Page 21 of Blood Oath
My breathing quickens, and instinctively, my hand edges toward my pocket where my bleeding crystal is. I always carry it there in case I need to cast a powerful spell in the blink of an eye. I’m so accustomed to the slight ringing in my ears that I only realize Baelfire is trying to get my attention after the second time he’s called my name.
The ringing fades. My eyes snap to his, and I’m not sure what he sees on my face, but he immediately sets the knife down and steps back, wiping his bloodied hands on his trousers.
“Whether we like it or not, we’re in a quintet now. You know I wouldn’t.”
He means he wouldn’t kill me.
Only Baelfire knows how my curse affects me, and that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Most people can’t understand the severity of it, but he does because, in some ways, our curses are similar.
But just because he understands doesn’t mean I can trust him.
He’ll betray you. He’ll turn Maven against you, too.
The other voices in my head agree. If you don’t get to him first, he’ll rip you to shreds.
I shake my head to dispel the suspicions crawling inside my skin like termites.
Baelfire scratches his chin, studying me. “On second thought, maybe I should show you some mercy and let you try to win Maven over first. Maybe being around her will make you less…you know.”
Neurotic. Haunted. Incredibly fucking paranoid.
My curse is slowly driving me mad, making me expect foul intentions from perfect strangers. I see everything through suspicion-colored lenses. It’s as if my nerves are always hardwired to everything, searching for the most minuscule way others might try to harm me. Some days, it’s debilitating.
Baelfire may be right. Perhaps Maven will soothe the backstabbing demons in my head.
I’m going to find out. Though Maven is in my House, I’ve never even noticed her existence until the Seeking, and I regret that heavily. It means I have no idea what to expect from her. She’s a question mark to me, and I intend to know every tiny detail about her.
Her likes. Her hates. How strong she is. How well she’ll be able to lead the four of us.
“Just clean it up when you’re done,” I mutter, leaving Baelfire alone in the apartment.
I’m halfway through Everbound on the way to Maven’s dorm when the interim headmaster spots me in the hall and approaches, calling out my name. I try to ignore the lingering suspicions clinging to my skin. It casts everyone in a darker light, and I can’t help eyeing Mr. Gibbons more than usual.
He’s a brown nose, constantly checking in on me, expecting to impress me with preferential treatment. Everyone knows I became the Garnet Wizard’s apprentice after the deaths of most of my family. Since the mysteriously wealthy Garnet Wizard donates hefty sums to Everbound, Mr. Gibbons must see me as a cash cow to cozy up to.
I despise that he thinks I’d appreciate preferential treatment.
“Mr. Crane,” he says with a smile, stopping before me. “I see you out and about by the break of dawn so often, long before any classes. A truly admirable quality. If only more of the other legacies were like you.”
“If they were more like me, we’d all kill each other within a week.”
He tries to laugh it off like I’m joking. Never mind the fact that I can’t lie, even in jest.
“What a sense of humor you have. We might be descended from monsters, but we do have some decorum. You know the rules about killing. Of course, we must still allow the weak to be weeded out—but that’s just how things have always been at Everbound. It’s the way of legacies.”
Annoyance prickles at me. The longer he gabs, the shorter the window of time I have to invite Maven to breakfast. “Is there a point to this discussion, Mr. Gibbons?”
“Indeed, I wanted to inquire about what emphasis you and your rather impressive quintet are leaning toward next semester. Everyone is curious to see what you’ll choose, and I’d like to make sure you get first pick at classes.”
Ah. He wants to know how to give me even more preferential treatment moving forward.
I should have anticipated this.
Until First Placement, students will go about their regular classes from this semester as they get to know their matches. But starting next semester, new quintets will study and train together, whether their group is complete or not. Our individual rankings will change into quintet rankings, with cutthroat competition to establish the most powerful. After graduation, those rankings carry over into where we will be assigned for active combat.
Most legacies are assigned to guard and patrol the Divide, which is a large demarcated border extending all along the eastern border of North America and most of South America. It’s where the Nether is kept at bay, frozen through the efforts of legacies so it will spread no further into the mortal realm. We’re responsible for hunting down anything that escapes.
But not all quintets are stationed there. We get our assignments from the Immortal Quintet, who might instead send us into private security positions, roles inside the legacy government, protecting the temples of the gods, or even allow us to live in the high society of legacies—a spoiled, pampered lot who rarely get their hands dirty with real work.
