Chapter 158: Up to No Good

Chapter 158: Chapter 158: Up to No Good

Chapter 158: Up to No Good

Faye Larkin looked up at the faint smile on Cyrus Calder’s face and froze for half a second.

Then she gave a small nod and turned back around.

Maybe Cyrus had always been like this underneath the gloomy school disguise.

Quietly observant, careful about other people’s boundaries, and occasionally gentle in ways most people would never notice unless they were paying attention.

Faye looked down at the comic he had returned.

A thought occurred to her.

She turned around again.

"Cyrus."

He looked up from his desk.

"What is it?"

Faye opened her mouth, but whatever she had been about to say disappeared before it came out.

Instead, she pulled out her phone.

"Check your messages."

Cyrus looked slightly puzzled, but he took out his own phone.

A message from Faye appeared almost immediately.

Do you want to read the next volume?

Cyrus glanced at the back of her chair, then typed a response.

If it is not too much trouble, I would like to.

Her reply came quickly.

It is fine. I will bring it tomorrow.

Thank you, Faye.

You are welcome.

Their desks were directly in front of and behind each other.

They could have had the entire conversation without raising their voices.

Instead, both of them had been looking at their phones.

Once the exchange ended, Cyrus rested one hand near his face and looked out the classroom window.

So Faye really did dislike drawing attention.

Choosing to text him from less than three feet away made that especially obvious.

If Cyrus had not noticed her discomfort around crowds, simply sitting behind her with his real appearance exposed could have caused her far more trouble than he intended.

Fortunately, he already understood the instinct to hide.

He had spent months doing exactly that.

Faye’s reasons were probably different from his, but Cyrus saw no reason to interfere.

This was how friendship should work.

Close enough to help when necessary.

Far enough apart that neither person had to feel trapped.

Cyrus shook his head faintly.

Some of his other so-called friends could learn something from Faye.

A few people had an unfortunate habit of deciding friendship meant crossing every reasonable boundary they could find.

At least none of those situations had caused a major disaster lately.

That alone counted as progress.

The bell rang again.

Cyrus straightened in his seat.

Before the next lesson began, his attention shifted toward Audra Sloane.

Her eyes happened to be directed toward the back of the room.

For a brief moment, Cyrus, Audra, and Faye’s lines of sight crossed.

There was something familiar in Audra’s expression.

Cyrus recognized part of it.

The rest remained beyond him.

He decided not to spend energy deciphering it.

By lunch, Cyrus and Audra were back in the fourth-floor classroom.

Their time alone had become almost aggressively ordinary.

Cyrus studied.

Audra read or worked through her own material.

If he had a question, he asked.

If she knew the answer, she explained it.

Rumors still circulated around St. Alder about the two of them, but nobody had much evidence beyond repeated private study sessions and the occasional conversation in class.

That was not enough to produce anything interesting.

Several more quiet days passed.

Elsewhere at school, Vera Sable had returned to one of her favorite forms of entertainment.

Student gossip.

"So apparently the guy that girl was seeing outside school got beaten up really badly."

Vera leaned back in her chair.

"Did he?"

The girl sitting across from her nodded enthusiastically.

"But I heard he was fighting seven or eight people at once, and he still managed to protect the girl the whole time."

"That sounds fairly brave."

"It really does. I thought he was kind of useless before, but apparently not."

Vera smiled politely while the student continued filling in details.

Outwardly, she looked interested.

Internally, she was bored.

The girl eventually finished her story and left the nurse’s office.

Once the door closed, Vera reached into the small refrigerated storage unit and pulled out a blood bag.

Campus gossip could be entertaining in small doses.

After hearing enough of it, most stories started sounding the same.

Someone liked someone.

Someone fought someone.

Someone cheated.

Someone cried.

Someone got embarrassed.

Vera bit into the blood bag and drank.

Her expression flattened.

It tasted like almost nothing.

That was irritating.

A particular face appeared in her mind.

Cyrus Calder.

Vera swallowed again.

Her throat moved a little more deliberately this time.

This was his fault.

Before Cyrus, ordinary blood had been perfectly acceptable.

Now every standard blood bag tasted dull.

His Frostborn blood had ruined the comparison.

That faint sweetness.

The cooler temperature.

The memories attached to it.

Everything else had become disappointing.

Worse, Cyrus had started avoiding her as though he had developed an extra sense specifically for detecting school nurses.

Whenever he spotted Vera across campus, he immediately changed direction.

By the time she realized he had seen her, he was often already gone.

Messages received no replies.

Calls went unanswered.

Sometimes he declined them so quickly that Vera could practically picture his expression.

She found that extremely rude.

Vera took another drink from the blood bag.

She also wanted to know what had happened with Daphne.

She had handed the teacher a carefully constructed little story and then received no follow-up.

That was unbearable.

Knowing a situation had started developing without being able to watch what happened afterward was like closing a book in the middle of the best Chapter.

Could she simply drink Daphne’s blood and find out?

Vera considered it.

Then dismissed the idea.

Too troublesome.

Daphne was already complicated enough without adding Bloodborn feeding to the relationship.

It would be easier to find a way to make Cyrus cooperate again.

The blood bag gradually emptied.

Vera stood and looked out toward the late afternoon sky.

Another thought surfaced.

She had also spread a certain rumor at The Full Moon Lounge.

It had been some time since she checked whether that rumor had grown properly.

Maybe she should visit again.

A few more days passed.

October began edging toward its end, and Grayhaven’s temperature dropped with it.

Cyrus liked that part.

The colder weather made everything easier.

His memory had also remained stable lately.

No new years had vanished.

No strange gaps had appeared.

Even better, his latest round of school exams showed another clear improvement.

Cyrus knew exactly who deserved most of the credit.

Audra.

Her tutoring was annoyingly effective.

If his life could continue like this, Cyrus would have very few complaints.

School.

Work.

Food.

Sleep.

A stable memory.

A little money saved.

That was already close to ideal.

One evening, Cyrus arrived at The Full Moon Lounge and changed into his usual work clothes.

Customers gradually filled the room.

Soft music settled beneath low conversation, and the warm interior contrasted pleasantly with the colder streets outside.

While working, Cyrus quietly kept track of familiar faces.

Helena Baird was there tonight.

Rhea Maddox was not.

Ever since that night at her apartment, Rhea had started coming to the lounge much less often.

From what Cyrus could tell, she had been busy investigating something.

When she did appear, she behaved differently too.

The constant teasing had faded.

She seemed calmer.

More reliable.

Almost mature.

Cyrus did not understand the change.

He eventually decided that maybe Rhea had simply grown up a little.

That explanation was convenient enough.

He continued working.

Another customer ordered.

Cyrus prepared the drink and set it down.

A few people nearby watched him longer than necessary.

That had become common.

For reasons he strongly suspected involved Vera, some customers at The Full Moon Lounge had apparently heard that Cyrus accepted private paid arrangements with older women.

At first, he assumed the rumor would disappear.

It sounded ridiculous enough.

Apparently ridiculous rumors survived perfectly well when people wanted them to be true.

Over time, more women started watching Cyrus with a particular kind of interest.

Not all of them were subtle.

A few looked as if they were actively calculating whether they should approach him.

Helena’s presence probably discouraged most of them.

She had a habit of staying somewhere near Cyrus whenever she came to the lounge, even if they barely spoke.

That alone was enough to make strangers reconsider.

Cyrus had no idea whether the rumor was good or bad.

He glanced toward Helena.

If every arrangement resembled what happened with Rhea, then absolutely not.

No amount of money was worth repeatedly ending up trapped inside somebody’s apartment.

If the arrangement resembled Helena’s shopping trip instead, that was different.

Wear some clothes.

Let someone look.

Get paid.

Cyrus could support that kind of business model.

If the price was right, he would happily accept more work that involved nothing but lending someone his appearance.

Money itself was innocent.

People were the dangerous part.

Cyrus had no desire to survive entirely by being attractive to wealthy women.

That sounded like another kind of dependency.

Still, occasional easy money was difficult to criticize.

The entrance bell chimed.

Cyrus looked up.

His expression immediately became more guarded.

Vera Sable had entered the lounge.

She paused just inside and scanned the room.

The moment she found Cyrus behind the bar, her eyes seemed to brighten.

That was never a good sign.

Vera smiled and started walking toward him.

Her attention stayed fixed on Cyrus the entire way.

He watched her approach.

A bad feeling developed almost immediately.

The woman looked far too pleased with herself.

Whatever she was planning, Cyrus doubted it involved anything beneficial to him.

Vera reached the bar and stopped directly in front of him.

She leaned forward slightly.

Cyrus waited.

Her lips curved.

Then she spoke in the same pleasant tone she might have used to order any ordinary drink.

"Could you make me a Bloody Mary?"