Bad Apple (The Warner Grimoire) (42 page)

It was Nathan’s turn to flush. “I just meant--”

“You’re not my Dad, okay?” The words were sharp in Simon’s mouth.

The effect was immediate. His words were like a punch in the face. Nathan looked at the floor, and the silence grew thick between them. He clucked his tongue once, then slowly stood. “Okay,” he said softly, making his way towards the door.

“
Nice
,” whispered the Other Voice.

Instantly Simon was filled with a heavy shame. “Wait,” he said, grabbing Nathan’s arm. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Nathan managed a small, insincere smile. “It’s okay,” he said, hiding his hurt. “Just, get some rest.” He took a deep breath and reasserted his mentoring aura. “And don’t try to sneak out again either. I’ll know if you try to leave.” And just like that, Nathan the Mentor was back on track.

Simon glanced at the belt buckle.It had glowed white-hot the instant he had tried to climb out the window. “You don’t have to do this,” Simon said.

“Buckled in for your own safety,” Nathan said, already moving towards the door. “When you’ve earned it, the charm can come off. “

A sour taste rose in Simon’s mouth again. “Earned what, exactly?’

The door was already mostly shut. Nathan poke his head back in the door. “Trust,” he said, and then he was gone.

Simon watched the door click shut, then walked over and thumbed the lock hard. After he was done enjoying the satisfying
click
of the lock he turned and leaned against the door, sliding down hard to the floor .The mentor-student relationship was definitely not easy for either of them, but it was hitting Simon especially hard. One moment, Nathan was a friend, and the next moment, he was just another
adult
, and no matter how many times Simon reminded himself that adults have more experience in, well,
everything
, he kept finding small ways to doubt Nathan’s perspective. For one thing, as the Other Voice kept reminding him, Nathan was not the son of the
Walking Shadow
. No one was, no one except Simon, and even though he had now found a place where he was told he belonged, this one small fact still left him feeling crushingly alone.

Some minutes later, Simon couldn’t be sure, there was a bright twinkle of light at the window. For a moment he expected it to be the deep magenta hue of Maggey, a fairy that belonged to Luke, but this twinkle was tinged more
green
in color.

Simon’s heart seem to freeze for a moment, his blood the temperature of ice water. In the magic community,
green
was the warlock’s color, the soul tint bore by every wicked magic user. Nathan’s own tint was blue, and Luke’s was red, but Simon’s, he had discovered just before leaving for Silverwood, was
green
. News of this information had spread quickly once he had returned for training, and soon rumors had begun to spread of another
Shadow
on the grounds.

Simon stared at the green light, then slowly he realized there was a second light, identical in size and shape to the first. What was more interesting was that they were perfectly level with one another, unmoving, and realization hit Simon. They were
eyes
. More importantly, he
recognized
the
eyes
.
He got to his feet and walked to the window slowly, so not to startle his visitor. He lifted the window carefully, not wanting to trip his belt buckle again, and a small clump of fur sprang into the room, trotting around the room. The small furry thing made it’s way over to the couch, where it stopped and stretched, and when it did so it reached up and dug tiny claws into the orange fabric. Malkin the kitten turned and looked longly at Simon while it did this, never once pausing while it sharpened its claws.

“Stop it!” Simon hissed, and the kitten just gave him the look that any of its kind can muster at a moment’s notice. Finally satisfied, the kitten hopped on the arm of the couch and let out a small, rebellious squeak.

“What do you want?” Simon asked the cat, who only squeaked again. Tentatively, Simon reached out a hand to pet her, and before his hand was even to her head she was standing up, leaning up into his palm. He petted her a moment, until a distinct rumbling purr began to come from her. A moment later she dropped to all fours and was off to investigate the couch.

“She likes you,” a soft feminine voice said behind Simon. He turned to see Penny sitting in the window. She leaned forward conspiratorially, and her hair was wrapped tightly in a braid around the top of her head.

His face flushed again. “Uh, hey,” he said. Out of the corner of his mind he was dimly aware that Malkin was sniffing around the loose floorboard behind the couch, but he chose to ignore it. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” she said, moving into the room. “I saw the light on in the window.” She sniffed the air. “Were you burning something in here?”

“I...no,” Simon said. “Well, I mean, yes, but not on purpose.” A puzzled look dominated Penny’s face. Behind him Malkin began to paw at the loose floorboard. “It was Nathan,” Simon quickly added, taking a few steps back. He hated how he was acting. Penny was his
friend
, but even the idea of that had become confusing once he returned. Not 24 hours after they met, they had found themselves cornered in her father’s office while Boeman laid seize to the Freemancer Archives, and the building had been on fire at the time. What was worse--it was a fire
he
had started. She had worked with him to put the fire out, but when they had worked together, they had ended up with, well, a
connection
between them, one Simon could rightly explain. The best he could figure was it had been a bit of membromancy, and their souls had touched, literally. In ways he didn’t really know how to articulate, that made Penny important to him, more important than Nathan, even.

Oh, and she was a
girl
.

The puzzled look on her face didn’t fade. “Oh...okay” she said, shaking her head. “Well, I can get going, I guess...”

“Yeah,” Simon said. Behind him Malkin succeeded in pulling up the corner of the loose floorboard. He hurried to nudge her away. “That’d be good.”

The look on Penny’s face said everything. “Okay,” she said, her shoulders slumping slightly. Every bone, every
atom
, in Simon’s body was begging her to stay, but he had something he had to do, something he couldn’t involve her again. Not after last year, and the events at Whateley’s Rest, where Boeman had used Simon in an attempt to open a doorway to
Par Jabbah
.

“Par Jabbah, praise it’s name! Our empire among the stars,”
the Other Voice whispered excitedly. Simon gathered up his will and
shoved
the voice to the back of his mind, hard. The voice resisted, pushing back hard, but Simon’s will won out. Malkin’s ears perked up as he did this, and Simon felt a momentary cold spot in his stomach as the kitten studied him closely.

Penny made her way to the window. “Malkin,” she called, her voice a dim shade of the cheerfulness Simon knew she was capable of. The kitten trotted over obediently and jumped straight from the floor to her shoulder. She was almost out of sight before Simon found the gumption to say something.

“Hold on!” he said, and she was back in view of the window now, her face hopeful and alive again.

“Yes?” she said, and there was a tint of guardedness in her voice. The walls around her seemed to lean into the room, as if listening as well.

“I’m glad you came by tonight,” he said. “I’d like to see you again soon.”

Now it was Penny’s turn to flush. Her cheeks flared a bright scarlet, and she disappeared out the window immediately. The window ledge seemed to sigh gratefully as she climbed down the trellis to the ground.

Simon watched her climb all the way to the ground and disappear up the path to the Archives before he made a single move. Penny was sweet, but she wasn’t stupid. She could easily still be listening while she was right below him, but he was pretty certain she couldn’t hear him from
this
far away. “I think...I think I love you,” he whispered.

When Simon was certain he was finally alone, he returned to the loose floorboard behind the couch. Malkin had pulled up the corner all right, but she hadn’t succeeded in opening it all the way. Simon lifted the board all the way off and reached inside. Everything that he kept hidden in the floorboard at his home in Crowley was right here, or at least doppelgänger versions were. There were various knick knacks and rubbish that he felt important at one time or another, a few trading cards, his dream journal, and his a small hunk of crystal, no bigger than a rabbit’s paw. The year before it had been the crystal that lead them to Limnic’s lair beneath the lake, and for whatever reason, Simon just couldn’t bear the thought of tossing it. Then, there was the collection of oddities he had been amassing since he had nearly drowned at the Crowley Spillway, when the dreams began. When the
Other Voice
began. He had started with a dream journal, to try and understand the recurring dream that plagued him every night, then after the events of Silverwood, he had added something else. Something he shouldn’t have. Something he had stolen.

Simon reached in slowly, withdrawing his copy of
Speaking with the Dead
. It was the book he had taken from the Archives, though he didn’t remember actually taking it. It had, in all honestly, just appeared in his backpack afterwards, but there was no other explanation for how it had gotten there. When the question really bothered him, he told himself that it had been the work of Boeman, playing a trick on his memory, in order to steal the book for himself.

But Boeman was gone now, and yet, for whatever reason, Simon could not bear the thought of giving up the book. He
had
tried to return it, several times in fact, but every time he approached the front desk in the Archives it was like an icy hand had taken ahold of his heart, and without fail he would retreat. Penny’s older sister, Jo, had taken to teasing him every time he came in the Archives, and she had plenty of opportunity to do so, because he spent
every
spare moment there that he could. That was where he had intended to go, before Nathan’s charm stopped him. He supposed, with some bitterness, that if he had just told Nathan he had planned for a late-night study session, then he would have been free to go. But, Simon had kept his true motivations secret, and true to his word, liars really did have their pants on fire.

Simon sat on the bed with the book. The bluish-cover shimmered an ugly green color when viewed at the wrong angle, and just the thought of it made his stomach lurch. He didn’t know how he knew it, but Simon was certain the book was bound, if not entirely made, of the skin of some poor creature.

There was a loud knock under his bed. Simon jumped, then he opened his mind and repeated the last part of his lesson. “
Algul let me see with my mind
.” It was a trick Nathan had been teaching him to sharpen his senses. Being in his own tongue, the spell intent did draw slightly on his own soul, but Nathan had assured him that the amount was minimal at best.

The air in the room fell as silent as the grave. If a
bug
ran across the floor, Simon would know it. He listened intently for several moments, and finally, there came a second sound, a soft knocking again, but this time Simon recognized it was coming from under the couch.

Slowly Simon made his way off the bed, creeping as silently as he could across the room. His room in Silverwood Manor, like everything here, could not be completely trusted. One false step, and the intruder, if there was one, would know he was onto them. He crept ever closer to the couch, and suddenly he was thinking of Luke, who had demonstrated both a talent and a
willingness
to sneak about unseen. But, the door to his room was locked, and there was no way somebody could sneak in, let alone render themselves invisible. At least, Simon didn’t
think
there was...

A third knock came from under the couch, and Simon’s heart froze. It was coming from the loose floorboard. If Luke
was
somehow in the room, Simon had no doubt he would immediately hone in on the hiding place, and would make it his primary goal to find out what was in there.

Simon peered into the floorboard, and found nothing was out of place. As he peered further into the hole, though, Simon realized there was something else,
someone else,
tucked in the very back of the space, dark and almost invisible in the low light. Simon sharpened his senses again and looked, and after several intense moments, he reached into the hiding spot, his senses already burning as his hand slipped into the darkness.