Immortal Consequences(57)

Say something, you dolt.

His words were a scrambled mess in his mouth. Useless. It shouldn’t be this difficult to simply speak to her, not after all this time. It made him feel…wretched. He wanted to crawl out of his skin. He wanted to— “Where have you been?”

August froze, his finger still wrapped around the silver band of his ring. He opened and shut his mouth. Words, Augustine. Use them. He swallowed, slipping his hands back out from under the table.

“Around.”

She snorted, leaning back in her chair. “Right. Excellent.”

August allowed himself a moment to glance in her direction. She looked—well, she looked radiant. All perfect and pristine, practically glowing. It was infuriating. Her braid slithered over her shoulder, not a single strand out of place. Her cheeks were rosy, as though she’d been kissed by the sun.

“Why do you ask?” He leaned in closer, unable to help himself. “Don’t tell me you missed me.”

Her cheeks reddened. A sight that made him feel wholly pleased—and perhaps a few other things he wasn’t inclined to mention.

“This might come as a shock to you, August, but there are other people I can hang out with. Unlike you, I actually have friends.”

At this, August stiffened. He couldn’t even bother to hide his displeasure. “You mean the new girl. Louise. I noticed you hanging out with her.”

“Jealous?”

“Not particularly.” The corner of his lip twitched into a smirk, though on the inside, he was reeling. “When did you two become so close?”

“I don’t really see how that’s any of your business.”

He shrugged and stretched his arms overhead, feigning indifference. “You two have been inseparable.”

“Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

The muscles on his neck involuntarily tensed. “It’s just an observation.”

“I’m allowed to make friends, August. And either way—you were the one who fell off the face of the afterlife the past week.”

August flinched. “I didn’t disappear. You just weren’t looking.”

“I—” Wren’s breath hitched in her throat. August knew the words he secretly hoped to hear her say—the words he ached to hear out loud: Of course I was looking for you. But instead, she simply sighed and said, “I just find the timing peculiar. You’ve dedicated your existence to pestering me every second of every day, and now…nothing. Seems awfully convenient.”

He masked his disappointment with a shrug. “My apologies. I didn’t realize you were vying for my attention.”

Wren shook her head. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t know why I expected anything else.”

Something in her voice startled August. It was a sense of exasperation—a finality in the way she turned away from him. He was racking his brain for something to say, anything to break the silence he had caused, when Housemaster Wesley cleared his throat and addressed the classroom.

“All right, students! Settle down.” He clumsily wiped his glasses on his linen shirt, nearly dropping them in the process. “We will begin today’s class with some good old-fashioned mind-alteration exercises. Help us warm up the muscles.” He scanned the room, his eyes landing on August. “Mr. Hughes…mind starting us off?”

August groaned internally as he rose from the table. He could feel the students around him staring, their apprehension and fear a tightening noose around his throat. Years ago, such obvious disdain would have wounded him.

But now…now he was simply thankful for it.

He took his place next to Wesley, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Splendid.” Wesley let out a nervous laugh, eyes scanning the rest of the room. “Now, if we can get a volunteer to challenge Mr. Hughes—”

“I’ll do it.” Wren stood up, eyes glinting.

August glanced up at the ceiling, tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth.

Of course.

“What a surprise,” Wesley muttered beneath his breath, gesturing her forward. “Very well. Come to the front of the class, please.”

Wren moseyed toward them, eyes locked on August the entire time.

“The exercise is quite simple,” Wesley explained. “You will each stand on one of the lines drawn on the floor and attempt to take hold of the other’s mind. You will want to first latch onto their basic, surface-level emotions—the first layer of their conscious mind. Once that is properly secured, you may attempt to push deeper into their subconscious. Having done so, the goal is to convince the other to move off the line. First person to move…loses.”

“Easy enough,” said Wren, sauntering over to one of the white lines drawn on the floor.

August flexed his fingers, making his way to the other line, which lay a few feet away from Wren. He planted the soles of his boots firmly over the line, glancing up at her. “Don’t go easy on me now, darling.”

Her lips curved into a confident smirk. “I wouldn’t dare.”

August chuckled.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Wesley cleared his throat. “All right. If you’re both ready…”

August closed his eyes.

“Begin.”

The first thing he saw was red. An endless sea of crimson and scarlet—waves of auburn crashing against a rocky shoreline. He’d dipped into Wren’s mind before, during similar exercises like this, but he still hadn’t grown accustomed to the chaos lingering just beyond what he could see. There were too many emotions to rifle through, and Wren had done a decent enough job placing a complex web of mental wards, inhibiting August from accessing anything too personal.