Chapter 3: Perfume
POV: Raven
"What was that?" Loki's voice was barely above a breath.
"I don't know," I said.
"That light—"
"I know."
"It wasn't red or gold or—"
"Loki." I looked at him. "I know."
He closed his mouth. The needle woman was still staring at her device, tapping it against her palm. Two students had turned around. A girl near the wall was whispering with her eyes fixed on my hand.
Loki leaned toward me without looking at me. "Side door. Left. Go now, before she remembers your name."
I turned and walked. Not fast enough to look like running. I pushed through the side door and into the corridor beyond.
Cold stone. Dim light. I pressed my back against the wall and breathed.
Three seconds.
"You move fast for someone who doesn't know where she's going."
He was already there. Leaning against the opposite wall, arms loose, watching me like I was a problem he'd already half-solved.
I straightened. "I knew where I was going."
"You walked into a storage corridor."
"I was taking a different route."
He looked at me for a moment, then pushed off the wall. "Come."
He didn't check if I was following. I stood there for two seconds, then followed, because the alternative was going back into that hall where the needle woman was probably already writing my name next to the word anomaly.
He stopped at a door near the end of the corridor. Old wood, no handle. He produced a key, unlocked it, and pushed inside.
Small room. Dusty shelves. He turned on a lamp. I walked in after him, and he locked the door.
I looked at the locked door. Then at him. I crossed my arms.
"You lock the door for all your students, or is this special?"
"I don't mentor students." He moved to the shelves. "I'm keeping you from walking back into a hall full of people who just watched your blood light up like a signal fire."
"It wasn't that dramatic."
He turned and looked at me. It absolutely was.
I uncrossed and recrossed my arms. "What did it mean. The light."
"Nullifier signature." He checked a bottle, put it back, reached for another. "Humans don't produce them. Vampires don't. What you are sits outside their classification system, which means the woman at that table has two options. She files it as equipment failure, or she reports it."
"Which will she do?"
"I don't know her well enough to say. What I do know is that you have two days before someone with real authority starts asking questions." He found what he was looking for and turned. Small dark bottle, black wax seal. He held it without offering it. "After that, the Council gets involved."
"And the Council—"
"Executes nullifiers." Same tone he'd use for the weather. "You can unmake what they've spent centuries building. That makes you dangerous. They don't negotiate with dangerous."
I kept my face still. "Okay."
He tilted his head. "Okay?"
"What's in the bottle."
The corner of his mouth shifted. Almost. "Concealment blend. Masks your aura, blood scent, magical signature. Everything human gets buried under it." He turned back to the shelf and uncorked the bottle. "Every morning. Wrists, throat, behind the ears."
"I can apply perfume myself."
"Most people apply it wrong and wonder why it fails by midday." He looked at me over his shoulder. "Give me your wrist."
I didn't move.
"I'm not going to bite you," he said. "Probably."
I walked over and held out my wrist. He turned to face me fully, and I realized how close the shelf was behind me, how little space there was between us now. He didn't seem to notice, or he noticed and didn't care, which was somehow worse.
He tilted the bottle against his finger and pressed it to the inside of my wrist. His touch was light. He drew it across my pulse point slowly, like he was making sure it absorbed, and I focused very hard on the wall behind his shoulder.
"Other one."
I switched hands. He did the same to the other wrist, the same slow drag of his finger, and I felt my jaw tighten.
"You're holding your breath," he said.
"I'm not."
"Your chest hasn't moved in twelve seconds."
I exhaled. He almost smiled.
He tilted the bottle again and stepped closer. "Throat."
I lifted my chin. He pressed his finger just below my jaw on the left side, then moved to the right. His hand didn't shake. Mine probably would have. He was so still it was almost offensive, like proximity to me registered as nothing at all.
Then he stopped. His finger rested just below my ear without moving.
I turned my head slightly to look at him, which was a mistake because he was already looking at me, and this close his eyes were very red and very steady.
"You have a tell," he said quietly.
"I don't."
"When you're scared, you lift your chin. Like if you go tall enough, nobody will see it."
My chin was lifted. I didn't lower it. "I'm not scared."
"No," he agreed. He stepped back, recorked the bottle, and held it out. Mine now. "You're stubborn. It's different."
I took it. "Is that a compliment?"
"In this school, stubbornness is a survival skill." He moved toward the door. "Go to dinner. Sit with your brother. Don't discuss the marking with anyone, including the Ashwood boy."
"How do you know I have a brother? And the Ashwood kid helped me."
" Who's a teacher without knowing his students? And, Ashwood noticed you. Those aren't the same thing." He unlocked the door and pulled it open. The corridor light came in pale and grey. He stood aside to let me through.
I stepped out, then stopped.
"Why are you doing this," I said. Not a question, really. More like a fact I was waiting for him to correct.
He leaned against the doorframe. The lamp behind him made his shadow fall toward me.
"The concealment sets in within the hour," he said. "By dinner you'll read as unremarkable."
"You didn't answer."
"No," he said. "I didn't."
I turned to walk away.
"Raven."
I stopped. He hadn't used my name before. It sounded different in his mouth, quieter than I expected.
"The fangs," he said. "Take them out. You don't need the costume anymore."
I reached up and pulled them free. I turned to face him one more time.
He looked at me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes.
"You're far more interesting without the mask," he said. "Remember that when they try to make you wear one."