RISING SHADOWS (Shadows Book 2)

Chapter 3

At last, a whole minute went by without someone needing to speak to me, pass on their blessings or let me know about some impending doom that is about to affect their family unless I intervene at my earliest convenience. Then another minute. I made sure everyone was busy and slipped out of the doors. There was barely time to think before I found myself standing at the doors to Gran's office. Uncle Shane had told me about my parents in this room. That was the last time I'd set foot in there, at my grandmother's funeral.

Pushing open the door, I froze when I heard a gasp. Toby leapt up out of Arden's lap, his freckles lost beneath beetroot-glazed skin. Frantic hands smoothed the mass of copper hair and straightened his shirt. Arden looked sheepishly from Gran's chair, those feline green eyes rising in the corners.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know anyone was in here," I said.

"High Witch," Toby placed his hand over his heart, his eyes darting. "We-I-I was leaving."

"You don't have to go-"

But he'd left before I could get out the last of my words. I watched him rush to the Catacombs' main hallway, turning right to head back to the Ceremony Room. Any happiness on Arden's face vanished. He slumped in the chair, let his head fall back with a troubled sigh, his shoulders drooping.

"I'm so sorry," I began. "I didn't think to check if anyone was in here."

"Probably because it's your office."

I moved further into the room, careful to close the door behind me. "He hasn't come out yet then?"

"Does it look like it? He keeps promising tomorrow will be the day but there's always a reason. He broke up with the girl he was seeing but that's about it." Suddenly, his body stiffened and he looked down at where he was, slowly raising his arms off the chair. "I'm sorry," he blurted, leaping to his feet. "This is disrespectful."

"Don't worry about that. But about Toby, you know what they say. Tomorrow never comes."

"Is your advice still to hold out for him?"

"I'm hardly qualified to be dishing out relationship advice. My only attempt at romance was short-lived and ended abruptly when I caught him kissing someone else."

Arden lifted his chin, mouth twitching like rabbit whiskers.

"What?"

"Nothing," he cleared his throat, standing. "I'm going topside for some fresh air. I won't be long."

On my own, I breathed easily for the first time in hours. No eyes were on me, focussed, critical. The scent of lavender still clung to everything, fainter now but I could pick it out amongst the aroma of leather-bound books and the studded Sherlock style office chair. I sat in it, leather creaking beneath my weight and let my arms curl naturally over the edge of the chair's wings. It was warm from where Arden had - I stopped myself. I didn't want to think about what Arden had been doing.

Fraud.

That's how I felt sat in my grandmother's chair, a fraud. I knew I couldn't be what they all wanted me to be. I couldn't be her.

Knocking on the other side of the door interrupted my thoughts, my nails sunk into the toughened hide of the chair. One moment of peace is all I wanted.

"Come in," I bit out.

The door swung open revealing the willowy figure and pursed lips of Mrs Horton, she gripped something between her bony fingers. As always, her hair had been piled up in little spirals on top of her head and pinned in place. I began to wonder what she would look like with her hair down, whether it would soften the sharp angles of her cheekbones and brighten her hollow eyes. Whether it would make her less sour.