Chapter 145: Visual Creatures

Chapter 145: Chapter 145: Visual Creatures

Chapter 145: Visual Creatures

How had Rhea Maddox gotten out of the restraints by herself?

Once Cyrus Calder confirmed that she was fine and left her apartment building, the question finally had room to bother him.

He had secured her wrists behind her back, restrained her ankles, and made sure the setup was difficult to undo without help. Cyrus knew because he had considered whether he could escape the same arrangement himself.

It would not have been easy.

Maybe police training included some useful technique for getting out of restraints.

Rhea was a detective, after all. People who dealt with criminals for a living probably learned things an ordinary student never needed.

Cyrus accepted that explanation for now.

More importantly, she had experienced what surrendering her freedom actually felt like.

That strange hobby should have lost some of its appeal after six hours.

At the very least, Cyrus assumed she would not be eager to try it again anytime soon.

With that comforting conclusion in place, he checked his bank balance.

The number on the screen immediately made his thoughts brighter.

Ten thousand dollars.

He had earned that much without selling anything except his time and some bartending.

Cyrus’s steps became noticeably lighter.

He had to admit that earning money this way felt extremely good.

The amount was enough to cover several things he had previously wanted without touching the money he relied on for daily expenses. The problem was that now that he could afford something, he could not immediately think of what he actually wanted to buy.

Helena had already replaced his terrible phone with something expensive enough to occupy him for a long time.

He could probably buy clothes too, except Helena had nearly buried him in those yesterday.

Food was always an option, but eating through ten thousand dollars would require a level of dedication even Cyrus considered unreasonable.

The excitement faded into caution.

Today had probably been an unusual opportunity rather than a new career path.

He should not start spending money as if women were going to offer him five-figure paid dates every weekend.

Cyrus locked his phone.

School first.

He would save the money.

A small account of his own might become far more valuable later than anything he could buy tonight. Money he controlled meant transportation, medicine, food, and the option to leave quickly if Grayhaven ever stopped feeling safe.

He was about to call a rideshare home when a barbershop across the street caught his attention.

Cyrus stopped.

The school physical on Friday returned to his mind, along with the rumors that had already been spreading around Audra Sloane and the gloomy-looking boy she kept meeting alone during lunch.

He had been thinking about this for a while.

The opportunity had simply arrived at the right time.

Cyrus was not hiding his appearance at the moment anyway.

He crossed the street and entered the shop.

A stylist looked up from the front counter.

"You looking for a haircut?"

"Yes. I want it a little shorter."

By the next school day, St. Alder Academy had acquired a new subject of conversation before first period even started.

A boy entered campus wearing the familiar school uniform, yet plenty of students failed to recognize him.

His hair had been cut into shorter, cleaner layers instead of hanging heavily over his eyes. A small earring was now easier to notice near one ear. Without the deliberately gloomy hairstyle obscuring most of his face, his features looked striking enough that conversations slowed as he passed.

There was still something distant about him.

His expression carried the same relaxed lack of interest Cyrus normally wore when he had somewhere to go and no reason to speak to anyone.

The difference was that people could finally see his face.

Students looked over.

Whispers followed.

Several tried to figure out whether he belonged to another class.

If not for the St. Alder uniform, some might have assumed a student from another school had wandered onto campus.

Cyrus ignored the attention and headed toward the main academic building.

One student gathered enough courage to approach him on the way.

"Hey, are you looking for..."

Cyrus turned his head.

The student met his eyes and lost the rest of the question.

"Never mind. Sorry."

Cyrus continued walking.

Apparently showing his face had not made him look especially friendly.

That was useful.

Under the attention of half the hallway, Cyrus eventually entered senior advisory three.

The room reacted almost immediately.

Several students who were already seated looked up with the same question written across their faces.

Who was he?

A smaller number knew the answer.

Owen Keats stared from his seat as Cyrus entered without making the slightest effort to hide his appearance.

Confusion followed quickly.

Cyrus had spent so much time keeping this secret. Why reveal himself now?

Cyrus walked past Audra’s desk.

Their attention met briefly.

He gave her a small nod.

Audra returned it.

She was surprised by the haircut and even more surprised that Cyrus had chosen to come to school without rebuilding his usual disguise.

Then she thought about the rumors.

Understanding settled in.

Recently, people had started talking about the two of them meeting alone in the empty fourth-floor classroom.

Cyrus knew his previous school image made the situation look stranger.

A gloomy, forgettable boy repeatedly meeting Audra in private invited the question of why she would choose him.

If he stopped hiding his appearance, some of that confusion disappeared.

He had changed this because he did not want his image creating unnecessary trouble for her.

He was considering her situation.

Audra’s mood warmed immediately.

Cyrus cared about her.

The thought arrived with enough force that she almost smiled.

Cyrus had already looked away.

He continued toward the back of the room without realizing how generously Audra had interpreted one practical decision.

Faye Larkin noticed him too.

Her surprise was quieter.

During his visit to her house, Cyrus had occasionally let enough of his appearance show that Faye already knew the gloomy school version was partly deliberate.

Knowing he was attractive and seeing the full effect in a bright classroom were different things.

She had not expected him to stand out this much.

Then another concern appeared.

Someone who attracted this much attention was now sitting directly behind her.

Would that make people look toward the back of the classroom more often?

Faye had spent a long time avoiding exactly that.

Her own appearance was something she preferred not to place under unnecessary attention at school. If classmates started constantly turning around because of Cyrus, the quiet corner she relied on might stop feeling quiet.

Her brows drew together beneath her hair.

The sudden irritation was difficult to sort.

Part of it came from the possibility that something she had carefully kept hidden might become easier for others to notice.

There might have been another reason mixed into it.

Faye did not examine that part.

She quietly shifted her chair a little farther forward.

Cyrus noticed.

He had been preparing to return the comic he borrowed from her.

Instead, he looked at the new space between their desks and slipped the book back into his own desk.

He could return it another time.

Around them, disbelief was still spreading.

The attractive stranger who had entered their classroom was actually Cyrus Calder?

The same Cyrus who usually sat in the corner with his hair covering his face?

Owen leaned over.

"Cyrus, what happened to you?"

"My hair was getting too long. It was inconvenient."

Owen looked at him.

"That is seriously your explanation?"

"It is the reason I cut it."

Owen pressed his lips together, then gave up.

Students nearby had heard enough.

The realization moved through the room quickly.

That really was Cyrus.

Several girls immediately became more interested than they had been five minutes earlier.

Class was about to begin, however, and none of them knew him well enough to walk directly over when he already looked difficult to approach.

For now, they watched.

Cyrus ignored them.

He rested one hand near his face and looked out the window.

The decision to stop hiding had not been made on impulse.

Audra still had the glamourkin ring.

Because of the artifact’s lingering influence, Cyrus needed to spend time with her occasionally so that they could understand and reduce the effects.

That meant private meetings between them were already unavoidable.

If those meetings continued while Cyrus kept presenting himself as the gloomy boy nobody noticed, classmates would only become more curious about why Audra kept choosing to be around him.

Showing his real appearance solved part of the problem.

People were visual creatures.

Before today, some students probably wondered whether Audra’s judgment had somehow failed.

Now their thoughts would change.

Instead of wondering why she would ever pay attention to him, they would probably start hoping desperately that the attractive face was the only good thing about him.

Maybe he had a terrible personality.

Maybe Audra would lose interest after knowing him better.

Surely someone as composed as Audra Sloane was not shallow enough to care only about appearance.

Cyrus could practically imagine the arguments people would use to comfort themselves.

The thought amused him.

More importantly, he felt less pressure about being found.

Audra and the glamourkin ring gave him an option he had never possessed before.

If Isolde somehow heard rumors and came directly to St. Alder, Cyrus no longer believed his only choices were hiding or running.

Part of him almost wanted her to appear now.

If the glamourkin ring did not have a limited number of safe uses, Cyrus might have borrowed it from Audra and gone straight back to settle several old problems himself.

He could control every troublesome woman there and order them to leave him alone.

Unfortunately, only two apparently consequence-free uses remained.

Wasting them would be stupid.

Cyrus sighed under his breath.

Another problem was far more immediate.

When he checked his diary that morning, he had discovered another year missing from his memory.

Yesterday, Vera had drained enough blood from him to force him unconscious.

The timing lined up too cleanly to ignore anymore.

Whenever Cyrus lost consciousness in a deeper way than ordinary sleep, the ring seemed capable of taking another piece of his memory.

The glamourkin control had done it.

Now blood loss had done it too.

That pattern was becoming difficult to dismiss.

There was another concern.

If the ring really came from the Bloodborn, then Cyrus had every reason to wonder whether Vera herself could do something similar.

She had denied being able to read memories from blood.

After yesterday, Cyrus no longer felt inclined to believe a single convenient sentence that came out of her mouth.

He had been careless.

That mistake had cost him another year.

When the next break arrived, he was going to the nurse’s office.

This time, Vera was going to tell him whether she actually knew how to remove the ring.