With no class to attend, Elijah did not need to leave his home.
After breakfast, he focused on the murders that had made headlines in every newspaper with the first sign of sunlight.
Research papers were scattered messily on his bed, and at the center was Alexei.
With his stomach pressing on the crumpled duvet, he rested his chin on the back of his fist.
Blue eyes remained fixed on the lines scribbled on the white sheet.
Elijah was half-convinced that the boy was just staring vacantly at the ritual theories.
Sure enough, in the next second, he yawned.
Then shoved his head into the mattress, as though trying to suffocate himself.
"I don't get any of it."
"You don't need to," Elijah said off-handedly.
Those were the sheets he wrote after investigating the different kinds of ritual and how they were affected by the slightest change in the markings.
Complex work. It would be absurd if Alexei actually understood them.
What baffled him was why the boy kept trying.
