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That is the thing about Calista, though. I have become a patient man over the years, and it is only with her in mind. She makes me want to be better. To do better. To learn to prioritize the things my mother had always complained my father hadn’t.
He may have learned the hardest lesson of them all, but I plan not to make his same mistakes.
Until tomorrow,
Alastair
Chapter 5
Four Days Until Christmas
Calista
Cold air prickles my skin through the thin fabric of my nightdress, bare feet pressing into the icy stone. My pulse drums, throat dry as I blink into a blur of torchlight and shadows. For a sickening moment, I do not know where I am.
The sound of a strangled scream rends the silence, and I find myself upright as awareness calls to me from my sleep-laden mind.
The echo of distress reverberates through the great stairwell, and only then do I see it.
Adrian Delacort lies sprawled at the base of the steps. His head twisted at an angle too severe for life, eyes open and glassy. A dark smear of blood mars the stone beneath him, seeping into the cracks like ink in parchment.
And I am standing over him.
“Calista!” a voice shrieks behind me. The cry is sharp enough to cut through my haze. I spin to find Professor Winthrop—the brisk, sharp-tongued mistress of rhetoric—clutching the railing at the landing above. Her hair is disheveled, nightcap askew, face ghostly pale in the dim light. “What—what have you done?”
The words strike like a blow, and only then do I realize my hands are trembling, palms slick with sweat. My breath comes ragged.
Fragments crash back into me: Alastair slipping from my bed at dawn, his lips brushing my temple before vanishing into shadow. The pull of sleep returning, deep and irresistible. Then nothing. A black seam. And now, this.
I stagger back from Adrian’s body, nausea clawing up my throat. “I-I heard a scream,” I stammer, desperate for sense to cling to. “That’s why I came running.”
Professor Winthrop narrows her gaze, one hand still pressed to her chest as though to calm her frantic heart. “That is what I heard as well. A scream woke me.”
Her voice quivers on the word “scream,” and something in me seizes upon it like driftwood in a storm. Yes. That’s what happened. We both heard it. That’s why I am here. That must be why.
But the truth gnaws at me, merciless and unseen: I woke not in flight but already standing over him.
Students begin to gather now, their whispers swelling like a tide. Some cry out when they glimpse the body, others gape wide-eyed, and I feel their stares sink into my flesh like hooks.
Alastair arrives at last, his robe hastily knotted, hair tousled with sleep. His eyes find mine, and in them I read alarm, but with it, something much worse—hesitation. For one raw instant, I see the question forming there, the same one festering in my own mind.
I’ve found myself in a precarious position like this once before. Would it be so hard to believe I’d find myself here again?
By nightfall, Adrian’s body is gone—carried away under a white sheet and lowered into the cellar, unable to be collected until the growing storm passes. It came on out of nowhere, much like the losses we’ve experienced, the storm snarling at the windows like some furious beast. Even if someone tried to reach us, I doubt they could.
Dinner is quiet, the air heavy with suspicion. Every clink of a spoon makes me flinch. I excuse myself before the meal ends, claiming fatigue. In truth, I can’t stand the looks, the murmurs threading through the hall.
At the door, I nearly collide with Ophelia. Her cheeks are flushed, hair undone, eyes brighter than they should be after a day like this.
“And where might you be off to?” I ask, keeping my tone light, raising a brow as if there’s nothing out of the usual happening within the quiet walls of this university.
“Ah, Calista,” she says, lowering her voice, “I’m meeting Balor for a drink. It seems tonight is as good a time as any.” Her laugh is brittle.
My brows pinch, smoothing as I realize who she’s referring to. How odd to hear Professor Dinwoodie referred to by first name, as if he’s a real person rather than a persistent villain in my mind. As if I’m one to talk.
“If ever there was a night for a drink, it’s this one,” I answer, though the words catch sharp in my throat.
She smiles, half-hearted, before sweeping down the corridor. I watch until the shadows take her before heading off toward the place I’m certain to receive a reprieve.
