Equinox

nine

"In the meeting room, now," Corvus demands as he walks past me and down the hall.

I blink a few times and get up from the kitchen table as I hear a door click shut. As I open the door, I see him pacing the longest wall to my right. "You want to talk?" I ask him.

"Clearly," he says without looking at me and maintaining his strides. "Aspen, do you still have that transcription you and Lilith completed last week?"

Corvus looks as wound up as a rope, and that says something. He's typically as stiff as a board and sterile. In a handful of months, I've realized he's a creature of habit and when that habit breaks so does, he. I've never known someone to be as predictable as him. Everything that he does that happens to catch me off guard I find to be within my expectations of him. But now? He's spiralling. I've never known him to be that type of person.

I pull the page from my back pocket and slide it across the table towards him. "Of course, I do," I tell him. "Even though you made it seem like it was feeble last week." He narrows his eyes in my direction, and I raise my hands in compliance.

I watch him read the page over, once, twice, a third time, and even a seventh time. He curses under his breath. "I'm reworking my daily schedule to accommodate two hours with you. We will be researching and understanding the virus of Wizarding Britain." He sets the page back down and slides it back towards me. After a moment, I take the page back, folding it up, and tucking it back in my pocket. At that time, Corvus slides two hands down his face and then through his styled hair. "Have you done any research into your illness?"

I blink a few times. "Illness?"

He waves his hands around, "The nightmares." He says as if it was obvious. "I would advise you to say no, because if you had you would've figured out that you are soul-tied to my cousin."

I blink again. "What?" I almost gasp.

"I don't know how the two of you managed it," he says to me in the tone my dad would use with me when I was little, "but you are magically connected to him and him to you." Corvus sets both hands firmly against the side of the table his head bows. Then a moment later his head lifted to peer tired green eyes at me through his loose brown strands. "Do you realize what this means?"

My soul, magic, and all, is connected to Draco. His is connected to mine. Our beings have mended together and split between two vessels. A part of him is now in me, and mine is in him. How long? I shake my head at Corvus. He then pulls one of the chairs and plops down into it messily.

"I may be unacquainted with my extended family, but if even a fraction of my assumptions are true, then we are in trouble." He messily unbuttons his jacket and throws it across the room. Then he releases the first few buttons of his charcoal shirt, leaving his collarbone visible. "I've relocated my father and his safe house. They are already settled because I need to keep as few people in this house as possible."

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

"Lewis," Corvus says my name like a curse. "If my cousin has realized what has happened to you two then he can find you. If he can find you the Death Eaters can use that. If they find you... they find us," he cuts himself off and rids the thought with a shake of his head.

I open my mouth again, this time I manage to speak with a frail voice. "How long?"

"Do you mean, when did idiots like yourselves tie an invisible string of magic between your two souls?" He says with the exact sarcasm I expect from him. "I don't know, Lewis. I'm not the answer to all questions."

I slowly lower myself into the chair beside me, attempting to process all that this means for me. "Who has the answers?" I ask him. "How do I break the tie?"