Page 69 of The Deadliest Candidate

But it seemed now as though the Lautrics had finally reached deep into Carthane and closed their fist around one of its Grand Archivists. What did they pay him for exactly, and why had they threatened him? Where was he now? Did the other Grand Archivists know? Did they genuinely think he was away for personal matters, or had they lied to Fern?

Did Léo Lautric know about any of this? Could this be the reason he was sent to Carthane? The candidacy was clearly not his only agenda here.

Thinking of him was like venturing into a murk of confused and troubling thoughts. Fern knew the Lautrics to be her enemies; she’d lost count of the times the Lautrics had sent various brutes to steal books from her.

But Léo Lautric had notfeltlike her enemy tonight. He’d seemed genuinely concerned by the incident in the Arboretum, eager to help even when he was injured. Fern had been alone with him in the library, on the grounds. He’d had plenty of opportunity to hurt her if he wished to.

Instead, he’d helped her, fed her energy when she had none, and shared information with her when nothing had forced him to doso.

Where are you going at night, Fern thought.Why did you borrow books from Vittoria? Why were you in the Sumbra Wing when you are researching Wild Magic? How did you come to be here, in Carthane, and why are you really here?

So many questions, and with only five days left to the next assignment, so very little time to investigate. And she had the assignment to worry about, and the other competitors were so overwhelmingly talented, and she’d barely had any time to work on her own research, the reason she was here to begin with.

Fern let herself slowly fall back onto the carpeted floor, closing her eyes. Could she accept succeeding in her candidacy if she could not solve any of these mysteries?

A crucial question—and another one she could not answer.

Fern was walking downa shadowy corridor, her feet bare. The smell of blood filled the air so thickly she could taste the iron of it in her mouth. A low, keening voice reached her through the shadows, and a yawning darkness awaited at the end of the corridor. She was certain it was a mouth—a mouth waiting to swallow her whole.

An eye appeared in the darkness. It blinked slowly and fixed its gaze on Fern. A black terror obliterated her mind, and her mouth opened in a voiceless scream.

She turned, desperate to escape the hungry gaze. Two figures stood in front of her, so clear that she could make out every single feature of their faces. A tall man with brown hair, silver at the temples. His eyes were grey and his face lined and weather-beaten. A woman with dark gold hair tied in a knot, wearing a plain black dress with a grey apron over it. Over the breast, an eye with a candle in its pupil was embroidered in black thread.

“Mum. Dad.”

Fern’s eyes stung, her vision blurred. Her heart sank as though the red cavity of her chest had become a black abyss. She awoke before her parents could answer and touched her cheeks to find them wet with tears.

Sitting up, Fern looked around. She was on the floor of her apartment in Carthane. Inkwell was curled next to her on the rug, close but not touching. The lamps were still on, the sky outside was a dull grey. It might have been early morning or late afternoon, Fern could not tell. She felt disoriented and jittery.

She forced herself up to her feet and poured herself a cup of water. Her heart was hammering, her mouth and throat were dry. Her eyes were sore, as though she’d cried herself to sleep. Why was she dreaming aboutthem? Why now?

Fern had dreamed about her parents often after they died. Back in the orphanage, those long, cold years when her childhood had slowly died around her. She’d dreamt of her father’s calm grey eyes and of her mother, unwinding the knot of her dark gold hair after a long day and lying in bed with a book propped on her stomach. Simple dreams that crushed Fern’s heart like an avalanche of stone every time she awoke.

But after leaving St Jerome, she thought little of them, leaving her memories and her dreams behind, trapped within the bleak halls of the orphanage. When she thought back on the person she was then, Fern felt no connection, no attachment, no remaining ligament.

She had come back to Carthane a different person than when she’d left. She had not tried to connect her experiences now to the experiences of her childhood. Any memory that might creep into her mind was accidental or incidental. So why these dreams?

Perhaps it was because everything at Carthane was odd, unpredictable, beyond her control. Deep down, Fern was a creature of habit, of routine, of discipline. But Carthane refused to allow her to marshal her life into any kind of order. It must be the chaos of daily life here that was wreaking havoc upon her mind.

Fern checked her watch. It was almost ten in the morning; she must have failed to hear any of her alarm clocks. She pinched her lips. She must re-establish routine and order in her life, focus on the assignment. She bathed quickly and dressed in woollen trousers, a crisp white shirt and a loose, soft waistcoat. She tied her hair back into a neat ponytail, gathered her things and bid Inkwell a good day.

The dining room was empty, but that was for the best. Fern forced herself to eat two slices of buttered bread and an orange, hoping it would settle her stomach. She drank her coffee quickly and left the Mage Tower, hoping the caffeine would be enough to power her through the day ahead.

It would be a long one.

Chapter thirty-two

The Truth

Despite her late startto the morning, it was almost midday when Lautric joined Fern in the Invocation Wing, a leather folder wedged under one arm.

She cast him a quick glance. He wore a large rust-brown sweater over plain black trousers and a white shirt, one half of the collar peeking out. He must have used some sort of salve because both the bruising around his eyes and the cut on his mouth had healed inordinately fast, a pink line crossing the bloom of his lips.

“Are we… are we deciding our Invocation type today?” he asked as he sat down, speaking almost sluggishly, as if struggling to remember what he was trying to say.

He looked as exhausted as Fern herself felt. He smelled of coffee and sugar.

Fern was torn between two warring emotions. Sympathy for Lautric, who appeared overwhelmed and troubled, understandably so after the previous night’s events, but also impatience. If she could force herself toset aside all her tiredness and anxiety and questions to focus on their assignment, why could he not?

---