These gilded bones may b.., p.23
These Gilded Bones May Bloom, page 23
“Well now you have to tell me. Whatever asinine thing you’re planning, maybe I can make it slightly less asinine.”
Ishan frowned. “It’s not asinine.”
“Ishan.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “We’ve been dorm mates for two years. You know every skeleton in my closet. And you know I’m way too codependent to function properly without you. So just—” Carmichael shook his head, dropped his hands, and squeaked out a laugh. “Gods, just trust me and define stupid.”
He hesitated. But he trusted Carmichael. So he told him everything.
Granted, the plan had only existed for an hour, and most of his ideas were half-baked at best. But he gave up every last morsel.
He was setting Wil free.
He didn’t know how.
But it’d likely be dangerous.
Carmichael was pacing between the beds, wringing his hands out at his sides. “You’re serious?”
“I won’t leave her to die.”
“That’s your plan, though? Vague ideas, that’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” The lack of detail seemed to cause Carmichael more stress than before. But he was a diligent planner, and rarely forgot an assignment because of it.
“So far, yes, that's all I’ve got.”
Carmichael shook out his hands about a thousand times before he spoke, threading his fingers through his hair to keep them still. “Have you considered what you’re taking on? You have to get her out of the tank, either through a room that’s inaccessible to students or by breaking the glass on the library side and flooding the place. After that, you still need to get her out of the building, which means somehow going unnoticed as you and Wilhelmina leave. And she’ll probably be wobbly.”
It was incredibly useful that sirens could walk on land, same as any human.
“Supposing you’re successful in getting her out,” Carmichael continued without taking a breath, “the nearest ocean isn’t for two hundred miles.”
“I actually had an idea about that.” Ishan’s desk was at the end of his bed, and he dug through the papers littering the top of it until he found a map and handed it over to Carmichael. “The Dunn River is only thirty, and all rivers meet the ocean eventually.” After two years of running into glass walls, Wil would probably jump at the chance to stretch her muscles. “If we—”
“We?”
“—get her to the river, she could disappear from there.”
“This isn’t a ‘we’ scenario, Ishan.”
“What happened to trusting you?”
“Trust, yes. I wasn’t asking to be made an accomplice.” He shoved the map into Ishan’s chest and took a step back. “I’m not risking my entire future for some siren you developed feelings for.” He held his hands up defensively before Ishan could argue. “Friendship feelings count, too, you oaf.” A groan tore its way from his throat and he started pacing again. “And with her, all congenial feelings are equally stupid.”
Oh, he wanted to talk about stupidity and non-we scenarios?
Ishan cleared his throat, raised a brow. The combination was enough to give Carmichael pause, steps silencing.
“Was it a ‘we’ scenario when you got drunk at a party, vomited everywhere, and needed help cleaning yourself up? Was it a ‘we’ scenario when your sister was ill, so you snuck home for a few days and I covered and submitted all your assignments, including a personal essay about your greatest hero?”
Professor Devoe had been a natural choice, and his stomach turned a little, now, when he thought of how poetic he’d made her sound when she was just another killer out on the open seas.
“Was it a ‘we’ scenario when you couldn’t decide which of the Nathaniel twins you liked better, so we spent three hours making a pros and cons list, only for them to equal out at the end so you thought, ‘Hmm, better start over?’”
Ishan had almost asked for a new dorm mate that night.
“This isn’t the same and you know it,” Carmichael said, a blush rising to his cheeks. “This is theft. It’s more than enough to get us both kicked out of Berkshire, and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather my future not include gutting fish or dancing on tables to survive. Think about what you’re asking, Ishan. About what you’re risking.”
Everything.
He had come to Berkshire stuffed in a boat that stank of sweat and animal urine, ready to be more than some boy from an island. He’d weathered the Merizar Sea, the sirens. He’d done all of it because he knew this was the one place that promised an escape from his small life. The one place proclaiming, merely by accepting him, that he was exceptional. Destined for bigger things, because that was what it took to reach Berkshire University.
But he wouldn’t trade his humanity, his friend, for a golden platter of career advancements.
“I have to help her.”
Carmichael hissed a few dozen incoherent curses. Then he spent five minutes pacing in complete silence while Ishan looked on, waiting. Finally, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, muttering, “Fine.”
Ishan’s brows narrowed. “Fine what?”
“Fine, we’ll save your stupid fish girlfriend from certain death.” He picked up a pad of paper and a pencil, scratching notes or ideas or more curse words. “Even though we’ll probably get caught and we’ll have to dance on tables because being expelled from Berkshire is pretty damning.”
“Just like that?” Ishan liked to think of himself as charming and generally persuasive, but he wasn’t this persuasive.
Carmichael put his glasses back on and crossed his arms. “Do you want to do it on your own?”
“No,” he said quickly, “but I’d like to think you aren’t going to sabotage me.”
“I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Remember when you trusted me? That was nice.” He sat on Ishan’s bed, hands clasped in his lap and eyes on the floor. “Look, I know you like her, that she’s your friend. But she’s still a siren. You need someone to watch your back.” He snuck a glance at Ishan, the tiniest grin on his lips. “Besides, if you try alone you’ll get caught and expelled, and then I’ll have to go to the Nathaniels’ study sessions without you, and we both know neither one of them are going to fall in love with me if you’re not around to interrupt the louder parts of my personality.”
Only a few weeks ago, Carmichael had outright refused to go by himself because, to quote him, “It’s a late-night session. I can’t sit across from the objects of my desires while they’re in lounge clothes and exuding the softest kind of sex appeal.” So Ishan attended and played wingman every time Carmichael fumbled his words or showcased his nervous laugh, which was reminiscent of dying animals.
“But if we do this,” Carmichael started, “you have to agree right here, right now, that the second Wilhelmina does anything suspicious we call the whole thing off.”
“Surprised you didn’t say fishy.”
“Yes or no, Ishan, it’s a simple question.”
“Yes.”
“Great,” Carmichael said, sounding anything but. “Now, let’s make a plan to free Willy.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning, Professor Devoe announced which students she wanted in her study. Of the twenty-six she accepted, most were fourth years and none of them were Carmichael. He claimed not to mind—We’re stealing their main test specimen anyway—but it was obvious in the set of his shoulders that the disappointment weighed on him. And rather than address it, he sequestered himself away with Ishan to plan a heist.
They’d pushed their desks together—easier to share ideas when facing each other—and brainstormed until the room was littered with a dozen plans, most of them scrapped for one reason or another.
The latest idea was to hide in opposite parts of the library in hopes that Bertram—still a bloodhound—would only find one of them. That would leave the other to carry out the escape plan, which was encapsulated in shoddy drawings of the library and a particularly damning portrait of Bertram—complete with overgrown nose hairs and an eyebrow that looked possessed, all squiggly at the end.
“At least he can move his,” Carmichael muttered, glaring at the drawing. He’d never been able to wiggle, raise, or move his eyebrows individually, and he was jealous of anyone who could. Naturally, the last two years consisted of Ishan relying on more and more communication via eyebrows.
“Try being more evil, maybe that’s the trick to good brows.”
“Duly noted.” Carmichael stood and walked over to his bed. “So, our plan.” He picked up a piece of toast, the remnants of his dinner. “It’s coming along poorly. How are we maintaining any kind of decent grade average at Berkshire?”
“Feasible plans take time to craft, same as any decent paper.”
“Unless you’re me,” Carmichael said through a mouthful, sucking a bit of jam from his index finger. “Remember my term paper on the migration patterns of dolphins?”
It was the one assignment Carmichael had ever forgotten about.
“Wrote it the night before. Practically got a standing ovation.”
“Funny,” Ishan said, chin in his hand. “I only remember you getting a friendly pat on the back that the rest of us questioned the appropriateness of.” The professor—now forcibly retired—was older and had already been toeing the line of what the school considered to be appropriate student–faculty interactions.
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying. It’ll take time—”
“We don’t have time,” Carmichael groaned, sinking to the floor and lying on his back. He took his glasses off and set them on his chest. “The study starts in less than a week.”
“Maybe we should do this in the library, then, like I suggested,” Ishan said, doodling an ocean wave on one of the plans. “Craft our escape plans in the building we’re actually escaping from.”
“We don’t need anyone to spot you casing the place.” Carmichael stretched his legs up one at a time, reaching for his toes. “Besides, we’re already aware of all the problems that wait for us at the library. We don’t know how to get her out of her cage, and we don’t know how to get her out of the library without being seen.”
Ishan had suggested waiting for the night guard to come do final lockups again—Bertram would be gone by then—and Carmichael quickly pointed out they’d be setting themselves up to be discovered by campus guards. They left it on the floor with other last-resort plans, the ones they’d defer to if they could think of nothing more clever or Berkshire-worthy.
“What if we stole a key from a faculty member? They’re always going in and out of that back room to take samples, right?” Ishan asked, tempted to lie down on the floor as well, especially when Carmichael tucked a pillow under his head.
“They are, but I doubt all of them have keys. It’d be a guessing game, which we don’t really have time for.”
Ishan drummed his fingers against the desk. There must’ve been a list detailing which professors had access. Not that they had access to those professors. Carmichael might’ve been in their classes, but they probably wouldn’t share that kind of thing with him, just personal tidbits: if a professor was married, if they had kids or other interests outside of academia.
The two of them jolted when someone knocked at their door. It wasn’t particularly late, but it wasn’t early, either. The library would be closed now, which meant most students would be in their rooms—like the two of them—working on assignments—unlike the two of them. Not knocking on doors.
“Maybe they’re drunk,” Carmichael whispered, propping himself up on his elbows. “Les drinks when he’s sad, and he mentioned the other day he thought that the girl he’s been seeing was getting ready to end things.”
Good for her. Les was one failed paper away from being escorted off school grounds.
The person knocked again, louder this time.
Cursing, Ishan stood and marched over. “I told you not to befriend the emotional ones.”
He was still looking at Carmichael when he opened the door, still glaring when Carmichael paled so suddenly Ishan worried for a heartbeat or two that Ilenae herself had come and plucked the soul from his body.
Then he turned.
It wasn’t Les.
Or Ilenae.
“Evening, boys.”
It was Lavinia Nathaniel.
It took several long heartbeats before enough blood made it back to Ishan’s brain, allowing him to do more than stare. Carmichael needed more time, thus he remained immobile.
Ishan cleared his throat, offered a shaky smile, and tried not to think about what he must smell like or look like or gods above and below, what was she doing at their door?
“Lavinia,” he said, voice cracking on the tip of her name. “Are you lost?” It was a dumb question. Their names were on their door, the same as everyone else’s. But he smiled brightly. Asked anyway.
“No,” she replied, the epitome of relaxed as she slid her hands into her pockets. She had an inch of visible skin between the hem of her white shirt and the waistline of her olive trousers. Maybe she opted for casual wear in the evening. Regardless, Carmichael would probably have something (a lot of somethings) to say about it when she left. If she left. If Carmichael recovered from this unprompted visit.
Unsure of whether to invite her in or not, Ishan stood awkwardly in the door. “Oh. Great.” Between himself and Carmichael, he was supposed to be the smooth one. The one who could waggle his brows. He wasn’t supposed to freeze up when Lavinia Nathaniel showed her face unexpectedly. “What, uh, what are you doing here?”
Blessedly, she glanced past him and into the room at Carmichael. “I guess you could say I was worried. Carmichael has never missed a study session before.” She met Ishan’s gaze again. “Mind if I come in?”
He should’ve said no. Claimed some kind of plague had infected them. Or perhaps a quarrel, one that couldn’t be interrupted before it was resolved.
But Lavinia was the kind of girl that needed no siren’s voice to influence people into doing exactly what she wanted. So he stepped back, let her in, and then immediately cursed his own existence because plans A through Z were scattered all across the room: on the floor and the desks and in the drawings Carmichael was currently shoving under his pillow.
“Everything okay?” Lavinia didn’t wait to be offered a seat, instead taking the spot in front of Carmichael. Lavinia Nathaniel, Berkshire’s latest prodigy, sitting cross-legged on the floor of their dorm room made exactly zero sense. And yet? She appeared at ease—natural, even—going as far as handing one of the drawings to Carmichael for him to hide.
“Everything’s fine.” Carmichael fumbled with his glasses, setting them on his nose and nodding so fast they almost fell off again. “I should’ve passed along that I wouldn’t be coming tonight. But Ishan . . .” he trailed off, frowning. “He—”
“I have an exam tomorrow morning,” Ishan said. “Carmichael graciously stuck around to help me prep.”
“Yes,” Carmichael agreed, a pained laugh escaping. “We’ve been holed up all night studying.”
“What subject?” Lavinia’s gaze cut to Ishan, and he was suddenly thankful that the grass blades her irises matched weren’t half as sharp.
“Math,” Ishan and Carmichael said at the same time and with the same level of indifference. As if the gods wanted them to win this game and go back to plotting an escape plan. As if Wil’s freedom was important to some bigger plan, and only the two of them could accomplish it. As if—
“There isn’t a single equation on any of these papers.”
Ishan didn’t need to look at the papers to know she was right. He still did, if only to buy himself a few extra seconds to come up with an explanation. “It’s, uh.” Ishan cleared his throat. “We just . . .”
“There’s something I, we”—Carmichael stood and yanked Ishan closer, gave him a doe-eyed glance—“should tell you.”
Lavinia leaned back on her hands. “Do you want to tell me how you plan on helping Wilhelmina? Or would you prefer I let you flounder into an engagement first?”
“How—”
“I know how to read.” She inclined her head at the plans. “So? Truth or engagement?”
“Depends.” Carmichael swallowed hard. “What’re you gonna do if it isn’t an engagement?” She cracked a grin and Carmichael lit up in response, already forgetting the fake secret relationship he and Ishan were supposedly in. Forgetting, too, that she was one of Professor Devoe’s favorite students and her knowing their plans was the last thing they needed.
“What indeed,” she said, gaze lifting to Ishan’s. “Since we’re on the topic, I must say I was impressed by your bravery. I’ve known Kala for two years, worked with her in the field and in the classroom, and in that time I’ve never spoken a word against anything she’s done, even the things that I wake up thinking about in the middle of the night.”
Ishan didn’t want to know what those things were, not if they scared Lavinia Nathaniel.
“One word to Chancellor Yan, and Kala could ruin your life. But you spoke up anyway.” She glanced at the mess of plans and ideas Carmichael had missed while hiding things. “And now you’re doing this.”
“I tried to talk him out of it,” Carmichael said as she took up one of the pages, Plan X scribbled across the top.
She wrinkled her nose. “There’s no way Bertram would accept a bribe so low.”
“So you’re saying he would accept a bribe in general?” Carmichael puffed out his chest when she nodded, sneaking a glance at Ishan and mouthing I told you so.
“Not from you, only students with friends in high places. Last year, when George was appointed to help Malachi adjust to a life at Berkshire, Bertram let us into the library whenever we wanted, so long as His Highness spoke a few words in his direction.”
“I still can’t believe we went through orientation with a prince,” Carmichael said. “May he rest in peace.” Most of Ithary quietly thanked the gods that it was Malachi, the youngest prince, who had drowned in the sailing accident three months ago, and not their sitting heir. His body was never recovered. Berkshire had paused classes for a week to honor him.
