Chapter Thirty-four

♦September's POV♦

"I think it's just a scene or two that are going to be used." Cyril replies, Selena just quietly shovels down food, content to stay out of the conversation.

"Still the numbers are too much for that to be possible, we're talking about all three years here aren't we?" I persist.

"Yes that's why there are almost ten or so groups, she divided the entire students into ten or twelve places so each team has their actors and stage hands."

"Oh I see." I chirp. "That's awesome! It means a lot of people get to act in it." 

"Yup!" Cyril agrees. "Plus it also means that anyone could work with anybody, she's mixing the entire thing without regarding the years."

"Whoa!" I blink, eyes wide. "So it means that I could even work with you?" I exclaim.

"Exactly just that, we'll have to find out tomorrow what groups we've been thrown in though." He concludes.

"Do you think you would act?" I muse to myself.

Cyril just shrugs. "I really don't know, I don't really know how to and I'm not even sure I want to act."

♦Selena's POV♦

I'm cold.

So very cold, even though the curtains are drawn and the sun is shining through, the warmth doesn't get to me, it's like I'm a frozen block of ice that just won't thaw.

I watch Cyril laugh and eat little bites of food, effortlessly being the life of the table.

While my food tastes like rocks, volcanic ash and beach sand and it's all I can do to hold myself up together.

I'm patiently waiting, patiently praying for Neruda to say something that reassures me that he's still intact, it hadn't even occurred to me at all that Cyril would modify anyone else's memories but September's and I and I hope that my flawed reasoning holds true.

"I can't believe you got us all to meet up at Club Xhex last night, after the kind of day we had in school." September blurts out and I clutch my spoon so hard that it starts to bend.

Cyril laughs lightly. "I can't believe everyone showed up too, at least everyone except Ciaran but that was because the idiot tripped and fell down the stairs."

September burst out laughing at this. "Apparently he wanted to catch Nadia."

I just look at them varying between intense confusion and budding terror. Cyril.

He… He modified her memories to the tiniest detail for the second time in a day, I was shit scared, Cyril was ridiculously powerful and mother kept on using him.

Tch. I scoff, more reason to want to kill the bitch.

If Neruda thinks I'm being too quiet, he doesn't say a word and I can't help but wonder what the modified memories say.

"So you're still looking for the Imperial huh?" September asks Neruda and my heart stops, again.

"Yeah." He sighs, glancing at Cyril. "I'm starting to doubt they're in Brenton though, I mean the numbers aren't much if there's a supernatural who could control the elements, we'd find out ASAP."

Cyril stoically looks at his food while Neruda says this.

"Oh." September mumbles. "Does this mean you're going soon?" She asks sadly.

Neruda shrugs his thick shoulders. "I'm not sure yet, I'll talk to my dad today, the decision making is all in his hands."

"Oh I see but it's still so soon, I mean you've just been here a day." September insists. "And if the Mage had said that the Imperial was here, she couldn't have been lying right?"

"No." Neruda agrees, not flinching when Cyril takes a sip of blood from his glass beside him. "But there's also the possibility that the Imperial also has ways of getting information and already moved out before I even got here."

"Oh!" September exclaims. "I hadn't even thought of that."

"Yeah I almost forgot to ask." September chirps after a short moment of silence that was filled with peaceful eating.

"What?" Cyril looks up, naturally, like a big brother concerned for his baby sister and I feel my heart twist.

I never knew my brother.

"Selena said my room burnt down, my memory is a bit foggy but I wanted to ask how the fire started."

"A candle." Neruda quickly says without hesitation, totally believing the words coming out of his mouth.

"I thought as much." September shrugs.

It takes every of my self control not to break out in tears, not the gentle, poetic kind but ugly, messy crying that had hiccups and choice wailing thrown in.

Cyril doesn't even seem affected by my shabby state of mind, I know he knows. There's no doubt about it, my mental walls are non-existent, it takes all I have to even keep up a physical blank mask, my emotions are spilling all around, a bad state for an Empath.

Cyril on the other hand is cool, calm, collected and natural. If I were a detective investigating this, I'd never have even vaguely thought that Cyril could be the culprit.

I scream in my head.

Everything is just a colorful mess.

"How do you know?" My twin asks curiously.

"I helped put it out." He cleared his throat. "You were fast asleep and the fumes had gotten to you already, I had to work fast."

"No wonder I woke up groggy." September murmurs, listening to lies with deep interest.

Again, I wish I could take September and run far away from here, I didn't mind if we had to go to Africa, anything to escape my psychotic mother and deranged older brother.

Only one thing was left, I had to speak to father. He could be the only one that would be able to help me. Yes! I'll talk to father, why hadn't it occurred to me all this while, he's always been there and I don't think mother would go as far as to modify her husband's memories, apparently he doesn't need it. She controls his very existence, poor September doesn't know this though.

"Apparently, a candle had been placed by your bedside on the ground." Neruda starts to say in detail, we were about done with eating now and the maids had begun to clear up the tables.

"Maggie." September shakes her head. "She lights incensed candles to keep me safe, she says." She offers fondly.

Neruda makes a face. "Make sure she understands that she has to stop, you barely woke up until I had put out the fire, if it happens again, you could come to serious harm.

*Mother already warned her." Cyril speaks up. "That if there was a repeat of last night, she would be losing her job."

I just watch on with a morbid interest, like I wasn't watching things that concerned me, I can't help it. I feel detached, helpless.

The only one who can see in a dark world of the blind, but it doesn't matter that I can see because all that's there to see is the darkness.

September frowns, obviously worried for the kind and simple maid who had genuine reasons to be deeply worried. "Mom didn't have to go that far, she's just being extra nice, she can always be moved to another section of the house." Maggie was a Room Maid.

"As long as she stops lighting the candles." Neruda insists.

I just sit back and wrap my arms around myself to hold me together because I feel like I'm cracking and chipping away and if it keeps on, there'll be nothing left of me.

I want to scream at Neruda, grab him by his loose white shirt and tell him that September is the Imperial, yell at him that it wasn't a stupid candle that burnt down September's room but her, she did it all by herself! Unconsciously but it still had the same effect.

I'm just so lost.

"I need to study for the upcoming test." September says, sprawling on the now empty table.

Cyril cuts her a glance. "What are you saying? You don't need to read."

I'm not surprised he says this because we all don't need to read, technically we're already done with school, not that we needed human certificates but mother wanted us to blend in so hence school.

She sighs dramatically again. "I know I don't but what else am I going to do with the rest of my day?"

"Shopping?" Neruda offers with a raised eyebrow.

"Huh?"

"Your wardrobe was burnt down." Cyril adds.

"Aw man!" September whines, placing both hands on her head. "I was scared that that would happen."

"Sorry." Cyril shrugs. "But at least, you have what to do now."

"I guess." She mumbled. "What are you going to do?"

Cyril looks down, then looks at her again but doesn't say a word till Neruda chimes in, providing a reply.

"We'll most likely spend the day playing games, I have a score to settle with Cy."

"What about you Selena?" September smiles at me, ever the genuinely good one.

I shrug and stare off into the distance. "Sleep." I say bluntly, watching Cyril carefully. "I haven't gotten myself yet." I admit sheepishly, rubbing my face with a hand to sell my lie.

Two could play at this game.