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“Ellelin,” she breathes out, pulling on my hand, and I climb out of my bed, leaving behind my teddy. I reach for it, but she is pulling me with her too fast, my bare feet slipping on the stone as we rush down the corridor outside our rooms. Suddenly, she pushes me behind her, black shadows ripping out of the corners of the corridor and smothering us both in a bubble. This is mummy’s power, and I love when she does this. We float around as shadows and scare people. I giggle but stop as she turns, her eyes glowing black as she kneels in front of me. She is crying. I touch her cheek, but she grabs my hands and holds them in front of her. I hear screams in the distance and the sound of things breaking. “Ellelin, you won’t remember this. You’re too young. Dragon above, you’re just six. You might not even remember me and your daddy, but we love you so much. I will make sure you escape. You have to live. You’re all we have left. Castle, please, please save her. Send her to my mother, and don’t let him see her go.”
“Mummy, I don’t want to go,” I wail, clutching her hands. She pulls me into a strong hug, and I relax in her arms. Mummy isn’t going to let me go. She loves me, and this must be a silly game. She kisses the side of my head, whispering softly. “Ellelin, Ayiolyn will always fight for you, but not yet. Live, and save our people one day. Remember, Ayiolyn is yours if you claim it.”
I wake up warm. Far too warm and in far too much pain. I cry out as I try to remember a weird dream about my mother. I swear she said something about Ayiolyn, but the more I think about the dream, the more it slips from my mind. “Breathe, I’ve got you.”
“Lysander?” I breathlessly question, turning my head to the side. I’m lying on my bed face down, and I have to open and shut my eyes a few times to believe I’m seeing Lysander in front of me, kneeling by my bed. He’s frowning at me like he usually is, but it’s more than that. He is concentrating. It takes me a minute to realise that the water is wrapped around my back as I lie on my front, and he’s crouching by the side of my bed. His hands are covered in my blood, and water flows freely from his fingertips. “Are you healing me?”
“Yes. Don’t look so surprised,” he growls. He’s furious. Absolutely furious. “I’m asking you once, Elle. Who the fuck did this to you?”
I don’t answer him. What’s the point? It’s not like he really cares, and I don’t even understand why he is healing me. How did he find me? “Did Hope tell you to come? Did she find me?”
“They are all still in lessons,” Lysander tightly replies. “I smelt your blood and came.”
I meet his clear green eyes, his red locks of hair falling into his forehead. There’s so much anger in his eyes. “Why are you healing me? Tell me that first.”
He smirks. “Can’t have you dying on me quite yet. My plan won’t work with anybody else. If you die, then every plan I’ve got goes flying out the window.”
I gulp. Of course he needs me alive to kill Arden. I don’t know why I was thinking there might be another reason. “Desmerda. Our tutor.”
The pain finally fades into a low ache on my back. “Why?”
“It was a punishment for being late to class. I woke up on the sofa at yours this morning and overslept,” I admit. “She did warn me. This is my fault.”
His eyes tighten. “This is not your fault. No one deserves to hurt you like this. You’re mine to destroy.”
A strange claim. I don’t argue with the psychopath, not when his power is making me feel so much better.
“Why do you want Arden dead?” I whisper. “You grew up together. If he’s your friend, why do you want him dead?”
For a long time, I don’t think he is going to answer me. “His family destroyed mine. It doesn’t matter if we’re friends. He betrayed me and he knows it. Arden thinks I forgave him for it, and I haven’t. Water always remembers.”
My heart pounds. “How exactly did he betray you?”
“Don’t ask any more questions, and stay still while I heal you, Elle. These are magic-tipped injuries, and she made it so that it’s nearly impossible for you to be healed. You would have died, plain and simple, if I hadn’t gotten here,” he growls.
“Anyone might think you care about me with how protective you’re being right now, Lysander,” I murmur.
He chuckles. “You’re not dying until you finish your part of the test. That’s all you are to me.”
“I thought…when I was drowning towards the end of your test…that I heard your voice in my head telling me to swim. Telling me not to give up because I was too damn strong to die like this. Was that real? Can you talk in my mind?”
“No. You must have been hallucinating,” he snaps at me. “I wouldn’t tell anyone else that unless you want them to think you’re insane.”
I don’t know why, but I think he’s lying to me. In fact, I’m nearly certain he is. He sort of gives it away with how he looks at my back, refusing to look at me. I stay quiet as he finishes healing me until I feel almost like I’m drugged. Woozy. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, Elle, but you will live.” He covers me with a blanket and heads to the door. “Sleep it off.”
“Lysander.”
He pauses, looking back at me. “Yes?”
“Why are you trying so hard to be the villain?” I ask. “Villains don’t heal people.”
His eyes are darker than before, and a cruel smirk tilts his lips up. “Anyone can be your villain, Elle. It just depends on whose side you’re on.”
CHAPTER 11
Arty sits down next to me as I nibble on some toast, touching my arm as she yawns. “Hey, why weren’t you in our room this morning, and how did you get away with missing class yesterday? I want to know that secret! Also, did you realise none of us have had to deal with our periods while we were here? Apparently, the tonic deals with that and makes sure we don’t get sick with colds either. I found this out yesterday. I wonder if I’m still allergic to—”
I still feel woozy after everything that happened yesterday, and it takes me a minute to even focus on the fact she is talking to me. I left early this morning, and the castle led me to a room with a big bathtub that I spent a good hour in. “Desmerda was—”
