“Have you seen Charlotte?” he asked, surveying the crowd. “She’s supposed to be grading this mess.”
“She was talking to Gabriel awhile ago,” I said.
“One of these days,” he grumbled, almost to himself, “she’s going to do something she can’t take back...”
“And you’re going to say ‘I told you so’?”
He glanced at me, his flat brown eyes like a solid negative force. “Or nothing,” I amended.
“Forget it, I’m going to check the classrooms,” he grumbled, heading off for a side door to the stairwell.
I turn back to fiddling with my display, wondering why men only ever seemed to be scary. Where was Mac when you needed balance?
As if summoned, he appeared at my elbow. “Holy crap you will not believe the day we’ve had,” he said. Destin and Bea were weaving through the crowd behind him.
“Have you seen John Tailor?” Bea asked, expression intent.
“He was just here,” I said, confused by everyone’s collective unease. “He went to look for Charlotte. I’ll go get him - can you watch my board until Camille gets back?”
“Umino grabbed her when we came in, to get her ready for kendo stuff,” Mac said.
“She was with you?”
“Just go get John,” Bea said tersely. “We’ll explain everything when you both come back.”
“A-alright,” I said, slipping through the crowd to the door Tailor had used. I went up the stairwell and out the door to the second floor. I spotted someone down the hall, looking over the banister at the atrium below. I approached, thinking it was Tailor, but I soon realized it was Gabriel.
“What are you - ” I started, but he clapped a hand over my mouth and pointed to the three people in the atrium below.
Tailor
There she is.
I come around the hall and can see her in the foyer, talking to someone whose back is to me. A man, with dark hair and a long wool coat. I assume it’s Gabriel. They’d been spending far too much time together. Charlotte has always had the worst taste in men, and it had only deteriorated when her older brothers left town. She has this habit of attaching herself to people who see her as nothing more than a resource. Gabriel is by far the worst person I can imagine her with.
I’m about to call out to her, berate her for abandoning the festival, and the students she’s supposed to be grading. But before I can, the man spots me, recognition sparking in his bright blue eyes, and he immediately bends down to kiss her. It’s a kiss for my benefit, I know instinctively. Just as he intends, I freeze, blood running cold. Simon.
I’ve always known, somehow, that he would come back eventually. But this is not what I’d been prepared for. Simon pulls back from Charlotte, smirking at me over her bright copper hair.
I was wrong. This is worse than Gabriel.
Charlotte turns, flushing bright red. “Oh! John...look, Simon’s come home!”
“Is that what this is?” I say, tone as flat as I can manage.
“Look at you, Tailor, you’re a step away from being an old professor. Just what I expected,” Simon says, giving me an evaluating look and curling a possessive arm around Charlotte’s shoulders.
I haven’t seen him in over a decade, but he hasn’t changed much. There are lines starting to show around his forehead and two-day stubble on his face. A little ragged around the edges, maybe. A little dark around the eyes, a little cruel around the mouth. But some girls go for that.
“I’m - I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Charlotte says. “I know you were worried about him, but I knew he was fine.”
Damnit, Charlotte. He can’t be serious about her. He’d always ignored her. This is some sort of punishment he’s arranged for me. Because as much as I’ve wanted to forget, Charlotte always did like him. All of the awful boyfriends she’s had over the years, may have just been replacements for Simon. She’d been a wreck when he and Kyra had run away senior year.
“I wasn’t really all that worried, to be honest,” I say.
Simon leans against the banister in the foyer, as if he owns the place. It ticks me off. He’d never been part of this school; he’d left before it was even built. I’ve never had any true claim on Charlotte, but Havenwood is a part of me. I hate it most of the time, and maybe it’s the spell binding me to the foundation talking, but this is my school, not his. I am not his subordinate here.
“Aren’t you going to tell him our happy news, Charlotte?” Simon says.
Charlotte fidgets.
“There’s going to be another Graham,” he says smoothly. “A real one, this time.”
I look at Charlotte. At her stomach. She flushes harder.
“John, don’t look like that,” Charlotte pleads. “It’s good news.”
Then why do you look so guilty? I think. There’s a sort of buzzing in my ears. Half of me wants to run away, at least until I hit the limit of the binding spell. The other half wants to murder Simon where he stands.
“That’s more like it,” Simon says appreciatively, eyes on my expression. “Do you get it now? You know what it feels like?”
“What what feels like?” I say through my teeth.
“Are you seriously going to pretend it never happened?” He’s suddenly seething, pushing past Charlotte to get in my face. “I suffered in ignorance for years because of you, trying to understand why my powers wouldn’t work in my own home. I was free of you...I should have been fine. But every night I came home to my apartment, there was a little brat waiting, and my powers would curdle and die. Did you think I’d never figure it out? Did you think I was that stupid?”
I’d stopped breathing while he spoke. “No,” I say, a horrible night of despair I’d tried to forget pushing its way back up into my memory. I hated her so much, for the way she manipulated Simon. And me.
Charlotte is looking at me like I’m a stranger. Panic rises, but I push it down. “No,” I say. “You’re imagining things, Jul isn’t - ”
“So you’re saying you never slept with Kyra?” Simon demands, and I flinch at the words. Said out loud, they seem real. I want it to be impossible. That night should never have happened.
“Tell me the truth!” Simon shouts.
My voice sounds over-quiet in the wake of his outburst. “Once,” I say, swallowing. “Only once...”
“Once is all it takes, buddy,” Simon snaps. “Do you have any idea what you made? I’ve done the research. I know the prophecies. Born of absolute power and nothingness.” He laughs, and it echoes bitter around the atrium. “That’s your girl. The monster to end all monsters. If she’d been mine - if she’d actually been mine - none of this would be happening right now. Kyra would never have left me. So I’d never have taken that mirror from Gabriel Katsura, and he wouldn’t have needed to move his pet Wolf into your range. The Ender wouldn’t have followed them here. And I wouldn’t have had to bring Charlotte into this.” He kisses her on the forehead but his grin is cruel.
She pushes him away, aghast and trembling. “Simon!”
“Everything that’s happening,” Simon states, focused on me, “is your fault. I want you to remember, when you look at the ruin I’m going to make of your life, that you ruined mine first.”
“Simon - ” I protest, but the windows by the doors begin to melt, the glass peeling away and twisting into jagged shapes that hang in the air. They float around him, an airborne barrier of crystalline knives.
“Has my mother told you where my father’s mirror is, yet?” he asks, advancing. “His masterwork. The one that goes In Between.” The glass knives twirl around him. “Give me the mirror and maybe I’ll go quietly.”