It was the middle of the afternoon when Mel found her way back to Falden and entered the main building. She walked up the stairs to the second floor library and peeked inside the rooms. It didn’t take long before she found Austin sitting with a book curled up next to a burning fireplace. A smile spread over Mel’s lips. She just couldn’t help it. He looked so much like himself, like he was in his true element here.
She sat down on the chair next to him and stared into the fire. He didn’t seem startled by her presence. Instead, he took a few seconds to finish up the page he was reading before he looked over at her.
Mel untied her cloak and threw it over the back of the chair, relaxing into the safety of his presence and the warmth of the fire. She felt her muscles letting go of the tension they had been holding onto the entire way back here. The anxiety that had controlled her body only seconds ago melted away.
“I need to talk to you,” Mel said. “I need to ask you something.”
Austin nodded, but Mel kept her focus on the burning embers in front of them.
“Why do people at town hall think I’m a spy?”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Austin closing the book and placing it in his lap. He shifted in his seat and looked at her.
“Why were you at town hall today?” he asked.
Mel’s forehead creased. “I need to find a job and someone told me the high-paying jobs could be found at town hall or from the Taveck family.”
Mel looked over at Austin and saw his eyebrow twitch when she mentioned his family name.
“Okay,” he said. “Well, some people here in Aldrion are more traditional or from the old school of thought. They think that the dragon cult is a messenger from the void and that they have infiltrated the rulers of the valley, like the king. For them, people from Windbrook and he dragon cult, are spying on the valley and Aldrion, sending messages to the void through their prayers.”
Austin looked away, fixing his gaze on the fire. But Mel kept staring at him, regarding his calm expression.
“Not everyone believes in all of it, of course. Some believe the dragon cult is just annoying, but don't believe they are actually communicating with the void. But… some do believe that.”
“Why?” Mel asked. “Why would they believe something like that?”
Austin shook his head. “I don’t know, Melissa. But I understand it. I think I used to believe something similar to this before I met you and Marcus. I’d just never met anyone from the dragon cult before and it was easy to make assumptions of people so far away from myself. And now, with the black dragon, the people who still believe these things have gotten their flames stoked. Now they feel like they have proof of the dragon cult worshiping the void.”
Mel felt her skin growing cold, and a shiver went down her spine. The warmth of the fire didn’t seem enough for her now. She wanted to crawl into the flames and let them heat her body up until there was no more chill inside her bones.
“I met Derek today too,” Mel said. “He was at town hall. I ran into him and he looked at me with disgust. I remembered that I’d seen him out in the wastes. I think he was the one who saved me.”
Austin’s eyebrow twitched again and Mel felt like she had mapped out his expressions by now. She could see through him, and she knew deep down that he wasn’t telling her everything.
“Yes,” he said. “I think my brother did save you out there. He hasn’t come out and said it or anything. But I know he was out there that day.”
“Why did he save me if he believes I’m a spy?” Mel asked.
Austin shrugged. “I don’t know. Derek is complicated. You should keep your distance from him. Especially now that he and my father have more influence than before in Aldrion. I’m working on changing their minds, but it might take some time.”
Mel swallowed hard. “I want to work for your father. Do you know how much he would pay?”
Austin turned to Mel, and his eyes were intense. His back had stiffened, and he was sitting at the edge of his chair now.
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“Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because people at town hall don’t want to help me get a job and the other jobs are too low paying. I need to make the payment for the dorm room this week or else I will have to find some other place to live when I'm accepted into the next semester at Falden.”
“Or you can just take the money from Gabriella or from me? I can give you the money.”
Mel’s head snapped up, and she met his gaze. “No, I don’t want to take your money. I want to be independent and earn my own keep. Not having to rely on you, Gabs or Marcus. Why can’t I just do some odd jobs for your father and then everything will be fine?”
Austin sighed. “Because it wouldn’t be like that, Melissa. Think for a moment why he is paying good money to work for him. It isn’t just some odd jobs like you’re imagining. It’s getting involved with his business, something I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be involved in.”
“How do you know what I would like to do to earn money?”
Austin gave her a leveled gaze, but didn’t respond to her question. “The world outside of Windbrook isn’t fair, Melissa. It’s not like you can help out in your father’s forge and he will give you some extra coin. Here things are different, harsher. We survive by doing things that are questionable at best.”
Mel felt herself deflate into her seat. Talking to Austin about this topic was like hitting her head against a rock and expecting it to budge. He clearly had his own ideas of what was right or wrong, but Mel couldn’t shake her feelings of wanting to do anything to earn that money instead of being given it.
Austin looked into the fire again and a frown spread over his forehead. “No one is truly independent. Not even my father. He depends on the governor and other people here in Aldrion for a lot of things. Money is not something that comes to the people that work the hardest or deserve it the most. That’s not how things work. I haven’t done anything to earn the money I have and neither have Gabriella. Don’t think we’re nice people who are taking pity on you, because we’re not. We’re people who just don’t care about the value of a gold coin.”
Austin turned his gaze to Mel again, and she met it. This time, his eyes were less intense and his mouth was turning slightly downward. “If you keep looking for things to add up, you will find yourself poor and alone pretty soon. Take what you can get and don’t worry so much about the value of it. It’s just money.”
Mel gave Austin a thin smile. “Is that your expert opinion on the matter?”
He frowned for a second before his face broke up into a smile. “Yes, it is and you can mock me for it, but my opinion won’t change.”
Mel let out a low laugh. “Yeah, I can tell. You’re really hard to argue with, you know that?”
“I’ve been told so a few times, yes.”
Mel relaxed back into her chair. She had exhausted all her options for making money now. Austin wasn’t going to let her work for his father and the people at town hall weren't going to help her get a job either. She knew she needed to do the only thing that was left to do, borrow money from her friends. Money she knew she would never pay back.
#
The next day, Mel made her way through Falden with the money she had received from Gabs. She had decided she didn’t want to complicate her relationship with Austin or with Marcus by borrowing money from them. Gabs, on the other hand, had already paid for the room last semester and she felt like it had been easier to just ask her for it.
The two gold coins in her pocket weighed on her as she walked the few steps from the dorms to the administration building. She opened the door and went behind the glass panels to Greta’s desk. Henry wasn’t in, but Greta looked up from a ledger as soon as Mel came into view.
A hesitant smile spread over her lips, and Mel got an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She had thought she and Greta had ended on great terms last time she saw her, and Mel wondered why she wasn’t smiling wide at the sight of her. Something tense and heavy hung in the air, and Mel just knew there was something wrong going on here.
“I was just stopping by to pay for mine and Gabriella’s room in the dorms,” Mel said.
She brought up the two gold coins from her pocket and placed it on the desk before Greta. They simmered in the light from the window, and Mel swallowed hard. Greta’s smile disappeared from her face and she looked at the coins with a furrowed brow.
“I’m sorry,” Greta said. “But you’re no longer allowed to stay at Falden. I thought they’d told you that. You didn’t pass the final test of the semester. I’m so sorry, Melissa.”
Mel stepped back in surprise, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of her. Greta regarded her with blank eyes and her lips turned down.
“No,” Mel said. “Professor Dereey said that if I didn’t hear from them, I passed. And it's almost been a week since the test. It's just one day left. I thought I passed.”
Greta’s face turned into a grim line and she didn’t meet Mel’s gaze anymore. She collected the money and placed five silver coins back on the counter. She wrote something in her ledger, and then her eyes found Mel’s.
“I have marked Gabriella’s payment down and here is your change. Or her’s, I guess. I’m really sorry, Melissa. I wish I could do something more. But these things happen once in a while. Some students don’t pass the first semester, it isn’t as uncommon as some would have you believe. And it is definitely not a statement about your abilities. I’m sure you’re a great student.”
Mel heard Greta’s words like sour drops of acid in her ears. ‘She was a great student.’
No, Mel was actually great. She had actually studied for the final test and she would have passed it if she had been allowed to take the real test. Not some fake one that Professor Dereey and the headmaster made up on the spot.
She grabbed the five silver coins from the counter in a swift gesture and squeezed them hard against her palm. The edges of the coins cut into her flesh and pain shot out from her hand. Mel felt the anger pumping inside her veins. This wasn’t over.