eden begins, shifting in her seat uncontrollably. “Last night, I tried to go to the Society town. I got caught in one of the barbed wires and I cut my back.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Where did you go?”

“I can’t say,” she mumbles. “It’s not really important though. I was just trying to unwind and all that. Being in the dorms is suffocating and I--”

“What happened next?” Celeste interjects, her impatience piercing through her words. “Keep your secrets, whatever. Just tell us what went down.”

Eden scratches her face. “So I made my way back to the dorm and I was upset. Valeria was sleeping, but she woke up and tried to comfort me. I told her some stuff and she sympathized. I thought it was going to be alright.”

“Did she say something bad?” Celeste asks, baffled. “Where is this going?”

“Let her finish,” I order, then I look at Eden again, noting the way she was twisting her hands in fear. Something is not right. “Please, Eden, tell us what happened.”

“She hugged me, then she touched my blood from the barb wire wound.” Eden is visibly bothered now. She was practically bouncing on her seat. “I was embarrassed and scared about the cut so I excused myself to get some cleaning stuff for it. I was going to ask her to help me bind it so it won’t bleed. But when I came back, she was sniffing my blood on her hand. And it looked like she was going to taste it. And I think she would have done that if I didn’t show up. She would have tasted my blood….”

My blood goes cold. It takes me a while to process what she said, and when the words finally hit, I get a wave of nausea.

Was I right all along?

Were my suspicions correct?

Is Valeria really not what she seems?

“Stefano?” Celeste says, but her voice sounds faraway. “Stefano, are you okay?”

Suddenly everything is overwhelming. The sound, the light, their presence. As normally as I can manage, I say, "Excuse me for a moment.”

With that, I get up and head outside, walking to the end of the hallway to try to clear my mind.

However, before I can reach it, I feel something vibrating in my pocket. It’s the phone that I don’t get to use much, because technology interferes with magic and it’s only ever used for things that are meant to be untraceable by magic. Confidential things. Obscure conversations.

It’s a call from an unknown number.

With a shaking hand, I press answer and hold it against my ear, hiding in the corner so no one would see. “Hello?”

“Stefano. This is Lilith.”

“Priestess Lilith,” I whisper in surprise. “Is this… is this about my request? Did you find Luna Valentina?"

"We did, yes," she huffs. "We tracked her in the human world, but we only found one path, and it leads back to the Society."

I frown. "But she never went here, right?"

"That's where you're mistaken. Her scent is all over Society. And you know where the track ends?"

"Where?"

"At the School. Your friend's mother is with all of you, right now, inside that castle."