18

My bag is absolutely ruined.

It’s in scraps and ribbons, like my Mary-Janes. I don’t mourn my tights, of course, that’s ridiculous. But I do loathe to dump off three items into the bin once I’m discharged from the infirmary. So wasteful. So sad.

I leave behind James.

All the warts and blisters are gone, from my body, from his, and yet he’s still sulking about his bones burning or something, I don’t know, I closed the curtain to shut him out.

The next morning, I am discharged.

As soon as I am back in the dorm, I write to Mother. I need replacements for my ruined things.

I attach a magazine with folded pages and red ink to circle all the things I picked out for myself. A new backpack, shoes, more thermal tights, and—why not—a new shirt, the French kind with a high ruched collar.

Before I know it, my flesh is back to normal, a pallor that’s forever ghostly. Come Monday, I’m back in class—and my evening detentions.

It’s been a shitty week.

Today, I have no bag. All the others I have in my trunk and luggage tucked under the bed, they aren’t for school. I’m not carrying around a rucksack or a duffel bag, I would die from the shame.

So, after Star Theory is dismissed, I gather my textbooks, thin tomes, and a notebook that has some pencils stuffed between the pages, into my arms and push from my rickety chair.

At the head of the dispersing class, Eric wipes chalk off the board with an old, frayed duster. It isn’t doing much good. That chalkboard needs a proper wash.

The rest of the class thins out, a lazy and tired and bored-out-of-their-damn-minds throng of students slumping out through the door to tackle those wooden stairs that zigzag seemingly forever all the way down to the ground floors of the academy. A triple lesson on the myths of astrology in the krum world, and there’s not a happy face in sight.

I feel the weight of the semester, too.

December is just six weeks from now, and it feels like the end of a prison sentence is slumping closer—but that it’s never quite within reach.

I count the days.

The days until the first morning of December sees us all back on the gondolas, stepping through the veils, and going home for the Solstice Season.

I won’t be resentenced to this prison until after the New Year.

I need that break to come now.

The fatigue weighs me down, pulls on my deflated shoulders and drags my boots over the old floorboards of the tower classroom.

I don’t file out onto the stairs with the rest of the students.

Courtney pauses near the doorway. She tugs the strap of her satchel over her shoulder and looks back at me, a silent question in her frown.

I just wave a weary hand at her.

Go on without me.

I’ll catch up with you later.

It’s all feeling so tiring.

Even the practice of my old friendship with Courtney, a witch I have nothing in common with, who—to spend so much time around—is draining me, as I am sure I am draining her.

It’s this far into the year I start to pay more attention to Serena. Just when she’s doing small things, like fastening the clasp of a necklace, gliding on her soft gloves, slipping her feet into stilettos, all the signs that she is leaving the dorm for hours into the night, whether to hang with my brother, let him shower her with pretty flowers and jewels and dates as they pursue their courtship, or that she’s off to a party tucked somewhere in the academy.

It’s envy that fills me.

If I had magic, would I be going with her to the parties? Would I be borrowing her shoes? Would she be telling me to wear the red dress, not the black one because that shade washes me out?

I’m rooted in misery as the door to the classroom shuts, all the students gone, all but me.

I drag myself to the teacher’s desk. Only, Master Milton isn’t around this lesson. He was here to start with, but when Piper snatched Zara (a made one with the attitude of an aristos) by the hair, and yanked her clean out of her seat, he had to hoist the two of them out of the class.

He hasn’t returned.

So, now, it’s just Eric—and me.

Leaning all my books into one arm, I grip the graded assignment in my other hand, so tight that the thick parchment crinkles. The rustling sound doesn’t surprise him.

His shoulders soften, as though he sighs. He sets down the chalk eraser, then dusts off his hands.

He expected I would stay behind to talk about it, the assignments that were handed out at the beginning of the lesson. Mine, stained red with one of the lowest grades I’ve ever gotten in Star Theory.

Without looking over his shoulder, Eric says, “I had a run through your assignment last night.”

He turns to me. A hint of sympathy casts his gaze to the red-marked paper crunched in my hand.

I trace his stare, and though I’ve been glaring at the assignment for most of the lesson passed, my stomach drops at the reminder of all those notes.

It takes everything in me to not groan in despair—or to kick him right in the dick.

Not the best approach.

So I grapple with my pride, my mood, my indignation, and I swallow down the bad words with a gulp.

“Eric,” I start, and his gaze lifts to mine, a flash in them. “Mr Harling,” I correct myself and move for the desk. I set down the assignment. “I’m usually… upgraded.”

His brow furrows. An unspoken question.

I unload my books from weighing down my arm. I slip them onto the edge of his desk, then draw back.

“At Bluestone—for years, since I got here…” There’s a nervousness in my tightening throat, in the dash of my tongue over my dry lips, in the tug at the sleeve of my cardigan. “With my… handicap ,” I concede, and dig my nail into a small tear I just made on the wrist of my cardigan, “I… Well, most masters will account for that. Compensate ,” I add, delicately.

His frown remains. “You are given a higher grade than you earned?”

My scoff turns into a fleeting smile.

Suppose that’s one way to put it.

Eric wanders to the side of the desk.

He sets his hand on the edge of the wood. “Master Milton mentioned no concessions to me,” he says, unsure. Not unsure of what I claim, but unsure of how to answer.

I see that in the nervous pinch of his fingers, like he’s pressing his nail into the pad of his thumb.

“Does this apply to all areas of your study?” he asks.

I run my tongue over my thinned lips, then bite down on them for a beat.

Talk about awkward.

Before I can answer, he draws in a breath that floods his chest, then loosens it. “I don’t plan on granting such provisions.”

My lashes flutter, once, twice, on the bleeding assignment. A swell of violence consumes my chest.

I steady it with a counterattack. “Consider the provisions less about my surname, and more about the lack of magic I need to do well in school. Like the good old saying, I get an A for effort .”

Eric’s smile is forced.

That look tells me one thing. An answer he doesn’t voice.

He might as well just say it outright: ‘If it weren’t for your surname, there would be no A for effort.’

“Well,” he starts and buries his hands in his pockets, “we could begin your tutorship tomorrow and…” his words come out slow, his tone wary, and he’s careful in choosing his words, “achieve…more organic grades.”

Or I kick you in the dick.

Smack your head into the chalkboard.

Drown you in the snow. Suffocate? I don’t know.

“I do want the tutorship,” I say, just as careful, and we’re sidestepping dormant mines in each other. “But maybe in that, there is a conflict of interest?”

His lashes lower.

“If you’re to help me write my essays, to calculate and predict for my assignments—then should you be grading them?” My brow arches. “Perhaps you will grade my assignments with a more critical eye than the essay, perhaps, of a student who didn’t have your help. What’s that called?” I click my fingers. “Overcompensation?”

Eric is stone.

For a whole heartbeat, two, three, he is unmoving, unspeaking, the caramel hues of his skin turned to stained marble, the grey of his eyes hardened into little stones.

“I will be fair.” He steps away from the desk, then adds, firmly, “As I always am.”

My toes curl in my boots. At my sides, my hands flex into fists. The thought flickers through me, to approach Master Milton and ask that he takes care of my assignments, to undermine Eric—and risk everything I might have with him.

This isn’t something I’m familiar with.

Since I came to Bluestone, upgrades have been the way. I am offered an extra grade on top of what I earn, or just half, maybe. And still, I struggle to pass.

No other Master has challenged this.

No other has questioned it.

So, frankly, who the fuck is he to do that?

He’s only an apprentice anyway. Not like he’s a qualified Master. That’ll take him another year before he’s got a class of his own.

So what’s his deal with ensuring the authenticity of my grades? No other Master has worried themselves over that.

I am deadblood, not cast out, I am stuck at this school that I have a fucking handicap for—and that’s not good enough for him to just give me a damn break?

I get the niggle.

Not so much a niggle, more a shout in my head.

This isn’t about me, about my deadblood—it’s about him looking at me right now as another aristos. Everything handed to me on a silver platter. But what he doesn’t recognize is that when I take that silver platter, my wrists are shackled.

I run my fingertip over the bloodied letter staining my assignment.

D .

A failing grade. One I will have to explain to Father.

I snatch the assignment and stuff it into the pocket of my breeches. It tears under my assault.

Eric considers me, his jaw tight. “Will that be all, Miss Craven?”

I frown at the desk for a moment, where my bleeding paper was sat, unjustified in its injury. I could storm out, maybe my call my father and complain before he hears of the grade. I would have a better chance at skating by his wrath if I am quick to take the victim stance and seek his advice, his help.

Or, will Father be prouder if I take initiative, if I take the matter directly to Master Milton?

I swear, if this apprentice wasn’t Eric Harling, I would do that. I would fight for Milton to grade me. I would throw that apprentice under the sled.

But it is Eric, and to do that means to go against him.

And that’s something I am not quick to rush into.

Eric has potential—for me, for my future.

Contracts open to the gentry now. So I can’t go pissing off the good ones. I’ll save that for after the wedding, when he is trapped in a marriage with me, as I am with him.

I loosen a sigh and meet his steady gaze. He’ll make a good Master. He’s stern enough. Sticks to his decisions.

The aristos won’t like that.

I don’t like it.

Still, I force the words out, and they are bitter on my tongue. “I meant to thank you.” I try to diffuse the tension rolling between us, the icky sort, not the kind of tension I would like to nurture. “It didn’t go unnoticed.”

Confusion creases around his eyes. “What didn’t?”

“The feathers,” I say. “The ones you conjured to stop me from hitting the ground and breaking my arm, probably,” I add with a flush. “Falling over the banister like that wasn’t my best move.”

His frown deepens for a second, just a second, then he smiles something smooth. “I… That isn’t within my power. I ran from the entrance to reach you, but you fell so fast and—then the wave came down the stairs and separated us… The feathers…” He shakes his head. “That wasn’t me.”

“Oh.”

My nod is faint—and I am fast scrambling for another way to disperse the frost between us.

Suppose Eric is something of a backup plan.

I am not quite sure what my intention is with him.

I am even less sure what I am allowed to pursue.

I have heard nothing more on the mysterious aristos suitor from my father, and so it probably faded away. Could have been an aristos simply asking about the amount of my dowry, or the amount of my annual allowance, then disappearing because it’s still not enough to marry a deadblood, even if it is a lot of money. The shame is too great.

So, at present, I’m not engaged.

I’m not promised to anyone. And my contract is open to the likes of Eric now.

I should swallow my pride here.

I should make my fondness of him known.

I shouldn’t go down over something as silly as grades for a stupid class that I only took because it was meant to be easy.

My future is more important than Star Theory grades.

“Tomorrow,” I say with a softer smile than I have managed in our whole interaction this evening. “If you’re still free to tutor me?”

Eric’s tongue presses against the inside of his cheek. He thinks on it a moment, he hesitates .

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Looks like I might have some damage control to work on.

A breath of relief is ribboned from me when he nods.

Still, he doesn’t soften. His tone is crisp, “Library, six o’clock?”

That’s dinner time. The mess hall opens just an hour before. And if I am too late in, all the good stuff is gone, and what’s left is oily and filmy and soggy.

Ugh.

But this is an opportunity.

Damage control, damage control, damage control.

If I remind myself enough, then maybe it won’t be so bitter on my smile. “I’ll bring snacks,” I say.

He just dips his head once. A dismissal, the sort of formal one that comes from teacher to student.

“Father is on the phone for you.” Oliver’s harsh stare is full of promises and threats to be fulfilled. He pushes his fist into the edge of the table in the mess hall, too close to James who shrinks in his chair. Then, in a harsh growl, he adds, “ Again .”

Fuck.

That.

I know why our father is calling for me.

Again.

It’s not for anything good.

Not to tell me he loves me, or ask how I am faring, it’s not to check on my wellbeing after the bile attack, it’s not for anything I want to hear, not even to discuss my failing grade in Star Theory.

No, someone has snitched.

Oliver, maybe.

Dray, perhaps.

Asta, Landon, Headmaster Braun, anyone .

But the result is the same no matter who it was that ratted.

I punched my brother in the face.

Surrounded by students and teachers, an audience, onlookers who should never be privy to the depths of our dynamics, I socked Oliver square on the mouth, and in front of that same audience, I rained my fists down on Dray Sinclair .

So that call is not going to turn out well for me. Hence, I’ve avoided it for a week and some days—hopefully longer.

Dray hasn’t struck yet, but I’m not a complete idiot.

He will.

And it’ll be…

The worst yet.

I don’t doubt it.

So maybe my father might be the lesser of two evils. Maybe I should take the call.

And yet…

Fuck. That.

No chance in hell.

My insides twist with a grimace that almost bares my teeth.

I make a face at Oliver. “I’m eating,” I say with potatoes rolling around my mouth.

Beside me, James says, “Oh, it’s alright, I can watch after your dinner until you’re back.”

The glare I shoot him shrinks him further into the chair, and his pallor is too ashy, too sickly.

Oliver doesn’t acknowledge that he spoke at all. The sharp emerald of his gaze sears into me, his fist pressed into the table, and his jaw tightens.

“I don’t think father gives a shit if you’re eating or not,” he says. “Booth five. He is waiting.”

I stab my fork into another potato, then lift it. “I’ll call him back.”

“The fuck you will,” he pushes from the table, then comes around it, advancing on me. “Get up. Get up now.”

He swipes for my tray. It’s knocked off the edge before it clatters to the floor.

The sound of the metal clanging is enough to draw in some looks from nearby students.

Still, I stay planted in my chair.

I bite down on the hunk of potato still speared by the fork.

It’s all I get the chance to do before Oliver snatches me by the arm and hoists me out the chair.

I go limp.

My deadweight slams into him.

Oliver fumbles to catch me, but he does. His arms loop under my pits, and he holds me upright.

“Fucksake, Liv, you’re acting like a little brat.”

I say nothing. I have no answer.

The dead can’t speak.

And I’m playing dead.

It’s childish. Brattish. But it’s the only escape I have from taking that call.

I’d rather be knocked out my Mildred than go to booth five.

Arms hooked under me, Oliver drags my limp weight out of the mess hall.

Eyes flicker to us, whispers chase us out into the atrium, but the only movement that comes from me is that I spit out the potato.

It splatters all over the sleeve of his cashmere sweater.

Oliver hisses, “Enough, Liv! If you don’t get your ass to booth five now, I’ll go tell Father that you need to be visited in person.”

No longer limp, tension seizes me—and I am rigid, a toppled statue whose eyes bulge.

His warning is low, soft, a growl, “Father will pay you that visit, and you know it.”

“Fine,” I shout and yank out of hold. I topple onto my feet with a stagger. “I’m going, I’m going.”

The mistrust narrows his eyes into green swords.

I stalk past him and march through the atrium.

Oliver is hot on my heels, the clack of his Oxford shoes lashing at my tense back.

At the mouth of the corridor, whose length is lined with curtained wooden booths, there is a queue of at least a dozen students. Before I can make my way past them, a fifth-year brushes by me. But not before I spot the hard-boiled sweet he’s just popped into his mouth.

I swivel for him.

“Gimmie that.” I snatch the thin plastic wrapper from him then turn my back on the stupid look he gives me.

I rush down the side of the queue.

Without looking over my shoulder, I know that Oliver watches me go. He doesn’t follow.

For that, I am glad.

Slowly, I peel aside the curtain and step into the booth. My movements are cautious as I reach for the receiver left on the wooden shelf.

My fingers clasp the sleek handle, and my face twists.

I’m careful to be as quiet as possible.

I bring the wrapper to the microphone.

I rustle it gently at first. Then, the closer I bring it, the firmer my fist coils and tightens, then loosens, the louder the crackle goes down the line.

If Father says anything, I don’t hear it over the crackling wrapper.

I just hope he thinks that the magic is interfering with the line. It happens. Not all the time, but there are occasions the lines will cut out, or drop entirely for a night. Anything from magic interference to storms and rains can cut the phone lines.

I pray my father thinks that’s what is happening.

Rustling the plastic, my hands are full, and I lean across the booth to touch my chin to the hanger. I push my chin into it.

It clicks down—and the line disconnects.

I huff a breath of relief.

Close call.

Ha. Get it?

I slam the phone down and twist around in the booth. My mind is on dinner, and I need a fresh tray.

But my way out of the booth is blocked.

A grunt catches in my throat, a curt groan of despair.

Shoulder leaning against the curtained frame, Dray’s arms are folded over his chest. The frost that lightens his eyes is unkind.

Not in his uniform, I guess he’s about to head to the sparring club. His plain black sweatpants are matched with a woollen sweater that’s razored and pilled around the neckline from, what I suspect to be, someone’s hand pulling the delicate material. Whether that happened in sparring club or it was Melody’s desperation to get a taste of him, I don’t know.

I just know he’s in my way.

Sandy blond hair brushes over his dark brows. His full mouth parts around the words, “That was creative. How many times have you done that?”

My mouth thins on the insults I ache to shoot at him.

“The mistake your brother made with you,” Dray starts and, with a single step, moves into the booth, “was letting you out of his sight.” He reaches back for the curtain—then tugs it closed. “Trust is given too freely to you.”

That fucking snark, it can’t be swallowed down, can’t be restrained for too long. And so it lashes out, quick. “Would you have them keep me on a leash of pearls and diamonds?”

His lashes lower. “Once you earned it. Even a pretty leash is a freedom I would not trust you with.”

“Good thing for me I’m not your sister,” I say, but the heart, the courage, it doesn’t find its way into my voice, and so it trembles into a whisper as I add, “I’m not your problem.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No, Dray, I’m not.” I fold my arms and cock my head. “But the Cravens and Sinclairs— blah blah blah . It doesn’t matter Dray. I’ll be married soon.”

His brow arches. “Oh?”

I lift my chin before I parrot him. “Oh.”

“And who is your intended gentleman?”

“My contract is open to the gentry now.” I sniff. “Give it a year, and I’ll be someone else’s responsibility. You won’t have a say in anything. It won’t be your place.” My gaze cuts around his arms, carved from muscle, then hidden by the sleeves of the black sweater—both blocking my only path out of here. “So,” I add, firm, and hope he moves out of my way, “I am not your problem.”

“And yet you are a problem.” His hand lifts, honeyed under the dim lantern light that flickers above. His fingertips graze over the arch of my cheekbone. “One that affects me. So what would that equate to?” He flicks me square on the head. “Think you can calculate that?”

I swat at him, but before a hiss can even escape me, a crushing pressure binds my throat, and my back is smacked against the phone.

I suck in a choked, dense breath.

Dray shoves me against the phone and brings his nose to mine. The tips of his fingers cut into my flesh. The tendons in my neck pop from the pressure.

A guttural sound escapes me.

I latch my hands onto his wrist.

I writhe and, as though I can get a foothold and climb up, my boots scrape against his shins.

“I give you props for the inventive manner you disconnected that call.” The warmth of his breath tickles my tight-pressed mouth. “But your duty is to your family, Olivia. Always .”

My teeth bare in a silent grimace.

The air restricts in my throat. Not quite suffocated, but with a mere flex of his hand, my air will be cut off.

“Allow me to add, while I have you here,” he says, soft, and brushes the tip of his nose over mine, “that if you ever pull that stunt with me again, it will be more than a call from your father that you have to fear.”

Any response I might have is silenced as his grip tightens.

The blood pools in my head, my heartbeat throbbing too violently through my body—

Then he releases me.

He doesn’t step back, just opens his hand, and the breath that sucks through me is razored.

My boots smack down on the booth’s floor, hard, and I stagger into his solid chest.

Dray is an unmoveable statue in front of me. His hand comes to my waist—and holds, as though to steady me.

I throw him a weary glare and back into the phone. I touch my fingers to my aching neck, like I can feel the promise of bruises already blooming.

I manage another steadying breath before his hand returns to my face and, gently, forms around my jawline. He lifts my face to angle his.

A dark brow arches, disappearing behind the strands of sandy hair that fall into face. “Do I need to be clearer with you?”

No.

No you fucking don’t.

Hit Dray again, and he will be the nightmare, the call I avoid, the fear thundering through my veins.

I get it.

I sag against his hold and try to shake my head. But in his grip, my jaw doesn’t budge.

He doesn’t wait for another response. The faint tug of my chin in his grip is enough. But he keeps his hand formed around my jaw as he reaches around me for the phone.

His eyes don’t stray from mine as he steals the receiver, then punches in the numbers.

He lifts the receiver to his ear.

I am still, sagged, and I watch.

A heartbeat passes before Dray speaks, but not to me.

“Olivia calling for her father.”

Another pause.

My heart doesn’t slow down.

It’s fluttering now, flapping against my ribcage like a bird with a broken wing flounders against a wall.

Then—

“Sir.” Dray says, the way he will address my father until graduation, a greeting of respect, and my heart stops fluttering, it plummets to my wormy gut.

“The lines were disconnected briefly,” Dray lies, the sharp gleam of his gaze cutting into me. “I helped Olivia reconnect the call. I hope you don’t mind.”

I blink at the ease of his lie, one he doesn’t have to tell for me, one that is smooth on his tongue.

And he doesn’t look away from me. Not once.

“Please,” he says, after a faint murmur of Father’s voice that I can’t make out, “don’t mention it. It changes nothing.”

Dray waits a beat before he brings the phone to me. Not to hand it to me, because is trust is that fragmented, but rather, he brings the receiver to my ear and presses it there.

I reach for it.

Only when my fingers clasp around the receiver does he draw away from me. His fingers slip from my jaw, slowly, grazing down my neck to my exposed collarbone.

But he does not leave the booth.

He waits.

“Father,” I whisper.

And the moment I speak, Dray turns his back on me. He slips around the drawn curtain and leaves me to my call.

To my berating.

“Father?” I echo and, twisting around, I slump on the bench.

My voice is hoarse.

He’ll think I was sobbing myself ragged.

Maybe he will be kinder.

I fast find out, that is not even close to the truth.

Father has no mercy—he chews me up and spits me out like I am nothing more than a krum to him.