"You know," Gemma said under her breath, tapping the eraser of her pencil against the corner of her mouth. "If Analine is the standard of ultimate douchiness. I think I can knock you down to a solid eighty percent douche. It fits you."
"Hey!" I jerked in my seat, speaking loud enough that a few people turned around.
"Accept it, Princey. You haven't worked your way back into my good graces yet."
"Yet, you paired up with me." I moved her closer to me, metal and stone grinding loudly. This time she didn't fight me, but she did throw her head back in a loud laugh that buzzed in the air. The sound of her laugh was almost as bad as my name on her lips. My stomach was swimming in eager nerves, the back of my neck swimming.
"Well, duh," she waved the paper between us. "This isn't some psychological evaluation like in defense class. This is your family history. I just so happened to be doing the assignment with the answer key."
"Are you kidding me?" I hadn't really looked at the sheet before I had asked her. If I had, I might have opted out of this class in its entirety. For me, this class was more of a lesson as to what of our family history was shared in the public eye. I would be lying if I said I had paid even a slivers worth of attention. I suddenly had a feeling that Analine’s glare hadn't been meant for Gemma, but for me. "Great, so we are essentially cheating."
"Hey, you're the one who asked me. It's all part of the path to saving the world and regaining your half-douche status." she smiled, tapping the first question on the paper that was between us. "Now, who is Filare?"
"My grandmother," I said absentmindedly, looking over the questions and the associated directions. "'Pick one of the above questions and create a presentation for the historical event. You can do a skit, a speech, a diorama, or a slideshow.' A diorama? What the hell is a diorama?"
"This is amazing," Gemma giggled from beside me, hanging over her desk to look at the paper. I could feel her magic radiating from her, the power bleeding closer as if it wanted to press against mine and she wouldn't let it. I swallowed and pressed my power against my heart, very much aware that this was not the time or place for us to recreate what had happened last night. "I say we do a skit, and we do this one..."
She tapped the paper again and my heart fell to my toes as I read 'Detail how Ilyan and Joclyn's choice to be bonded changed the outcome of the war.'
"Oh god."
"Oh yes," Gemma was still snickering, although her boots were up again, this time on my desk. "Straight A's here I come."
13
Sia
'Father.'
I could count the amount of times my father had called me on the phone on one hand. He had always preferred to send one sentence messages demanding different things, or setting expectations, or informing me of ways I could have accomplished tasks with better grace. But to call, and within the hour of school letting out for the day, this could mean nothing good.
Even so, my chest tightened in excitement, my magic flying into overdrive as I clenched my phone.
"I'll be right back," I mumbled to Miko and Tasha, the two only giving me a nod before they went back to their conversation. Although, I didn't miss Tasha's quizzical stare-down as I darted into an empty classroom on the left.
The girl had no patience. I sent her a crude gesture before closing the door behind me. But she only laughed.
Bitch.
Orange rays broke through grimy windows as the sun dipped under the wooded mountains. It would have been a lovely little escape if not for the frustration that was settling into the floorboards. The cramped room was piled with desks and covered with dust, I doubted anyone would be busting in, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I locked and shielded the door, knowing my skill wasn’t formed enough to block out sight or sound. Still, it would have to do.
"Hello?" I asked with an irritated sigh, holding the phone to my ear and scowling into the sunset.
"Hello, Sia," My father's voice rumbled through the speaker, the emotionless tone straightening my spine. "How is school?"
The guy was not fooling anyone.
I laughed, the harsh sound echoing off the empty desks, "Save the formalities father. I'm alone."
"Good. We need a status update for your task," he quipped, the line clicking as the shoddy service in this area gave way. I was actually amazed the call didn’t drop. I slid into one of the dusty desks, my skirt riding up a bit.
"Which task?" I asked innocently, checking the room for open doors or listening ears.
"The one concerning your next-door neighbor." My heart picked up to a painful ratchet.
So, he knew that Gemma had been roomed right next door to me. No surprises there. He knew everything, although this time he was more meddling than informed.
I couldn’t even be upset, the placement of the two of us together had been serendipitous. Especially last week, when I had realized that her late-night parties weren’t parties at all.
"I take it that was your doing," I said with a malicious smile, the glee breaking into my voice. Leave it to my father to show his love for me by giving me easy access to the girl he wants me to kill.
"Of course. We need you to succeed, Sia. We cannot accept failure in this. Now, where are you in this task? I had expected to have the Drains to be sobbing in mourning by now."
That irritating tension that had been wrapping its way up my spine flowered into something like worry.
"There have been some roadblocks," I spoke quietly, my ear pressed to the phone as I strained to hear any sigh, any gasp of air that could warn me to his response. There was nothing but the spine wrenching sound of his teeth grinding together. Just the sound was ripping my spine apart from the tension.
"Roadblocks?” he hissed through his teeth, the speaker crackling. “Sia, we have trained you better than this. Do you really think you will be welcomed home if you fail us a second time?"
No.
I already knew the answer to that, they had been clear in that matter when I had lain in the caves of Imdalind, before the king had arrived to welcome me to magic. I wasn’t dumb enough to think that his displeasure would end with my disowning.
He would rather see me dead than carry on his name in shame.
I would rather be dead than live with that. I had no interest in living a life if it wasn’t one to pride my parents and carry on all that they have done for this world.
"I will not fail you." My promise bounced off the stone walls as I stood, the heels of my red strappy shoes clicking loudly in the dust as I paced.
"Then why isn't it done?" I was frozen in place, anger bristling at the snap. It was as if he had already decided the task was a failure.
That I was a failure.
The bastard. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried. I had, three times. Each time she had found a way to block me.
To beat me.
To humiliate me.
I wasn’t about to tell him that. Instead, I let his disappointment act like gasoline against my resolve, everything fanning into a rage.
"They didn't exactly teach us skills for killing on the first day, father." I was no longer attempting to calm the fury. I could feel it mixing with my magic, rippling over my skin as though it was its own flame. A living breathing rage that sparks from my fingers, rippled over my skin.
If only he could see, then he wouldn’t be second-guessing me.
Professor Stone had said she had never seen such control in a first-year.
Perhaps I would pay him a visit and show him how strong his daughter was. Why he should trust in my abilities.
"Then don't rely on magic." His dead voice sunk through me, extinguishing both fury and magic as my hand dropped to my side.
"You wanted it to look like an accident, father. I can't exactly gouge her eyes out and expect people to think that I tripped." I extinguished my flame with a snap, snarling into the phone in my agitation. He laughed again, but the sound was heartless, he clearly didn't think the scenario was funny.
"If you want to
prove yourself worthy of the power you have, daughter, perhaps you should consider learning the skills you need on your own."
Daughter.
I froze, hand to my ear, facing the large windows that were in desperate need of being cleaned, staring at the last sliver of ember sky outlining the mountains before the dark of night took them. One last memory of light, I had a feeling that my father’s patience was as thin as that gossamer line.
I didn’t want to know what darkness waiting for me after his light was gone.
"Understood."
"Glad to hear it,” his tone was clipped, the silence that followed so deep that I almost hung up. I nearly jumped when his harsh tone crackled in the speaker. “We are waiting for your tasks to be completed before we move to the next phase of our plan. Notify me when your roommate has left for home. I hear Christmas at home is nice."
"I think she will enjoy it."
Bands of eager worry were winding over my chest, my mind already buzzing at the task before me.
If he wanted her dead by Christmas than I had been moving much slower than he had expected. I supposed the warnings of failure were warranted. No wonder he was upset.
If I wanted to regain any of his acceptance in this I would have to orchestrate her end before the snows fell. I was out of time. Seeing as my magic was not strong enough to end her on my own, I was going to need more than Miko and Tasha to accomplish this.
I needed people I could trust.
That would do anything for me.
Finding people in the school that were loyal to my cause and the CCC should be easy. I already knew the perfect person to point me toward the right students. She saw enough of them every day...
"What of your prince?"
I flinched at the sudden question. If he had expected my task with Gemma to have been completed by now, I did not want to know what his expectations were with Rowan. I had put all of my work into the prince and had not been able to accomplish much more than getting the useless lump to sit with me at lunch.
The guy wouldn’t even kiss me of his own accord. I still couldn’t figure out why, I had plenty of hungry eyes following me, plenty of offers for secret flings. I had even entertained a few. It wasn’t as if I was undesirable. I was starting to think there was something wrong with the guy.
"Wonderful," I lied, pushing a grin into my voice lest he picked up on my worry.
"Have you felt his magic spark against yours yet?” My father asked and I shifted my weight, pressing my back against the cold stone wall, away from the now black sky. “All it should take is a bit of prodding, or his hand against your mark to create the spark--”
"I am sure it would have if the guy had any magic,” I cut him off, twisting my free wrist enough to stare at the raised brand the Vilỳ had given me. The brand I had tricked him into touching more than a dozen times. Still, nothing. “I can't feel anything from him. I’ve tried. I haven’t even seen him do more than a few tricks. The guy is as powerless and pathetic as a Tarn."
"He has magic, I assure you.” There was something like hunger in my father’s voice, but before I could ask, he plowed on. “There are rumors circulating that suggests Rowan may be more powerful than even his mother.”
“What rumors?”
“I am not going to disclose that over the phone, Sia.” My father snapped. I flinched, slamming my back against the wall as though I had been slapped. I had been on the other end of his hand enough that I could fairly feel the stinging heat against my jaw and cheek. “We would like to move this up to a priority."
"A priority?" That knot in my chest was returning, winding over my muscles and I straightened, pushing off the wall to pace through the dark room, my mind buzzing.
Capturing Rowan was a priority. Gemma needed to lose her head by the end of the year. The task before me was mounting.
"Yes, do whatever it takes, Sia, link your magic to his. Even if the connection is forced, it must happen."
I had no idea how to even accomplish that, but I kept my mouth shut and said, "Of course."
"We need to have this done in the next few weeks. Can you have your magic connected to his by then?"
Weeks? He wanted my magic connected to the prince, and therefore the prince in our palm.
Something wasn’t feeling right.
"What will connecting my magic to Rowan's do? Will it bond me to him?” I don’t know why, after years of wanting exactly that, the idea felt ominous. Wrong. “Will it be able to help our cause if he does not agree to it? From what I am seeing, he is a Drain loving rat kisser. He may not be willing to help."
"Willing or not, he has skills we need and once your magic is tied to his we believe you will be able to extract them. Use them. Everything is riding on this, Sia. It’s riding on you."
"Understood." I sank back into the wall, glancing out the window and onto the darkening grounds of the academy. Four dark shapes that were streaking toward that ugly silver tree by the wall.
Even in the dark I could make out the electric pink of her hair. My magic was instantly crackling, heart clenching as I tried to see who she was with. That fat kid, obviously. I couldn’t make out the other two.
"Should I be concerned that you cannot complete this task?"
"No!” I spoke too loud, jumping up from the wall to pace again, the loud clack of my shoes feeling like some kind of countdown. “I'll do it."
"Good, prove it to me. I need to see some progress on both tasks by this weekend.”
This weekend. My heart had become a stone in my chest.
"Yes, father." I didn’t hesitate, refusing to let my sudden panic bleed through my voice. Short of attacking the bitch from the window I wasn’t going to accomplish anything by this weekend.
"Wonderful.” For the first time, he actually sounded pleased. It didn’t last. “We will be in touch."
He hung up before I could respond, leaving me in the darkness, in a school that was suddenly devoid of sound.
Weeks ago, I had assumed these tasks to be easy. I had assumed that Gemma would be bleeding in her room howling for mercy. Assumed that Rowan’s magic would be connected to mine. How could they not? I had never failed. Never wavered. Not until Gemma with her saggy ass and vile hair waltzed in and burned everything to the ground.
If I wanted to succeed in both tasks, one thing was obviously clear; Gemma had to go first.
I stood in the middle of the dark room, staring at the four figures as they vanished into the darkening grounds, pieces of a plan falling into place.
A way to use Rowan and get him to accomplish everything I needed.
14
Rowan
"So, Rowan." The sour-faced woman across the table from me was attempting to strike up a conversation for the third time, the smile she was trying to force onto her face not reaching her eyes. "How is the listy?"
I plastered my own falsified grin onto my face, waving the still full fork in Samantha Demarco's direction.
"Better than my father’s." It wasn't exactly a lie. It was mildly better than my father's. But it was also listy. The leaf stew always twisted my stomach. Unfortunately, it was widely known that it was the king's favorite meal, which is why I was being force-fed the stuff in a dining room that was probably double the size of ours back home.
"Oh! That's so good to hear!" Samantha Demarco gushed with a little bit too much bravado, giving both her husband and daughter that same simpering smile. "Chef has been perfecting her recipe for years. Perhaps she could write up her recipe and you could give it to your chef."
"That would be lovely," I lifted my glass to her before taking a drink, the weird tangerine water they had served me almost as foul as the listy.
Tangerine water. listy filled with what looked like truffles. A table big enough for twenty in a dining room edged with gold and what I was sure was ivory, the expensive additive twisting my stomach.
No one had seen an elephant in decades. Although there were rumors that there were still some in the America
n tundra, but the continent was too bombed out for anyone to know for sure.
Their entire house and everything they had rolled out to impress me was nothing more than a gaudy reminder of the things that I hated most about this world. Like school. Like this ridiculous arrangement. We didn't even live like this at home. We didn't have a chef I could skip home and take the recipe to. We took turns making meals and were even responsible for cleaning our own rooms. The lines of maids that lined the walls behind Samantha and Giovani made it clear that that was not the case.
I didn't belong there.
Foolishly, I had left my room on the weekend to give Cail a letter for my mother. Instead, I ran right into Sia who practically dragged me to her home for 'weekend dinner'. She hadn't even given me time to change, which turned out to be an amazing oversight on her part. Sitting in my torn jeans and a faded ‘Fraggles’ shirt was the only thing that was making all of this palatable.
"We will have to have your parents over soon," Giovanni said, the deep bass of his voice rattling their massive chandelier. He didn't even look at me. "Especially if this keeps going the way it seems to be going. We would love to celebrate the process of joining our two families with a dinner."
I had chosen the wrong time to put food in my mouth. I choked on the damn leaves. Food clogged my airwaves and sent me hacking, jerking so violently that I sent both my dish and my glass over the table. Right into Sia's lap.
The girl shrieked, jumping to her feet and she shook her hands before her. As if that would get the leaves and liquid off her. The stuff was so damp that it had attached itself to her glistening white dress like boils, the dark green broth dripping down the fabric and staining it tears of sewage.
"Oh my!" Samantha said, jumping to her feet, although neither she nor Giovanni actually made a move to help. Giovanni was still sipping on his tangerine water. At least I was trying to dab at her dress with the white napkin.
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