The Founders

Chapter 51

Grace strode over to her angrily. "It's not even been 48 hours since you promised you wouldn't do any more stupid shit and I come back and you've already been attacked again? What the fuck, Kyra."

Kyra cowered, looking at Grace meekly. "Not to mention," Grace continued, "what the fuck are you doing with Alexander? The guy who you thought attacked you last time?" Grace shook her head in disbelief as Kyra made her way over to her, placing both hands on her shoulders.

"I promise I'll explain. Everything," she added, looking over at Alexander pleadingly. "Please," she begged him. "She's my best-friend, I can't keep this from her."

He looked torn, but nodded. Grace stood there, looking part ways baffled and incensed.

"Let's both back to our room," Kyra said, with a meaningful look at Alexander. She pulled Grace by the hand and looked over her shoulder at Alexander. "I'll see you at dinner, yeah?"

He gave her an unwilling smile. "Yeah, alright. See you."

Grace gave her a curious look as they started walking down the steps and opened her mouth before thinking better of it and preserving her stony silence.

Climbing through the portrait hole, they found the common room totally empty and dark. The rain was ruffling the surface of the lake and casting odd shadows against the walls.

It was only when they reached their door that Grace turned around, pushing the door open with her back. "You'd better start explaining," she threatened, shutting the door behind them and sitting in the desk chair.

"Yeah. Just give me a sec to think." Kyra toed off her shoes and peeled her tights off before climbing under her covers and sitting up against the headboard.

Taking a deep breath, Kyra began outlining the events from two nights before.

How she had gone to the library, how she had been crucioed and then woken up in Alexander's room. How Alexander had explained what had been motivating the attacks on the school students, and how the real story of the founders had been covered up.

She then explained how they had found out that this, too, wasn't accurate and that Helga's accounts suggested that it was in fact Godric who was contained, rather than Salazar.

Grace stared throughout the entire story, shaking her head or wincing at certain points. When Kyra finally stopped speaking, her throat dry, the sky outside had completely darkened, and a thunderstorm had sprung up, lashing rain down the windows.

Grace shifted and opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it. She opened her mouth again. "This is all insane. And I don't get how all this explains the attacks. Apart from the one on the first year- why were you attacked both times, and why was Oscar attacked in the kitchens, and why Nina was- was pushed down the stairs?"

Kyra pulled her knees up to her chest, fiddling with her fingers. "The first time- in the greenhouse- that might have been bad timing on my part, when they were trying to get more of the plant, or it could have planned, if they wanted to get my necklace. Maybe they thought that it was the Hufflepuff object?" she offered doubtfully.

"The attack on Oscar," she continued, shaking her head. "I'm not completely sure. He was in the kitchens, beside the Hufflepuff entrance. Maybe the person was trying to get in, and he was in the way? Or maybe he was targeted because he's close to me."

Kyra stretched her legs out again. "The same could go for Nina." She took a deep breath, feeling a bit nauseous. "It looks like it's the people close to me who are getting attacked. I just- I don't know. I don't understand it."

"And the last attack on me- I heard someone tell me to stop interfering, or they'd hurt me. Maybe I was followed. It's possible that the person was also looking for the same books that I was, and that I was just unlucky."

"Unlucky," Grace replied scathingly, shaking her head and not meeting Kyra's eyes. "Not all these attacks can just be coincidences, and cases of bad timing. You know that, right, Kyra?" she said lowly.

Kyra had never heard her this genuinely angry at her before, voice quiet and vibrating with anger, her words bitten off. "And you- you just keep walking into them, keep saying that you couldn't have done anything different and that you didn't have a choice.

"Well, guess what, Kyra, you did have a fucking choice and you still chose to throw your life about like it was nothing, and like it wouldn't have fucking killed me if you'd succeeded in your suicide missions."

She was sitting very straight in the chair, her knuckles white and her hands gripping the arms tightly. "You always act like everything is your responsibility, like some fucking martyr, but you chose that for yourself and I'm the one who has to worry about it every day, worry about what stupid thing you'll do next, thinking you don't have a choice. I'm so sick of it, Kyra, I'm so sick of it."

There was a shocked silence, stretching out like an elastic band. Kyra opened her mouth, hot salt burning in the back of her throat. "I'm really sorry, Grace," she said quietly. "You're right, I do do stupid things, all the time, and I don't think about how that affects you." Grace didn't say anything, still as a statue and looking at the ground.

"But Grace- the way you feel about me getting hurt. That's the same way I feel about you. You're one of the only ones of the people I love in this school who hasn't been attacked yet. The others barely got away alive. Do you know how much that terrifies me?" Her voice shook and Grace unwillingly looked up at her.

"I know you think that I have a choice, and that I'm choosing wrong. And I love you, and I respect that you want to protect me like I want to protect you. But I can't do nothing when the people I love most are in danger like this." Her voice was ragged with emotion.

"And I won't sit here and lie to you, knowing that I would do it all again. I respect you too much for that. I promise that I will do my best to train myself and protect myself, but I can't promise you that I won't do everything I can to protect you and our family and our friends. I need you to forgive me for that, Grace, because I'm doing it."

Kyra saw that Grace was crying and realised that she was, too. She wiped her face and hastily and came to kneel in front of Grace, her arms on Grace's lap. Grace folded her arms over Kyra, her head bent over hers and they stayed like that.