Page 32 of Blood Currents
They were about Elio.
About the boy who’d held me in his sanctuary just nights ago, whose fingers had traced patterns on my skin while he whispered promises I’d been foolish enough to believe.The same boy who’d apparently stood in his parents’ dining room and condemned Keane with the same smooth, practiced ease he used for everything else.
I kept my head down, focusing on the chalk lines with desperate intensity.“I just… can we not talk about it?”
The words came out smaller than I’d intended, fragile as spun glass.I hated how weak I sounded, how broken.But I couldn’t seem to find the strength to be anything else.
“Sure,” Raven said, her voice infinitely gentle.
Lucas touched my shoulder briefly, the contact warm and steadying.“We’re here.Whatever you need.”
I nodded, even though my throat felt too tight to speak, too constricted to let words pass.The gesture was automatic, meaningless—the kind of polite acknowledgment you gave when someone offered help you couldn’t possibly accept.
Because what I needed, they couldn’t give me.What I needed was for the boy I’d been falling in love with not to have betrayed everything we’d been building together.What I needed was for the world to make sense again, for the lines between ally and enemy to be clear instead of shifting like shadows.
What I needed was for my heart to stop breaking every time I remembered the way Elio’s voice had sounded when he played violin, soft and vulnerable and real—so different from the polished cruelty those upperclassmen were describing.
Professor Undergrove’s voice carried across the room, calm and grounding as ever.His dark eyes, sharp beneath swept-back salt-and-pepper hair, seemed to see more than he ever said.The silver skull pin gleamed faintly on his lapel as he inclined his head.“Good work reinforcing your circles, Miss Grimley.”
I managed a faint smile, the expression feeling foreign on my face.My hand found the chalk lines again, and I let necromantic energy flow through me, watching as the circle lit with familiar silver light.Mist curled along its edges like gentle fingers, welcoming me home.
The magic accepted me without question, without judgment.It just welcomed me, steady and unchanging, the one constant in a world that seemed determined to shift beneath my feet.
“You’re so annoyingly good at that,” Raven whispered, her grin teasing but warm, trying to coax some lightness back into the heavy atmosphere that had settled around us.
Lucas’s pencil scratched against paper, a comforting sound that spoke of normalcy and routine.“Your energy distribution is absurdly efficient.Like you were born for this.”
Warmth flickered in my chest for a heartbeat—pride, belonging, the simple joy of being recognized for something I was actually good at.And then the whispered words crashed over me like a cold wave:Competent enough, I suppose.Though her emotional attachments make her… idealistic.
I could imagine it so clearly it felt like memory rather than imagination.The way he would have tilted his head just so, the precise modulation of his voice that managed to sound complimentary while delivering an insult.The slight smile that never reached his eyes.
The way he would have reduced everything I was, everything I felt, to a character flaw that needed managing.
I kept my eyes fixed on the glowing circle, watching the mist swirl in patterns that looked almost like faces—Keane’s face, twisted with pain; Elio’s face, beautiful and cold and perfectly, horribly controlled.
“I’m fine,” I said again, quieter this time.
But the truth burned in my chest like swallowed fire.I wasn’t fine.I might never be fine again.
And now, every time I thought of Elio—of his hands in my hair, his lips against my throat, his voice whispering my name in the dark—all I could see was that other version of him.The polished, perfect heir who knew exactly how to play their game, who could speak their language of controlled cruelty with native fluency.
The one who had never really been mine at all.
The realization cut deeper than it should have, deeper than I’d thought possible.Because somewhere along the way, without realizing it, I’d started to believe that what we had was real.That beneath all his masks and performances and carefully constructed illusions, there was something genuine that belonged to me.
I’d been such a fool.
The mist in my circle swirled faster, responding to the chaos of my emotions, and I forced myself to breathe deeply, to pull back before my magic spiraled out of control.The last thing I needed was to lose it completely in the middle of class, to give everyone even more reason to whisper about the traitor’s daughter who couldn’t handle the pressure.
But as I sat there, surrounded by the familiar comfort of necromancy and the warm presence of friends who cared about me, one thought echoed through my mind with devastating clarity:
If Elio could betray Keane so easily, with such polished indifference, what did that mean for me?
What did that mean for us?
The answer, I was beginning to understand, was nothing at all.
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