Page 69 of Trivium

“I’m not obsessed with him, Lennox.” Loveleena gaped. “I just think there’s more to him than he lets on.”

Zeina thought back to the morning she sat in the courtyard watching Ren return to the castle. It was odd for him to be returning at the hour. Maybe Loveleena was right. Maybe Ren had something to hide.

“Give it a rest,” Lennox said, rolling his eyes.

A shadow emerged from the upper level of the store. “If you don’t stop bickering, I’m going to set all three of you on fire.”

“Lady Shadows,” Loveleena said under her breath, looking up and offering her biggest smile. The woman, dressed in what looked like the oldest frock and cloak known to Jarrah, descended the creaky wooden stairs toward them.

“You haven’t been back to bother me, miss Alva,” she said, her eyes sharp enough to cut stone.

“I’ve been preoccupied,” Loveleena said through her smile. “I’m at the Academy now.”

Lady Shadows ignored her entirely and turned her attention to Lennox and Zeina, her eyes lingering on Zeina a little too long.

“Twenty-five pentacles.”

“What?” Loveleena said, confused.

“The Emolda Flower.”

Zeina touched her satchel, protectively.

“Twenty-five pentacles,” Lady shadows repeated, her eyes boring into Lennox’s. After a beat, he pulled out exact change and placed it in her wrinkled, leather-like hand.

“That was weird,” Loveleena said with a scowl as they left the shop.

“I’ve heard that’s her way,” Lennox said dismissively.

Lady Shadows had said something odd before they left; Zeina turned it over in her mind the entire walk through the underground tunnel back to the Academy. It was in old Jarrian, and she could only make out a few words.

Fate. Entangled. Scraping bone.

It wasn’t what Lady Shadows had said that bothered her, exactly, or the fact that she couldn’t understand the majority of it—it was how Lennox responded. He brushed off the old woman’s comment. But she noticed a subtle tense of his jaw. Something only someone who had spent their entire life watching every minuscule movement people made would have noticed. Someone whose instinct was sharp, who read people better than words.

Someone like Zeina.

48

LOVELEENA

By the time Loveleena had returned to her dorm room, the sun had long set in the sky. She had eaten the biggest meal of her life after going the entirety of the day without any food and was ready to crawl into bed for the night. But her plans were interrupted when she found Kumani sitting up in bed, reading. Waiting… for her.

“Where have you been?” Kumani’s accusation filled the room, despite her attempt to be casual.

Loveleena flopped down on her bed, exhausted. “Please. Not this again. I’ve had a long day.”

Kumani snapped her book shut. She could feel Kumani’s glare without looking. “You come to the Academy on a whim, with no luggage or possessions, might I add, all to copy my assignments and run around in secret? You’ve been gone all day. Nowhere to be found.”

Loveleena sat up, finally meeting Kumani’s eyes. “How’d you know? About the assignments, I mean.”

“You’re not that good at hiding things, you know.”

“I didn’t think I would be here this long…” The truth caught in her throat, fighting to escape. She thought she would have reunited with Park and returned home by now. At the very least, she thought she would have found out what happened to him.

Kumani scoffed. “You thought you’d come here for whatever privileged delusional self-centered reason and just return home? Like nothing happened?” Kumani’s accusation smacked her in the face. Hearing it out loud made it sound incredibly foolish. “You can’t just have whatever you want and then abandon it when you’ve had your fill. You know that’s not how the world works for regular people.”

Loveleena opened her mouth to speak but shut it again.