Chapter 173 — So I Wasn’t Going Mad

Chapter 173: Chapter 173 — So I Wasn’t Going Mad

~ Raven ~

Isolde did not explain anything.

The moment Raven got to her feet, she turned and started walking, still holding Raven by the wrist as though she had already decided following was not optional.

Raven barely had time to glance back at the table. Thalia was staring after them with open curiosity while Tessa looked considerably more concerned. Brielle had half-risen from her chair before Raven shook her head once, enough to tell her not to follow.

Isolde did not slow.

They crossed the cafeteria beneath more attention than Raven cared to count, and the moment the doors closed behind them, Isolde picked up her pace.

"Isolde."

No response.

Raven let herself be dragged down one corridor, around another and past the stairway leading toward the academic halls before her patience began thinning.

"Are you planning to tell me where we’re going?"

"Somewhere people aren’t listening," Isolde said without looking back.

That, at least, was an answer.

She finally turned into one of the quieter connecting passages between the older academic buildings, narrow enough that two people walking side by side would nearly fill it. There were no classrooms immediately beside them and almost nobody had reason to pass through at this hour.

Only then did Isolde release her.

Raven rubbed at her wrist and looked at her properly. "What the hell is going on?"

Isolde turned so quickly Raven almost stepped back.

"No." Her voice came sharper than Raven expected. "You tell me."

Raven frowned. "Tell you what?"

For a second Isolde simply stared at her, as though deciding whether Raven was genuinely confused or deliberately being difficult.

Apparently, she decided on the second.

"Don’t do that."

"Do what?"

"Stand there looking at me as though you have no idea what I’m talking about."

"I don’t."

A short laugh escaped Isolde, except there was nothing amused in it. She dragged both hands through her hair before turning away and pacing several steps down the corridor.

"You came to me asking about Stillheart," she said. "Then Dreamwalkers."

Raven’s attention sharpened.

Isolde looked back over her shoulder. "Not stories. Not whether they existed. You wanted to know exactly what would happen if one tried to interfere with someone carrying Stillheart."

Raven stayed quiet.

The silence irritated Isolde more than an argument probably would have.

"You knew there was a reason to ask."

"I knew enough to ask the question."

"That’s not an answer."

"I didn’t say it was."

"Goddess, Raven."

Isolde turned away again and started pacing, quicker this time. Whatever composure she had managed to hold together inside the cafeteria was beginning to fray now that there was nobody around to watch.

Raven followed her with her eyes, increasingly certain that this was not ordinary irritation.

Isolde stopped near the end of the passage.

For several seconds she said nothing.

Then she slowly turned back.

Something in her expression had changed.

It was not quite certainty, but it looked close enough to fear that Raven’s stomach tightened.

"There’s a fucking Dreamwalker in Valerius, isn’t there?"

Raven’s eyes widened before she could stop them.

"You’ve seen him?"

The moment the words left her mouth, Raven knew she had answered far more than she intended.

Isolde knew it too.

She crossed the space between them so quickly Raven barely had time to react before both hands closed around her arms.

"So I wasn’t going mad."

Her grip tightened.

Raven stared at her.

Whatever control Isolde had left was gone now. Her eyes were too wide, her breathing uneven, and beneath all the anger was something Raven had never expected to see on her face.

Fear.

"So I wasn’t imagining it," Isolde said, more to herself than Raven. "I knew something was wrong. I fucking knew it."

"Isolde."

Her fingers tightened again.

Raven winced. "You’re hurting me."

The words reached her immediately.

Isolde released her as though burned.

"Shit."

She stepped back, looking briefly at Raven’s arms before meeting her eyes again. "Sorry."

Raven rubbed one shoulder. "What happened?"

Instead of answering, Isolde turned away and resumed pacing.

Raven watched her move three steps one way, stop, then turn and come back again. She muttered something under her breath, pressed two fingers against her temple and kept moving as though standing still might make whatever was happening inside her worse.

Whatever this was, it had frightened her badly enough that learning she had not imagined it seemed to have made everything more real.

"Isolde."

No response.

Raven waited another few seconds.

That was enough.

She stepped directly into Isolde’s path and caught her firmly by the shoulder.

"Isolde. What is going on?"

The words came out differently than Raven intended.

She had meant to sound firm, nothing more, but something beneath her voice seemed to deepen as she spoke, carrying a weight she had not put there.

Heat flashed behind her eyes.

At the same time, her wolf shifted sharply beneath her skin.

Isolde stopped.

Completely.

Raven’s grip loosened.

For one strange second neither of them moved.

Isolde had not recoiled. She did not look frightened or dazed, and there was no blankness in her expression.

She had simply gone still.

Raven slowly removed her hand.

Isolde blinked.

Then Raven did too.

"That was weird," Isolde said.

Raven frowned. "What was?"

Isolde did not answer immediately. Her attention had drifted somewhere inward, the irritation on her face giving way to confusion.

She inhaled slowly.

Then again.

Raven watched the tension ease from her shoulders by the smallest amount.

Isolde looked around the passage before settling her gaze back on Raven.

"I feel..."

She trailed off.

Raven waited.

Isolde frowned as though the answer annoyed her.

"Calmer."

Raven opened her mouth, but voices drifted toward them before she could ask what that meant.

Both of them turned.

A man and woman came around the far corner, already halfway through an argument.

"I told you I left it there," the man was saying.

The woman beside him gave him a look. "And I’m telling you that you didn’t."

"You weren’t even there."

"Exactly. Somehow I still know."

Raven recognised them almost immediately.

Evan Mercer and Clara Whitmore.

They were both Hale students and had started joining Raven’s table often enough over the last several days that she no longer wondered what they wanted whenever they approached.

Evan noticed her first.

"Raven."

His argument with Clara stopped almost immediately.

Raven gave him a small nod. "Hi."

Clara greeted her too, but her attention shifted toward Isolde a second later.

The pause was subtle.

Still obvious.

Isolde had pulled herself together quickly, but the exhaustion beneath her eyes and the stiffness in her posture were harder to hide at this distance.

Clara looked between them. "Everything alright?"

Raven knew exactly who she was asking.

"Yes," she answered before Isolde could.

Beside her, Isolde frowned, looking offended.

Her gaze moved between Evan and Clara as though she could not quite believe either of them had just looked at Raven and decided she might require protection from Isolde Marchmont.

Evan seemed to notice the expression too because one of his brows rose.

Clara caught his arm before whatever thought had entered his head could become words.

"Alright," she said, already starting to pull him along. "See you later, Raven."

"Later."

Evan gave Raven a small nod before allowing Clara to lead him away, and within a few steps their argument resumed quietly as though nothing had happened.

Raven waited until they disappeared around the corner.

Then she turned toward Isolde.

"What the fuck was that?"

Isolde blinked. "What?"

"That look."

"What look?"

"The one where you looked personally offended because they asked whether I was alright."

"I was offended."

Raven stared at her.

Isolde seemed genuinely confused by the problem.

"They were looking at me as though they thought I was about to attack you."

"You dragged me out of the cafeteria."

"That hardly means I’m going to attack you."

"You were also glaring at them."

"I was not glaring."

Raven gave her a look.

Isolde held it for a second before sighing and rubbing one hand over her face.

Whatever strange calm had settled over her remained, but the exhaustion beneath it was becoming more obvious by the second.

"We can’t talk here."

Raven glanced around the quiet passage. "You were the one who brought me here."

Isolde lowered her hand and gave Raven a tired look that suggested she was beginning to regret dragging her anywhere at all.

"Let’s go somewhere else."

"Where?"

Isolde hesitated for a moment before answering.

"The infirmary."

Raven frowned immediately.

That was not the answer she had expected.

"Why?"

Isolde stared at her.

For several seconds she said nothing, and the irritation slowly returning to her face suggested Raven had finally reached the last question she was willing to tolerate.

Then she exhaled through her nose.

"Because that bastard hasn’t let me sleep in two fucking days." Her eyes narrowed. "Now stop asking questions and come with me."

Raven blinked in surprise.