Rooming with the Wicked

14 | lovely night for a walk

Without peanut butter or dew juice in the room, I had no choice but to head to the campus grocery shop to restock. This time I would keep an emergency stash in my nightstand too. Admittedly, it was tempting to sneak a peek under Haze's bed just to spite him, but my conscience won. Not like I'd purposefully looked down there before—hell, I'd just tripped—but it bothered me that he thought I cared enough to go through his things. And it bothered me even more than it bothered me in the first place.

The cold night air whipped through my hair and I flipped up my hood. It would have been smart to grab a jacket, but it seemed my brain was on standby. Totally not because of Haze though. Nope.

Tightening my grip on the shoulder strap of my backpack, I speed-walked across the empty courtyard. Leaves rustled in the wind and an abandoned paper cup tumbled off one of the stone tables to my right. An involuntary shiver ran down my spine and I picked up the pace. Great, on top of everything else I was jumpy.

Yellow light from the shop, warm and inviting, spilled onto the pathway in front of me. It was already past nine, but I could make out multiple moving shapes inside the glass building. I was about to reach for the door handle when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.

A dark figure strode along the gravel path between two rows of bushes. Backpack slung over one shoulder and hands tucked into both jacket pockets, they moved with an inhuman swiftness. Thanks to the luminous moonlight, I could make out raven dreads beneath an equally dark beanie.

Syn.

And he was heading right for Tenebris Forest.

My snacks would have to wait. I stepped away from the door and ducked behind the nearest bench. Once Syn's back was to me, I made a beeline for the hedge at the edge of the courtyard.

After a long and cautious glance at the otherwise deserted courtyard, he disappeared behind the tree line. If that wasn't confirmation that he most definitely didn't want to be followed, I didn't know what was. Of course, that gave me all the more incentive to just do that.

Whatever he was doing out here likely had something to do with the twin crystals he was carrying last time. Maybe one of them was for the portal to Glimmerweald.

I pushed off the ground and darted after him. The path he was on led deep into the forest, right up to Mirror Lake. Taking long walks in nature wasn't exactly my thing, so, naturally, I'd never been, but the forest was rumored to be beautiful. At least during the daytime.

At night...not so much.

The moment I left the safety of the somewhat illuminated courtyard, I was surrounded by a damp, earthy smell and oppressive darkness. The canopy of trees high above me was so dense, only a sprinkle of moonlight made it through.

I didn't wait for my eyes to adjust and kept following the barely distinguishable trail deeper into the forest. Apart from the occasional rustling of leaves and my own rapid breathing, there were no sounds. Like Leyn, Syn had the advantage of soundless steps and built-in night vision. But that wasn't going to stop me now. Who knew when I would get another opportunity like this. Besides, he had no reason to assume anyone was following him, and I had something else.

I mentally patted myself on the back for bringing my backpack. Tucked into the bottom compartment was just the device I needed. Syn, like most shifters, walked around barefoot, making him easier to follow in the dark with some decent military-grade thermal imaging binoculars.

My hands quickly found mine, and I scanned the path ahead. Footprints disappeared incredibly quickly, but Syn couldn't be far. Due to the generally higher body temperatures of shifters, his prints would linger longer too.