Chapter 4 The Boy In The Lab

Wren

There was a smell I couldn't name in the alchemy wing, old metal and forgotten power. Like someone had bottled up electricity and grief and left it to rot.

And I wasn't supposed to be there, again.

Silvergrove Academy had many rules, most of which seemed designed to keep students out of the interesting places. The condemned alchemy lab was at the top of that list, and yet somehow, it kept calling me back.

It was the quiet, the dust, even the echoes in the tile, and maybe, if I was honest, the fact that this place hadn't been sanitized for student tours. It felt like a secret, one of mine, for now at least.

The rusted handle bit into my palm as I pulled the heavy door shut behind me, and I exhaled slowly, peaceful.

Until-

"You shouldn't be in here."

I stiffened.

The voice came from the shadows near the far bench, low, flat, and unruffled like he'd been expecting me.

I turned, slowly and deliberately, in response as I thought of what to say to him.

A boy sat on one of the cracked stools, leaning slightly forward, hands braced on the worktable. His coat was dark and long enough to pass for a uniform, but not one I recognized. And his face, stone-cut angles, pale skin, and eyes that looked almost too light in the dark watched me like I was a specimen under glass.

"What are you doing here?" I asked because I wasn't in the mood to be interrogated by a random hallway ghost with cheekbones.

He didn't move. "I asked first."

"You hiding out, too?" I ventured, ignoring the way his stare scraped across my skin. "Or do you live here with the mice and dust?"

His expression didn't change. "You shouldn't be here," he said again, slower this time. "This wing is closed."

I crossed my arms at him in defiance. "You're here."

"That's different."

Of course it was, it always was.

The silence stretched between us like a wire, taut and waiting, as I had the sudden sense that if I made the wrong move, something sharp would snap, maybe it would be me.

"So," I said carefully, "are you planning to report me, or are we just going to glower at each other in this fine lighting?"

No answer like I predicted.

He just stood, finally, and walked to the far wall without another word. Not toward me, but past me, like I didn't matter.

I watched him, resisting the urge to throw a broken flask at his back. Not because I was mad, but just to see what he'd do.

He moved like someone who knew exactly how much space he took up in a room and didn't care.

"This place was used for Vein testing," he said, not looking at me. "They abandoned it when one of the projects ruptured the central conduit."

"Sounds fancy," I said. "And illegal."

He nodded once. "It was."

I waited for more, but that was all I was getting.

I turned back to the bench nearest me, which I'd claimed as mine over the last few days. The journal I'd been using was still there, tucked under the warped metal basin; at least he hadn't touched my stuff.

"Do you always talk in riddles?" I muttered, opening the book, "Or is that just a special treat for me?"

"I don't talk," he said bluntly.

"That explains the sunny disposition," I replied swiftly, but resisted the urge to say any more.

This time, there was a flicker of something, amusement, maybe, but it vanished so fast I wondered if I imagined it.

I scrawled a few notes in the margin of my sketches, cause ever since I arrived at Silvergrove, I'd had the urge to draw these twisting lines of sigils I didn't remember learning, shapes that felt familiar and wrong all at once. They looked like runes, but not like the ones in the textbooks, which were older.

His gaze slid to the journal, and he stepped closer to look at it, which surprised me.

"You drew those?" he asked.

And I hesitated for no definite reason. "No, I hired a ghost artist."

He even stepped closer, but I shut the book before he could see more. "Do you have a name," I said, "or should I just call you 'guy who sulks in dark rooms'?"

He stared at me for a beat too long. "Theo."

Just that, no last name or any other details, like that was supposed to mean something.

It didn't, though, yet.

"Wren," I said.

He nodded once, then returned to his side of the room, and we didn't speak again for a long while. Eventually, I gave up pretending to study and just watched him.

He worked with a kind of quiet precision, moving between beakers and tomes like he'd done it a thousand times. The air around him shimmered faintly when he murmured something under his breath, probably a focus word which made my skin prickle.

He wasn't a normal student, that much was obvious even to a newbie in such a weird school like me.

I was about to ask what year he was when a chime echoed faintly through the walls, the ones for the evening curfew.

Theo packed up in ten seconds flat, he didn't even rush or struggle to finish quickly; he was effortlessly efficient.

But I lingered, mostly because I wanted to see if he'd tell me to leave. He didn't bother to suggest that as he bounded away, probably to get something else on his schedule completed, since he seemed like the type.

As he pulled open the heavy lab door, he turned slightly, just enough to meet my eyes. "You should stay out of places like this," he said. "Not everyone here is... harmless."

"Was that a threat?" I asked lightly.

"A warning." He corrected, leaving no trace of humour.

Then he was gone.

Later that night, when I returned to my dorm, Callie was already asleep, or pretending to be, cause her bracelets glittered faintly in the moonlight.

I slipped quietly into bed, but the thought wouldn't leave me, no matter how much it should.

Theo.

I didn't know who he was, but I had the feeling I wasn't supposed to meet him like that. Like maybe something had shifted, maybe someone, somewhere, had meant for it to happen.

The next morning, when I passed the student board on my way to class, I paused.

Someone had pinned up a new batch of gossip flyers, hand-drawn portraits that were mostly rankings and partly rumors.

At the very top of the list, with little hearts sketched in the margins, was a name I now recognized.

Theo Marris.

And beside it, written in glittery pink ink, read:

1. "Marris the Mage- Cold, Cursed, and Completely Untouchable."

I stared at it and let my brain go through the process of processing the new information for a couple of seconds.

And then I thought to myself, oh crap.