Page 61 of Hollow

I have to pause, rubbing my lips together as I think. “I’m not sure. I didn’t see it. I didn’t see anything, but it’s what I felt and what I heard. It was almost as if it didn’t belong to you.”

There is no room in here for you, teacher.

That voice hadn’t been Brom’s.

But right now, something is telling me to keep that close to my chest.

Because this man isn’t the same man that I had once been intimate with.

That man had been on the run because he’d been hunted.

This man is one who has finally been caught.

Chapter 19

Kat

“That’s a lovely horse, Brom,” my mother says to him as we’re tacking up at the school stable, the strange stableboy running around and trying to help us all.

I absently stroke down Snowdrop’s neck, peering over at Brom, who is leading his fully saddled horse out of the stall. It’s a magnificent stallion, completely black and shiny like the polished obsidian arrowhead I have in my desk drawer. Its size and strong, arched neck make it look like a Dutch warmblood crossed with a Friesian rather than the thoroughbreds and cobs that frequent these parts. It’s not lost on me that it looks exactly like the black horse the horseman was riding last night. The only difference was the horseman’s horse seemed like it was crafted in the bowels of Hell, and this horse is calm and gentle.

“It is a nice horse,” I say, leading Snowdrop out. “Where did you get him?”

He swings up on the horse in an effortless display of horsemanship and gives me a loaded look, the one that says: I don’t remember.

“I picked him up on my travels,” Brom says with forced confidence, fiddling with the reins.

“And what’s his name?” I ask, though I know he doesn’t know that either.

He’s nearly glaring at me now.

“Daredevil,” the stableboy speaks up, coming out of the stall with my mother and her horse. “I heard him referred to as Daredevil.”

“By whom?” I ask.

Sarah laughs. “By Brom, naturally. It’s his horse.”

But the stableboy doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he meets my eyes, and something blank passes over his expression before he turns and runs back into the stable.

I ponder that as I mount up on Snowdrop, feeling Brom’s eyes on my back. So he has a horse that he doesn’t remember, and it has a name that he didn’t give it. Who gave the horse the name? Whoever gave it the name gave him the horse.

I need time to talk to Brom alone. After Crane tried to read him after class, looking visibly shaken by whatever he said he didn’t see, this war inside of him, Sister Margaret showed up and gave Brom a tour much as she had done for me, and I had to hurry off to my next class, spells and chants, which I was already late for. The rest of the day, I was locked in a mix of magic and non-magic classes, and I didn’t get out until twenty minutes ago when my mother came for me to make sure I was riding back with her and Brom into town.

My mother takes the lead, clucking to her horse, and we follow single file with Brom behind me as we head down the path through the courtyard. The weather seems to have shifted since this morning, but then again, everything in my life has shifted since then. No longer are the students studying and conversing out in the grass. Now, the ground is covered in a layer of dew, and the flowers are drooping. The leaves on the maple, birch, and elm are still bold with color, but so much more has fallen to the ground in decaying piles. The mist is ever present, hovering above the black surface of the lake, and for a moment, it reminds me of Brom’s eyes. Black yet veiled. Him but different. Him…but not him.

I glance at him over my shoulder, wishing that Crane had taught me how to do that speaking-without-speaking thing so that I could talk to him. He’s looking around, a look of strange contentment on his face, as if he’s seeing his surroundings for the first time. I must admit, he looks good on that horse, his black hair and eyes matching the horse’s black coat and eyes, both of them strong, muscular, commanding. He looks good out here with the backdrop of the school behind him, like he belongs there, maybe even more than I do.

“So you’re a witch,” I say to him.

He meets my gaze, brows arched. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you wouldn’t be at the institute if you weren’t.”

“Katrina, don’t pester him,” my mother says from in front of me. “You know that Brom’s mother, Emilie, is a witch. It runs in the family.”

“I’m not pestering,” I tell her, unable to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “And I know she’s a witch; it’s just that while growing up, I was the one who had a bit of magic, and Brom never did. I would do tricks for him, and he could never do it in return. We tried—remember, Brom?”

“I was a dud,” he admits. “Daffy had all the magic.”