Page 33 of The Bargain

If she hopes I’m going to take the hint and abandon her, then she couldn’t be more wrong. I’m a Sutton-Knight—I do not give up. I get to work.

That weekend, I start my search with the girls’ dormitory. It’s a big, bustling building, full of nooks and crannies where girls are chatting, playing games, helping each other with homework. Since all the lower school girls are scared of me, they go skittering out of my way as I make my way from floor to floor.

I try Ophelia’s room first, of course, then the rooms of her friends, then our childhood friend Yuna’s room, since Ophelia’s always been in awe of Yuna. Who isn’t?

“I’ve not seen her for weeks,” Yuna tells me. She’s in boy’s boxers and a huge jumper with ripped edges. Silver star-shaped clips keep her hair out of her face, and she’s got a lollipop in her mouth that’s supposed to be helping her quit smoking. There’s charcoal smeared all over her fingers. “You two fall out or something?”

“Or something,” I say vaguely, already turning and waving her goodbye.

Yuna wouldn’t get it. She’s an only child, she’s never had to worry about siblings. When we were younger, she’d always tell me to ignore William and Austen when they came to me to fix their problem, saying they’d have to learn to fix it themselves. I could never make her understand that it’s not that simple.

After leaving Yuna’s door, I try the common rooms, where girls are picking the movie they get to watch for movie night, and one of the debate team girls is reading out loud a magazine article on how to be an amazing kisser. No Ophelia there either—thankfully. When I’m done with the dorm building, I leave and make my way through campus. Dining room, study room, the classrooms of her favourite subjects.

Finally, I try the library. It’s raining outdoors, which mostly rules out the grounds, and this is the last place I can think of where she could be. Despite the ugly grey storm outside, the inside of the library is warm and lush: bronze lamps and large plants and soft couches. The radiators are always on a little too high, filling the air with that specific lulling smell of paper, leather and hot metal.

Refusing to let the hazy heat and peaceful silence slow me down, I make my way methodically through the building, starting from the bottom floor and making my way up.

On the top floor, in a small corner in the dustiest, most theoretical end of the physics section, I’m stopped in my tracks.

Not by Ophelia.

Elias is sitting at a desk, in a pool of greenish light. The banker’s lamp illuminates a desktop strewn with books and exam papers—but Elias isn’t working. He’s got a newspaper folded in half, and he’s reading it with his hand pressed into fists.

I draw closer as quietly as I can. Elias is always so relaxed, so full of mocking, careless laughter, like nothing in this world has the power of getting to him. So what is he reading? His posture is drawn, tight with tension. When I reach him, I peer over his shoulder. I only have time to see the newspaper name—The Sentinel—and the phrase “From Care to…” in the title.

“Fuck!”

Elias starts, making me jump. He turns quickly—as he does, his fist closes over the newspaper page he was reading, crumbling it and ripping it free. I stare at him.

“What—what are you reading?”

“Nothing.”

His cheeks are a dark, uneven red, and his dark, lively eyes blaze with some powerful emotion I can’t name. I imagine that if I were to wrap my fingers around his neck right now, I would be able to feel his pulse jumping like there’s an animal beneath his skin trying to escape.

“Are you alright?” I ask him.

“Yeah—you startled me, that’s all.”

My heart is hammering, too, even though I can’t tell why. I’ve seen Elias standing utterly still while having knives thrown at his face, and even then he never seemed bothered. Elias is the kind of person who seems as if he would laugh in the middle of a shipwreck, in the middle of a fiery apocalypse. But he’s not laughing now.

“Shit,” he breathes, staring at me. He shoves the torn paper in his pocket, snaps the books on his desk closed: heavy physics books that remind me that despite the bad boy act he puts on, he’s actually in top sets in science and maths. “You’re the last person I expected to see.”

He sits back, tilting his chair on its back legs, looking at me from beneath lowered eyelids.

“What brings you here, Head Girl?”

My eyes flick to the space on his desk where the newspaper just was, and he catches me. Before I can open my mouth, he rights his chair with a sharp bang and stands to face me, tilting his head, the belligerent charm back in full force.

“You’ve seen the Inquisitor’s post, I take it?” he says.

My eyes flash up to his. “I don’t follow the Inquisitor.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

A sudden burst of irritation swells in my chest like a caustic bubble. “Are we really going to concern ourselves with what that pretentious gossipmonger thinks?”

Because I know that’s not what he was reading. The Inquisitor is the distraction, the bone he’s throwing to get me off the scent of whatever I interrupted.