Chapter 3

"You still haven't spoken to Margaret?"

Gil winced at Howzer's incredulous tone.

"I tried ok?" He defended himself. "I tried calling, texting, DMing, even poking -"

"Is that still a thing?" Griamore muttered as Gil continued to rant.

"- and nothing! She's hell-bent on ignoring me and I refuse to show up at her door like some stalker," Gil huffed, crossing his arms.

Howzer scratched his chin thoughtfully. "You try her friends?"

Gil groaned. "They scatter when they see me coming. I think Margaret's warned them off me." He leaned his head against his fists. "I can't think of anything else."

"You could just try calling from our phones…" Gri mumbled, fully expecting to be ignored again.

There was drop-dead silence for a moment before Gil - uncharacteristically for him - shouted in delight.

"Gri, you're a genius!" He grabbed the proffered phone. "I could kiss ya!"

"No thanks," Griamore laughed. "Veronica would kill me."

Gil hurried outside to escape the noise and frantically scrolled down the contacts till he got to the letter 'M'. There it was. His hands trembled as he hit 'Call'.

It rang a couple of times. His palms were getting sweaty. Then a lilting voice floated down the line and he forgot how to breathe.

"Griamore? I think you got the wrong sister," Margaret chuckled. "Were you trying to call Veronica?"

Gilthunder swallowed. How did her voice sound even sweeter than he remembered?

"Gri? You still there?" He could hear the frown marring her brow. "Something's wrong with the connection I think - I can't hear what you're saying…"

"Margaret…" he whispered, unable to hold back any longer. "It's me, I -"

Click.

He stared at the phone in disbelief. Margaret had hung up.


Margaret dropped the phone like it had burned her hand. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She needed air. Now.

She stumbled away from the study hall, ignoring the questioning look of the girl sitting opposite her. As soon as Margaret disappeared, the dark-haired girl with the wide-set eyes rang a number on her phone.

"Vivian? Kymera here. Margaret just got a call that hit her like a ton of bricks. You might wanna ask Raven if he has anything to report."


Margaret gulped down her ice tea like it was manna from the heavens. Her face was flushed from running through the corridor. Running from what? She didn't know. All she knew was that Gri had called and instead of his usual laughter, she'd heard Gilthunder's deep voice whispering in her ear.

She felt goose bumps pricking her skin at the memory.

How long had it been since she last heard his voice? Was it at graduation? Yes, as president of the student council, he had delivered a speech and she had soaked in every word, every rise and fall of his smooth voice, thankful that she could stare at him openly as everyone else in the audience did. With Vivian attending as a guest and sitting in the front row, her own eyes fixed firmly on Gil's face, Margaret had been unable to even congratulate him and had resorted to watching from afar as he received praise and wishes from everyone he met.

And now he was here, on campus. So near, yet so far. The cliché made her almost as angry as Vivian's meddling did.

"You know, if you scrunch up your face like that, you're going to get frown lines."

Vivian dropped into the booth opposite her. In one swoop, Margaret cleared her face of all emotion.

"Can I help you?" she asked, careful to keep her voice neutral.

"A little birdie told me that our mutual friend gave you a call." Despite her light tone, there was nothing friendly in Vivian's eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Wrong answer, sweetheart," Vivian hissed. "I have it on good authority that Gilthunder called your phone and you answered it - which I expressly forbid."

"Actually, you didn't," Margaret replied coolly, trying to tamp down her rising anger. "You said we couldn't be together - and we haven't been. So I didn't break any of your rules, Vivian." She hurried on to add before the woman could argue, "But to make things clear, I only answered the call because it was Gri's number that flashed up. I could hardly ignore my sister's boyfriend, could I? I was just as surprised as you to hear his… his voice." Margaret looked down, all bravado gone at the thought of how much she must have hurt Gil when she hung up in his face.

Vivian made a noise of disgust but said nothing else. Margaret looked up when she felt she had her emotions under control. Vivian was still there, impatiently tapping her fingers against the table top. She looked lost in thought.

"Look, I stayed away from him like you asked, ok?" Margaret said bitterly. "I've even put some distance between myself and my other friends because they ask me about him, or we might meet each other accidentally. But this kind of thing is bound to happen now that we're all on campus and you can't keep jumping down my throat every time, especially since you're not doing anything to make him happy either!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Margaret knew she had made a mistake. Vivian was vindictive and cruel; as much as she fancied herself in love with Gil, she wasn't above hurting him or everyone around him for petty reasons.

"Oh really?" Vivian's eyes flashed. "So the pampered princess finally shows her true colours, huh? You think I'm not good enough for him because I was waiting all this time - is that it?" Her words sent a chill down Margaret's spine. "Oh just you wait, love, I'm going to make you rue the day you decided to take me on."

"No, wait!" Margaret dashed out of the café trying to catch and soothe Vivian before she did anything rash but the older woman had disappeared. She heard a snicker behind her and whirled around to see a dark-haired boy peel himself away from the café entrance. She idly noted the raven picked out in silver on his jacket before he got lost in the crowd. Where had she seen that before…?

With a start, she remembered that Kymera, the girl who'd appointed herself Margaret's study partner, had a similar design on her fingerless leather gloves.

"Oh no," Margaret groaned, realising exactly how far she had managed to put herself and Gil in Vivian's power. There was only one person she could think of who could help her now without making things worse.

Time for damage control.


A/N

And with that, my pre-written chapters end, so no promises on when the next chapter will be out (although I'm gonna do my best to stick to this self-imposed chapter-a-week deadline). I'm pretty sure I want this to be a 5-chapter arc with an epilogue, maybe. Thank you to everyone who followed, favourited, reviewed and even just stopped by. I'm happy that I can share my love for this ship with you all in this way. Also, keep an eye out for a mangaverse prequel Margaret story I'll be sharing very soon :)