Charcoal Tears (29 page)

I’m starting a harem too, want to be my first wife?

I stared at it.

I stored that particular note away, but didn’t look at another for the rest of the period. My third class was Creative Industries, and I was nervously wondering if Quillan would be teaching the class. Neither Noah nor Cabe were in this class, but they walked me there all the same. I opened my mouth to ask questions at one point, and Noah slammed a hand over my lips as if he had been waiting for my breathing to change with the preparation for speech. Shocked, I stayed silent, and they deposited me at my classroom before disappearing.

I moved straight to the back, bypassing the teacher and the note I was supposed to give him. I sat down and tried to make myself as small as possible. The class filed in and nobody seemed to notice me. Once the teacher walked in and started calling out names, I was almost half-way relaxed, and then the door opened and Quillan walked in. The teacher—I didn’t know his name—looked up, and the rest of the class broke out into whispers again.

“Oh my god… it’s Miro Quillan—”

“Is he teaching again—?”

“Why waste time at this stupid school—”

“I heard the Adairs were back—”

“He’s still hot as hell—”

I tried to turn off my ears.

“Morning, Harold,” Quillan said. “I need to steal your new student. There’s been a change of scheduling. She’ll be doing private lessons for art.”

“New student?” The teacher looked down at his register, and then back up. “She hasn’t come in yet.”

Quillan glanced at the faces like he knew better, and when he found me in the back, his lips twitched. “Stephanie? Don’t make me wait.” His tone was deep and persuading, with a hint of humour, and my body moved instinctively.

My legs pushed me into a standing position, my hands gathered my stuff, and I was walking toward him before I’d even decided to obey him in my head.
Yeesh
, he was good. Heads all swung around to watch me, and Quillan said a few quiet words to the teacher that I was too mortified to hear before he walked out of the room. I followed him down a few hallways and then up about three staircases to a narrower hallway. There were names on the doors, and they seemed like faculty offices. He opened one with his name on it, and ushered me inside.

“How’d you get your name on a door so quickly?” I asked as I set my stuff down. The room was bare except for an antique-looking chaise set up against a bookshelf full of leather books, and a large desk and chair by the window.

“They never took it off, apparently. I did a teaching internship here right before we moved—I’ll admit, it didn’t really warrant an office…” He smiled at me, and then leaned back against the desk. I had no doubt that people gave him things that weren’t warranted all the time. In fact, I was almost surprised that there wasn’t a wing of the building named after him already. “Have you been ghosting to all of your classes? You know they need to mark you off for attendance, right, Seph? You can’t pretend you’re not there.”

I toed the carpet, not saying anything, and he sighed, crooking his finger at me. I moved to stand in front of him, and he lifted my chin with a gentle touch.

“No…” I finally answered. “Just that one.”

“Tough morning?”

“Noah has another ex, something about getting… about the janitor’s closet. And apparently I’m a bastardling, and this…” I pulled the note out of my pocket and shoved it at him.

He read it, confusion settling over his face for a moment, and then it cleared. “Ah.”

“Ah what?” I poked him, and he captured my finger.

“Our father…” He chewed on his lip, trying to decide how much to say. “The four of us, we have the same father, and he has… a reputation. He was married twice; his first wife was my mother, Yvonne, his second was Tabby. The rest…”

Something about the earlier conversation that I had eavesdropped on came back to me, Noah’s words echoing in my mind.

Father must be ignoring his harem again
.

“I thought Noah and Cabe were only half-brothers.”

“They are. We don’t actually know who Cabe’s mother is. He was born several months after Noah. Our father realised that they were part of a pair, and he took him away from his mother and gave him to Tabby. He couldn’t have a
paired
child living like a bastard.” Quillan almost rolled his eyes, but the bitterness in his voice was fierce. He didn’t like his father.

“Oh… but the other students… they don’t treat you guys like that,” I pointed out, catching onto what he wasn’t saying. “They all treat you guys like you’re royalty or something.”

“That’s because our father claimed us. He’s announced that we’re his only legitimate children.”

“And… and everyone just
knows
this?” I was struggling with the concept. “I mean, you all obviously have a lot of money. There’s the whole apartment building, and the mountain house, and all the cars…
especially
Silas’s cars… is your dad some kind of celebrity?”

Quillan’s mouth dipped into a frown. “Something like that. Now sit down. I wasn’t kidding about the private lessons. We’ve got work to do.”

He turned and motioned to the chaise, so I went to sit on it. He dropped an A4 pad into my lap, and I ran my fingers over the rough canvas-like surface of the first page. He opened a sports bag that had been on his desk, and started laying out things in front of me. Art supplies.

“Pick your poison,” he said.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s it,” he confirmed.

I moved off the chaise and tied my hair back into a sloppy bun on the top of my head, and then tucked my legs beneath me so that I was on my knees, leaning forward on my elbows. I reached out, snagged a pencil, and started to sketch. Quillan faded into the background and I fell into my drawing, letting it form instead of trying to manipulate it. An outline of sloping mountains appeared, jagged on the edges and covered in scrub. I reached again, not paying attention to what I grabbed, and charcoal began to blur the edges of the canvas page. I tossed the charcoal to the side, choreographing the blur with the tips of my fingers into an ominous night sky. White chalk appeared in my grip, and the moon took shape, ghostly and slightly unfocussed, like clouds were rolling over it. Stars started to twinkle, and the cold seeped into my bones. I started to tremble, but my hands were oddly steady.

The pencil was back, and I was outlining the ground, the feel of the soil beneath my feet making my toes curl.

“Where are my shoes?” I said aloud, my voice strange to my own ears.

The soil pile doubled, and a hole appeared. The trembling increased, and two hands took shape. One was holding a shovel and the other a flashlight. The white chalk returned, illuminating the glow of the flashlight to touch upon the edges of the shovel, glinting over it viciously. I flicked away the chalk and reached out again, my fingers brushing, brushing, hesitating, grabbing. Pastels. Colour seeped into everything, bringing the drawing to life.

I jerked away from the page, crawling back until I was on the chaise again, my eyes rounded and met Quillan’s. He approached me cautiously, sat on the chaise, and captured my hands in his, holding them away from his body as he pulled me so close that I could feel the beat of his heart against my back.

“Seph?”

I whimpered, my eyes flicking back to the page. “Something bad is going to happen. I have a terrible feeling.”

I looked down at my hands as the trembling subsided, and realised why he was holding them away; I was coated in charcoal and chalky pastel colours up to my elbows. I looked back to the drawing, wondering how the detail was so specific when I looked like I’d gone and rolled in it.

“This is why you took me out of class?” I asked. “So nobody else would see me like this?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. It’s getting stronger, isn’t it?”

“I think so. This isn’t a normal ability, is it?”

“No. It’s not.”

He released me as the trembling stopped completely, and moved away from me quickly, going back to lean against the desk. I took a deep breath and stood, dusting off my hands as best I could.

“Quillan…” I took another breath, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “Why does the bond make us need contact so much?”

“It’s the way it works,” he answered cautiously. “We rely on you and you rely on us. It can take any form; physical touch, mental strength… it’s a reliance system to keep you—” he cut off, like he wasn’t sure how to continue.

“What happens when one of you gets a girlfriend?” I asked, thinking of Amber. “How are they going to feel about it? It’s not really a sustainable way to live. We all spend too much time together, and we act too close. Clarin and Tabby think it’s weird.”

For some reason, this made him pause. “Girlfriend?”

“Yeah.” I waved a hand. “I heard your rule. None of you guys want to start anything with me—you know, romantically. So what happens when you find someone you
do
want to start something with?”

“My rule?”

“No kissing, nothing romantic.” I tapped my lip, trying to think of what else they’d agreed to.

He sighed heavily. “That was for your own good, Seraph.”

“It doesn’t matter whose good it was for. You guys made a rule, and you’re sticking to it. So what’ll happen when one of you gets a girlfriend?” The words left a bitter after-taste in my mouth, but I swallowed it down. This was important. I didn’t want to mess up their lives because of my stupid reliance on them. He had said last night that the bond was
straining me
. Well what if it
strained
me when one of them or all of them had girlfriends and they couldn’t be there for me and I stopped breathing…

“Come here.” His voice had changed, gaining a new kind of determination. I stepped up to him, and he unclipped his watch. “Give me your arm.”

I held out my arm and he slipped the watch over my hand, snapping it closed again. It was heavy, and it weighed my arm down, almost falling off. “When I want a girlfriend, or when I give a shit what Clarin or Tabby think about this, I’ll ask for my watch back. How’s that?” He looked almost amused now. “Until then, you won’t worry about it. Agreed?”

I held up my arm and looked at the watch, confused by his reaction. “Okay.”

He seemed surprised, like he had expected me to put up a fight. But what could I do? I let my arm fall back to my side. It was hard to second guess things when he seemed so sure of everything. Maybe one day I wouldn’t be able to rely on them… but maybe one day I wouldn’t need to. Maybe once the bond was formed, things would be different. Things would settle.

“Thanks, Bossman.”

He laughed. “You’re welcome, Seph. Now get to lunch.”

17

Girlfriend Insurance

The cafeteria was full by the time I arrived, and I had the urge to sneak to a corner bench somewhere and hide myself away… but I knew better. The boys would find me, so I found them instead; they were sitting in the middle of the cafeteria, like they had at the old school. Their table was otherwise empty, but the tables around them had been dragged close, and the usual popular crowd was hovering. The boys basically had a throne in the middle, which I found hilarious because I’d joked about it at the last school. Nobody even dared sit at the table with them. Maybe you had to petition them to get close.

Ha
.

I focussed on the other students for a moment, noticing the subtle ways in which they differed compared to the kids at our last school. They were all exceptionally well put-together, and were dressed in expensive clothing that could have passed for casual, if you didn’t look too closely—like Noah and Cabe.

They were Zevghéri.

I approached the boys and they seemed relieved to see me. I still had the girlfriend concern in the back of my head, though, and I was aware that everyone in the school thought I was their sister, so I sat opposite them instead of between them. There was a packed lunch in my bag, and I assumed that Abe had been the one to put it in there. I started to eat, as the boys examined me, wondering things that they weren’t going to share with me. Eventually, Cabe leaned back and kicked his legs out, an easy smile lighting his face, making the whole day seem happier and brighter.

“You’re wearing Miro’s watch, little ghost,” he stated quietly enough that the surrounding tables wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop.

“It’s girlfriend insurance,” I muttered.

Noah quirked a brow. “What are you talking about?”

“He said he’d take it back when he wants to get a girlfriend, and I’m not to worry about the connection thing until then.”

They shared a look. “Fair enough,” Noah said lightly, and I saw the spark that lit up in his eye. “I think…” They shared another look, and Cabe’s smile widened. “I think you should get a piercing,” Noah said easily.

“What?” My mouth dropped, and I realised that my tone had risen to a normal level again. A few people glanced at our table, and I lowered it again. “W-why?”

Noah shrugged, but his smirk was trying to break through. “Just one.” He shot forward in a flash, his finger curling over the back of my right earlobe, at the top. “Right here.” His voice was low enough that I almost didn’t catch it. “Quillan gets to give you a watch… I get to pierce your ear. You can take it out when I want a girlfriend and not worry about the
connection thing
until then.”