The superintendent priest shot an angry questioning look at Kim, but Kim merely shrugged off the matter, shaking his head like Brendan had gone crazy, which certainly seemed to be the case. The other novices continued to stare at the proceedings, pale-faced.
“It is over, Brendan Mathers.” Stephanie’s voice was too soft.
“You’re damned right it is.” Brendan laughed, pushing back his hair. “After all, I don’t need this charade anymore.” He tore off his novice’s coat, throwing it onto the floor and shoving it with his foot toward the superintendent priest. “I’m done. No more vows, and no more of your occult bullshit, Stephanie. God, you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”
“You’re such an idiot.”
There was a hint of childish desperation in Stephanie’s voice, and her cheeks were turning bright red, and then redder and redder as the news began to spread farther back into the cafeteria. Yet she bit her lip, obviously seething. Maybe planning revenge.
“Am I?” He smiled wickedly. “But you’re the one who’s ignorant, Stephanie. And it’s going to kill you. I promise.”
“Too bad you didn’t die while you were gone,” she spat back at him. “It looks like I shouldn’t have bothered caring.”
“We all know you didn’t. You’re a self-serving bitch, and you think you’re the best thing to walk on this planet. Well, I’ve found someone who makes you look like a pig in the mud, in bed and out of it.” Nearby students gasped, Brendan’s comments ricocheting back and forth from one ear and mouth to the next. “Soon, your fancy witchcraft’s going to backfire on you, and then I’ll be there to watch and say I told you so.”
Kim’s smile tactfully faded the second it appeared. He was enjoying this.
Stephanie trembled, her fingers digging into her own skin, the nails leaving horrid crescent-shaped marks. “You have it backward.” Her voice was too low for anyone but a few bystanders to hear. But the promise within it sounded much more inevitable than Brendan’s spastic outburst. Her expression cooled to that terrible apathy as she turned, her ponytail swirling around her. “It was fun while it lasted, little boy.”
She glanced at Angela once more before she left the room.
Her face was normal enough, but the emotions behind her eyes spoke volumes.
“Brendan,” Angela said as she shuffled closer to him, reaching for his shoulder, “you have to calm down. This is insane—”
He spun around, shocking her into silence. Who was this person? Definitely not the same Brendan who arranged candies by color and stuck to a curfew like it was law. He seemed to peer right through her, into a world invisible to everyone else. One completely hollow inside. “What do you want, Angela? Why are you even here?”
This really wasn’t the time or place, but—
“To apologize,” she whispered. She didn’t need any more explanation than that.
His tone had hurt her, like a punch to the gut.
“You’re talking about Mom and Dad?” He laughed again, almost as cruel as she’d imagined in her nightmares. “Why are you bothering now? Why apologize? Everyone excuses you anyway, so why not just assume I’m going to do the same?” Brendan widened the collar away from his neck, revealing a line of red bruises. “I can’t believe you even got into this Academy, but I’m sure it had nothing to do with your hair, with those mental diarrheas you call paintings—”
Kim stepped forward, grabbing him by the shirt. “I think that’s enough for today.”
Angela felt the tears gathering, but she wouldn’t let them go. Not in front of so many people. “Forget it, Brendan,” she heard herself saying. “You’re right. From now on, we should go our separate ways.”
His face glazed over, regretful. Before she could even ask why, he shoved Kim away, following Stephanie’s path out the double doors, and normal cafeteria life resumed.
“Are you all right?” Kim said. His eyes seemed to caress Angela, feeling her pain. Beside him, the priest snapped at each of the novices in turn, his face crimson with embarrassment. Brendan and Stephanie’s affair might turn their order upside-down for weeks. “Perhaps you don’t feel like going to the gathering tonight . . .”
All that anticipation for nothing. Brendan’s changed . . .
“Stephanie didn’t invite me.”
“That’s because I’m doing it for her.” Lyrica Pengold strutted out of the crowd to meet them, her thigh-high tights seeming to absorb all the red light in the room. Her hair was pale for a blood head, more like a delicate strawberry shade, but still enough to qualify. She drew close to Angela, whispering excitedly. “She’d meant to ask you before your brother made a scene in front of a hundred students. So are you coming?”