"Are you okay Apollo?" Silvia asked, nudging me at breakfast. "I'm fine." I said, leaning back in the wooden chair. "You don't look it." Trey replied. He was right, my shirt wasn't fully buttoned and my hair was a mess but I'd had a rough night. Lyan knew it, thankfully he came to my defense. "Lay off." He scowled. Silvia rolled her eyes at him, turning my chin towards her. "Are you sure, Apollo? If those unruly mages hurt you, I can always put them in their place." I jerked away from her. "Sometimes I wonder how you're an angel. Theirs honestly nothing angelic about you,"
Silvia shrugged, "there's nothing saying I have to be nice to mages." I fought the urge to respond to that, indulging myself in the joys of chocolate-chip waffles instead. Trey slid over the syrup and toppings, "You stole Nia's file didn't you?"
"They had no reason to have it." I surmised. Silvia shook her head and huffed, "neither do you."
Trey demurred, "it's his sister Silvia, not yours. You don't get to make these decisions for him."
"I do if they're the wrong ones." She argued.
"No Silvia, you don't. Shut up and eat." He ordered. Silvia rolled her eyes, pushing her plate away. "Remember you're an angel. At the end of the day, your loyalty is us and your halo, not a mage." I bit down on my tongue, excusing myself from the table. I returned to my dorm room and collapsed on the floor. Being an angel, as Silvia had put it, was precisely what had gotten me into this mess to begin with. It's exactly why I had no family left and was well on my way to losing the people I had surrounding me. I felt burdened by the halo, yet I didn't know who I was without it. I spent my whole life believing I was the halo and that without it I'd die. Now I was breathing, and I had no idea how to live without it. Helping Audrey had been a distraction from it, but my motives were for the halo. In the back of my mind, everything I did since I lost it was to get it back. Somehow, losing myself had been just as painful as losing my sister. The guilt was what weighed on me more than anything, I learned pretty quickly how to detach myself from people, but I still mourned her. I still regretted every day I walked without her. To lose myself had been a strange feeling, to know I never had myself at all was worse. There was nothing I could go off of to teach me I was real. My identity was built off what I wanted not what was expected of me. I checked my clock; first period was approaching it, and I would be skipping. I had never been the perfect student, that was one thing of myself I could be sure of. I wouldn't change that now.
The bell rang, and I was all too eager to leave Nurse Hanna's class. She taught magic ethics, a class none of us were ever too enthusiastic to go to. It was a course built to breakdown the morality of magic use, asking us questions like is it necessary? Who does it harm? Who does it help? Often times leading in at least one morality crisis by the end of the term. A class that the students from Nurse Catherine's psychology course had been petitioning against for years. Saying it causes too much mental turmoil for the good of the students. I cared little about either side of the argument, it was boring, and I supported any and all efforts to eradicate the class. Even worse though, she had been focusing primarily on the ethics behind magic devices. Asking us questions like, was it really fair that Aurora, the blood goddess, overthrew Abery, god of healing? Discuss with a partner! As if anyone was comfortable protesting the usage of a relic to put the goddesses who gave us this school back in power, no, this conversation would not be going anywhere. I was all too eager to leave the room when the bell rang. I saw Nurse Catherine mouth fix towards me, and I ducked out the room, grabbing a study group assignment on my way out.
"That was weird, right?" Mason asked, following me to the locker halls. "More like uncomfortable." I cringed, emptying my bag into my locker. Mason leaned against the locker to my left, "I'm telling you, she's strange."
"Why, Mason?" I asked, exasperatedly. "I saw her talking to Stella the day she left." Mason said. "Every since then, she's been a haze of dark energy to me, and I feel uncomfortable around her, more than normal."
I slammed my locker shut, "why haven't you told anyone?"
Mason beseeched me, "I didn't think- why are you so perturbed by this?" I coughed up a laugh, "What do you mean? I'm fine."
Mason clicked his tongue, his eyes rolling over me in disdain. His posture shifted uncomfortably as he pulled himself off the locker. "Right, I'll see you later Drey." He said, heading down the hall to his next class. I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and headed into the bathroom to touch up my makeup before next period. "You're Audrey, right?" A voice called from the bathroom entrance. I turned my head, the girl I'd seen Apollo with, stood in the entrance. She wore the same broach as I did, only it was slightly different. It was a crystal ball of flames instead of a ball with Luna's crest. A witch's broach. I nodded, leaning over the sink to apply an extra layer of mascara. She closed the door behind her and locked it, I tensed. She let out a sigh of relief "Great, because I've been really needing to talk to you." My fingers gripped the sink, and I focused on steadying my hand. "Does the door need to be locked for this?" I asked.
"Oh, sorry! It's kind of private I'd hate for anyone to intrude, can it stay locked?"
No. "Sure, that's fine." She beamed, rushing over to the sink beside me. "I hear you're Apollo's girlfriend?"
Not really. "Something like that."
"Oh? I just thought you should know, he's not trustworthy." She said. "I tried to warn you other night, he sent you the demons." I froze, my mascara brush clattered to the sink. "What are you talking about?"
"I don't mean to scare you, Silas and I have been trying to help you he just gets... temperamental. Please, you have to listen to me, Silas is his brother." She said, placing a gloved hand on my shoulder, which sprouted goosebumps in its place. "I don't believe you."
"You should. Apollo killed his sister, he knows more than he's letting on. If you don't listen to us, he'll kill you too." What. The. Fuck. I pulled away from her, "you're lying. Apollo-"
"You don't know Apollo. Sure, you might love him, but you barely know him. He's been using you to get his halo back. He's gonna turn you in and the goblet. Trust me, I can keep you safe." I shook my head, running out the bathroom. A million thoughts ran through my head, my feet's hit the ground roughly. I ignored the searing pain of my Mary janes and rushed through the clouds which lingered on the common room floors. Through stray students skipping, until I got to my door, and I froze. If I opened the letter and there was even a sliver of truth behind that girl's words, anything, I would have to let him go. He'd be another person I had placed my trust in who left me, the first to betray me. I twisted the knob open, Silas stood in the center of my room with an apologetic face and Stella's last letter. I snatched it from his hands and tore the letter open,
Drey it's Stella, look I'm not gonna lie, the shit I've found is... look I can't tell you yet. I need to tell the goddess first. It's about your parents and the Jameson kids. None of them have their halos, they're all sinners. Do not trust any of them. I love you, stay safe - Stella
My world seemed to crumble before me, and I with it. I fell to the ground, crumbling my hair in my hand and I cried. I tossed the letter, I wanted to believe it wasn't true, I wanted to believe he was better, I thought that if I hated him he at least couldnt hurt me, and I was wrong. I hated him more than ever and yet I still felt every stitch I'd carefully sewn my heart back together with unraveling at the seams. She was right, and I was a fool.