Chapter 279

After receiving Bridget’s warning, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t risk running into Nicholas, which meant avoiding the places we usually went together. Instead, I ended up in the library with Veronica.

Veronica didn’t seem surprised to see me when I joined her. She didn’t even really greet me.

As I sat down across from her at the table, the books piled high around her, she lifted her head, looked at me, and said, “I’ve made progress with teleportation.”

“You have?”

“I understand enough that I have been making attempts at it.”

She’d been researching so hard for so long, I was beginning to wonder if the secret to Hawk’s teleportation would never be uncovered. Yet here Veronica was, telling me that she had been trying it? I was stunned.

On top of the books stacked beside Veronica sat an apple. She reached for it now and then placed it on the desktop in front of her.

“Hold open your hands,” she said.

I lifted my hands and kept them palms up and close together.

Veronica put her own hands around the apple. She was concentrating hard. A line appeared between her brows. Her mouth was a hard line.

Then, without a sound or a warning, the apple disappeared from Veronica’s hands and reappeared on top of my own.

It had taken but a moment. In one blink, it had moved from there to here.

This distance was only a few inches. A foot or two, at most. Yet to see it even happen at all was a difficult thing to wrap my mind around. Objects didn’t move like this. Yet this one did.

Veronica exhaled, winded. She leaned back in the chair, clearly tired from the ordeal. But after a moment, she straightened once more and held out her hand for the apple. When I gave it to her, she placed it on the table again and sliced it in half with a knife. She sighed in relief when she saw the inside.

I leaned over the table to get a better look. It seemed like a perfectly normal apple to me. Red skin, yellow inside, with the seeds in the middle.

“Were you expecting something different?” I asked.

“The first few attempts… scrambled things,” she said.

I was afraid to ask what she meant by that, but I had enough of an understanding to know she shouldn’t try transporting any living thing, including herself, for a good long while.

“For Hawk to be able to transport himself and Jane in that moment.” She sighed. “He must be very strong at magic. I’ve exhausted my reserves just doing this.”

“He’s had more practice,” I said in encouragement.

“Yes. And he’s likely had a tutor.”

“Someone helped him?”

“They would have had to,” Veronica said. “Not everything is written in the books. The scrambling…” She rubbed at her forehead. “I succeeded with something as simple as an apple, but two entire people? I cannot imagine the concentration required, nor the skill…”

I shook my head. “You are amazing, Veronica. Look at what you’ve accomplished through your own efforts. I don’t think you should start teleporting people anytime soon, but I won’t let you diminish what you’ve actually accomplished here.”

Veronica smiled just a little, a secret little thing she likely meant to keep to herself. “Thank you, Piper.”

Veronica continued to slice the apple. Then she lifted one of the slices and bit into it.

“Testing?” I asked.

“Lunch,” she replied.

I laughed a little. She offered me a slice and I took it. It tasted like an everyday apple to me.

“Now,” Veronica began, once she had finished chewing. “While I always appreciate your company, I doubted you came up here to watch me move an apple.”

I sunk my head low. I wished I could say that I had come up here just for that. I was starting to feel like I only ever came to see Veronica when I was trying to hide. That was unfair, and something I needed to rectify in the future.

“I’m sorry…” I began.

She shook her head minutely, wordlessly telling me that my reasons didn’t bother her. “This is your chance to vent before I return to my studies.”

I wouldn’t let this opportunity pass me by. “I assume you have heard the rumors about Julian and me…”

“That you had sex in the woods, yes.”

Her bluntness made me blush.

I cleared my throat. “Yes, well… They aren’t true.” Then, I told her the rest. That, after running into Bridget in Nicholas’s room, I needed an escape and Julian had offered one. I told her exactly what happened, some light flirting and some fun but no sex.

Veronica listened quietly. When I had finished, she said, “Have you considered dating Julian for real?”

The suggestion surprised me, since by nature of the competition, Veronica was ultimately here to win Julian’s hand.

I stared at her for a beat. “I thought you’d be relieved to know the rumors weren’t true.”

Veronica hummed again. “I will admit that I have affection for Julian that could turn romantic if nurtured that way, but… if I must lose this competition to someone, I wouldn’t mind as much if it was you, Piper.”

The admission warmed me. Veronica was a true friend.

With this encouragement, I reflected inward and more thoroughly evaluated my feelings for Julian.

“There is… temptation,” I said.

Julian was handsome and funny, his smile was infectious, and he always kept me on my toes. Things were exciting with Julian, but he was also a bit wild and unpredictable. Sometimes hanging out with him felt like trying to hold onto a shooting star.

“But.” I placed a hand to my chest. “My heart is with Nicholas, and Julian’s heart with Bridget. We’ve both admitted that we’re heartbroken, and not sure how to move forward. I don’t even know if it’s possible.”

Veronica finished her apple quietly, and then placed the knife to the side. She took some time, as if carefully considering her words, and then looked back to me.

“Sometimes broken hearts need each other to heal,” she said.

I tried to imagine it: holding Julian’s hand, cuddling beside him, kissing him…

The thoughts weren’t… terrible. But each one left a certain hollowness in my chest.

As much as I liked Julian, I would rather be holding Nicholas’s hand, or cuddling Nicholas, or kissing Nicholas.

While I appreciated Veronica’s words, I wasn’t so convinced by them.

Later, after leaving Veronica in search of Elva and her nanny, I peeked out into the gardens and saw Nicholas there.

He still looked angry, his hands clenched into fists. The hard set of his jaw seemed permanently fixed. His mouth was curved down into a frown.

A bit of pain stabbed my heart. I hated seeing him this way.

Maybe I should speak to him. Bridget said to stay away, and I knew I should. But if any of this anger was because of me, or because of the misunderstanding of what happened between Julian and me last night, then I really should clear the air.

I’d let him want to keep his distance from me, if that was what he wished. But I wouldn’t have it be because of a lie.

Resolved, I stepped forward.

Yet, at that same moment, Bridget stepped to his side from the other side of the brush. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and I had suddenly seen enough and turned away.

It wasn’t my place to comfort Nicholas anymore.