by Cate Corvin
“Obviously, William.”
His mouth twisted in distaste. It was all too easy to mimic his father’s casual disdain. “He’s not your friend, Tori. Keep that in mind.”
Will turned on his heel and walked out, leaving me speechless, for once. I’d expected more fight out of him than that.
A tendril of misgiving touched me once more… but making Will suffer was far more important than worrying about Percival. Besides, he made Mom happy. I had to give him a little credit.
Tomorrow was the day. My day. That night, I fell asleep with my fingers pressed to Eluned’s fangs, warm around my neck.
Aislin lined us up in Lux Hall, looking over our formal uniforms with a fierce scowl. “No matter what grades we get, we are not going to allow Tenebris to look sharper than us,” she said fiercely.
For the Guardianship Gala, we’d abandoned our comfortable street uniforms in favor of something a little more militarized: crisp black shirts, black ties, stiff jackets. Instead of having our tattoos showing, each jacket had been customized for each student with shiny gold embroidery, marking on the uniform where the student’s tattoos corresponded to their skin.
I was a little gratified that I had the most embroidery of all, five golden sickles on my sleeve, a teardrop on the inner arm, and a golden dot at the back of my collar. But I was more surprised by the bit of gold near Aislin’s hip: three six-pointed stars, for the Fae.
For the final touch, which I’d looked up in the uniform regulations handbook, I added a golden button on either lapel of my jacket and took the war-chain off my neck. The Fae-forged gold moved almost like a liquid that read my mind, attaching neatly to either button until the four fangs were displayed neatly across my chest.
“Nobody wears those anymore,” Juno said with a sniff, and Silas shook his head next to her with a little smirk.
I ignored them. They weren’t the ones I was out to impress.
The sounds of a hundred other people seeped into the hall. The seniors’ Gala was being hosted in the atrium, where awards would be distributed for top marks.
Even if I wasn’t the smartest of them on paper, I knew damn well that I was the only one wearing the fangs of my foes, with the most gold thread to my name.
Aislin led us down the hall and we filtered into the atrium alongside Tenebris. My heart pounded in my throat as a strange mix of rowdy cheers from the older, more grizzled slayers met the polite clapping of the ones who’d taken up more of a position as society ladies. I discreetly wiped my sweaty palms against my pants, my eyes darting around the atrium as Lux and Tenebris filed onto the stage at the far end, where Headmaster Burns had set up a podium.
Aislin halted, and we turned to face the crowd, our hands clasped neatly behind our backs.
The weight of so many eyes crawling over us almost broke me out in a cold sweat. I tried my hardest to keep my gaze focused above them all, staring at the far wall as Headmaster Burns rolled through a little speech about progress, pain, and the halfway point of the next generation, reminding myself not to lock my knees.
But I could’ve sworn some of the eyes landed on me alongside cruel little smiles. I didn’t know most of the people in this room, aside from Percival and Mom, wherever they were; but thanks to Will and Sura’s horseshit, many of them knew me. My face. My body.
My lips twitched but I held my expression steady. The Headmaster’s droning finally came to an end as a bead of sweat rolled down the center of my spine.
“We’d like to announce the Midterm Valedictorians now,” he said, placing two sealed scrolls atop the podium. “When classes have reconvened after Winter Break, these valedictorians will take over as the new prefects of Lux and Tenebris.”
Well, fuck. I hadn’t bargained for that.
“The spring semester prefect for Tenebris will be…. William Godalming,” the Headmaster announced. “No change in leadership, lucky team.”
Will stepped up to the right side of the podium, accepting the scroll with a look of such blatant relief on his face my stomach churned. I should’ve known the bastard would’ve studied his ass off, with Percival somewhere out there in the crowd to witness this.
Headmaster Burns picked up the other scroll, and the churning in my stomach became a solid knot.
“The spring semester prefect for Lux will be…” Headmaster Burns trailed off for less than a second, but the little pause was all I needed for my internal voice to scream in victory. “Victoria Holmwood-Godalming.” I’d added a little tweak to my name on the written examinations.
I barely heard the clapping or murmurs as I stepped up next to Headmaster Burns to accept the valedictorian scroll. It was all going so much better than I’d planned.
“A warm congratulations to Lord Godalming,” the Headmaster said above the clapping. He nodded to Percival, somewhere in that crowd. “You’ve outdone yourself, sir.”
Please. I’d outdone myself, no help from Percival required. And I knew exactly what it looked like: Will, with his single gold dot… and me, the shiny new daughter with all the tattoos and a war-chain.
I followed Headmaster Burns’ gaze and found Percival, wearing the military dress of an old-school slayer, with his own war-chain strung across his chest. I let the faintest smile touch my lips when I met his eyes.
He barely saw Will. I felt my stepbrother’s seething rage and bitter resignation, drinking it in like the finest wine.
A flash of pale gold caught my eye next to Percival’s shoulder; fine blonde hair, a dainty face with wide, glazed eyes… Mom was here, even if she was clearly still on the cocktail of drugs that turned her into an emotional zombie.
Headmaster Burns finally released us, and Aislin stepped forward to catch my hand with a little sparkle in her eyes. “Congratulations, Tori,” she said. A man and woman came towards us. The woman possessed Aislin’s Fae-touched features. “Enjoy the position. Heavy lies the head that wears the crown, and all that.”
So, she’d wanted a break. Good. I had every intention of putting this surprising but welcome perk of the Gala to good use. “Don’t let your freedom go to your head, Aislin,” I said lightly. “Knightley’s coming this way.”
She whirled around and I burst out laughing. Even when Will and Sura found their way to my side, I couldn’t keep the mirth off my face.
Will looked furious, Sura contemplative. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” I asked. “I’ve worked my ass off to claw my way back from the shit you put me in. You’d think a ‘good job’ would be in order.”
Sura’s eyes lingered on the fangs gleaming on the chest of my jacket. “Congratulations, Tori,” he said colorlessly. “Do you kill them before or after you fuck them?”
“Oh, piss off, Enver.” I looped my arm through Will’s, savoring the stiffness of his stance. I wanted him right next to me for every heart-stabbing minute of this Gala, but I leaned in close to Sura, my words for his ears only. “I hope that hole in your heart is a wide-open chasm, you fucker. You’re next. I’m sure my stepbrother will keep the chopping block warm for you.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Sura said, his face stiff with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Alarm?
“You know exactly what I mean. Go cry to Korso about it while you still can.”
I pulled my stepbrother away to go find dear old Dad, leaving Sura staring after us, his fists clenched at his sides.
I only released Will when I was close enough to grab Mom, wrapping her in a hug so tight I thought I might break her. She was so frail it felt like holding a butterfly made of spun glass.
“Tori, baby.” She cupped my face, her blue eyes filled with tears. I felt that strange disquiet again- I hadn’t spoken to my mother since I’d come here. Did she know what they’d done to me? Had she seen the video?
I fought to keep from cringing when she answered that question, stroking my cheek. “No matter what those nasty boys did to you, I’m glad to see you’re still a get-up-and-fight girl. That’s my Tori.”
> The trepidation became relief. I’d been so wrapped up in making sure Will was shunted out of his own family that I hadn’t considered my mom’s reaction to all of it, the potential that I might be disowned by her. It could’ve been the drugs dulling her emotions, but then… she’d already lost one child. A sex tape scandal was nothing next to that. I had nothing to fear.
“I learned from the best, Mom,” I said, giving her my brightest smile. Untrue. Constance Holmwood had always been weak for a slayer, broken down by the world instead of rising to fight it… but still, it made her happy.
Lord Godalming towered over both of us, his steel-gray hair touched silver by the light. He reached out to brush his fingers across the four fangs draped over my chest, cold blue eyes running over me from head to toe, taking in the embroidered marks as well.
I couldn’t stop myself from tensing up, with his hands so close to my breasts and Will’s warning in the back of my mind, but a moment later his hand drew away. Mom kept smiling up at me. The look on her face made it clear that her brain was orbiting a completely different planet right now.
Percival’s war-chain was three loops, strung with at least sixty fangs. I wasn’t afraid of anyone discovering that I wore a Morrígna’s fangs around my neck; the vampires were the ones who wore them out of respect for their memory. Slayers wore them as a sign of their superiority and conquest over their kind. They wouldn’t ask the names of who they once were.
It wasn’t lost on me that I’d been like that not so long ago.
“I’ll get there soon, Dad,” I said, nodding to his war-chain. “So watch your back.”
It was harder than I thought to call him that. My throat threatened to close on the word. It’s cool, Tori, you know he can’t take Daddy’s place.
Jim-Jam’s voice was there as well, in my private reliquary of memory. Good job, sis, but let’s not get hasty. You can’t trust him as far as you could throw him, because Mom’s never looked quite that out of it before, has she? Has he been counting her painkillers? Has he noticed at all?
“I have no doubt you’ll catch up to me in no time,” Percival said. There was a satisfied purr in his tone. Adding the Godalming name prefixed to mine had been a hell of a good call, because this asshole hadn’t looked at his son once.
Just the way I wanted it.
I even kept myself from shuddering when Percival looped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in close, and hemmed my mom in on his other side. “My good friend, Lord van Tassel, is also here on my invitation. He was a prefect for Lux back in his day. I would’ve liked to have introduced you to the Night’s Paladin as well, always a good fellow to chat with, but he’s gotten out less with his twilight years on him… ah, well. More’s the pity, but van Tassel might have some wisdom to impart to you. Lady Crane is here as well, excellent, excellent…”
I looked over my shoulder as Percival swept us away, casting Will an evil little smile.
He stared back, his eyes shaded almost black, looking at Percival with a hate so deep that if looks could kill… well, Percival would’ve been so much red mist.
But for me, Will’s rage was a delicious feast.
I ended up meeting so many people at the Gala that the entire day seemed like a blur to me that night. Every time Percival dragged me in front of another friend or business associate of his and I looked into their eyes, I wondered if they’d seen the video.
If they squeezed my hand a little too tight, I wondered if they were picturing it right that second.
I wondered if the women there were giving me a wide berth on purpose, a silent shunning.
Percival didn’t seem to notice or care. It was old news in his brain; hell, maybe Will was right, and he was an old pervert with a copy saved somewhere.
It didn’t matter because I was his new golden child, and Will a forgotten footnote. No matter what these people had seen or what they thought of me, I was the one Percival had chosen to succeed him.
I had two whole weeks of winter break and Yuletide to rub salt in Will’s wounds, and maybe pour a little lemon juice on top for good measure.
Then I’d be back, fresh, well-rested, and recharged with glorious purpose to annihilate Sura Enver.
15
Will
I felt like a stranger in my own home.
It was almost a relief.
I wandered around like a ghost. Father barely talked to me, barely acknowledged my presence in his life. He had what he wanted. She’d walked right into his grasp without a backward glance.
I left Father, Tori, and Constance in the massive living room, where they were playing a board game over wine. It was a little ridiculous; Connie was a thin, pale woman who seemed vaguely unaware of her surroundings, and I knew when Tori’s smile was fake. There was no brightness in it.
It was like they were both filling in roles they felt obligated to play to keep Father happy, in a huge mansion where the flawless white sofas were so far from the crackling massive fireplace the warmth barely touched them.
A cardboard cut-out caricature of happiness. I wish I could say they were welcome to it, but all I saw was Father looming over them, his smile a little too wide, raking Tori and Constance under his shadow.
If I burst in there now, she’d just write me off as a raving lunatic. Fuck, she might even be right.
Godalming Manor was all white and pristine, touched with gilt at the edges. It seemed like a building painted with snow, so big and cold that every word echoed and came bouncing back. I shivered as I left them to their games and strode through the foyer, past the mounted heads of snow leopards and pale ermines. All the animals here were the same shade as the walls: unblemished white.
Nobody stopped me. Father’s hired staff rarely spoke to me, but as far as I knew, they never reported my movements to him, either. That suited me just fine.
I hadn’t brought a coat. The lawn was already coated with a layer of winter’s first frost, sparkling like diamonds under the rising moon. My breath puffed out in a cloud, the interior of my nose prickling from the chill.
I walked around the edges, stepping into a paved bed of pebbles as I worked my way past the manicured gardens towards the wilder forest. Even at a fast pace, it took me almost ten minutes to reach my destination.
A tangle of trees opened to reveal an overgrown footpath, paved with the stark white pebbles of the gardens around the manor, but nobody tended the flowers out here unless Percival demanded it. Since this summer, when they’d been trimmed for the wedding, they’d gone to thistles and weeds again.
Frost and stone crunched underfoot as I followed the path. If buildings could be ghosts, that was the chapel hidden in a forest clearing, looming up from the darkness like a specter.
Slayers usually kept their family chapels consecrated against Shadowed World influence, a last bastion of safety if all other strongholds failed. Ours was not. It had been desecrated in the most heinous way, a fact Father had decided to keep hidden from Tori and her mother.
I pushed open one of the heavy wooden doors and stepped into the chill silence of the chapel. The phantom sweetness of pink wedding roses and the copper tang of blood hung over the stronger scent of polished pews.
I knew I was only imagining those smells. If I could’ve gotten away with it, I would’ve incinerated this place long before Father could marry Constance in here.
A splinter lodged in my finger as I touched the pews, making my way towards the altar. I barely noticed. My chest tightened with every step I took, lungs locking up on the air I breathed.
“Will.”
Hope burst to life inside me, immediately snuffed out by a twinge of regret. She hadn’t followed me out here because she wanted to enjoy my company.
I stopped only feet away from that dreaded altar and turned. For a moment Tori was framed in the doorway like a dark spirit come to life, but then she glided up the aisle, breaking the illusion. “What are you doing out here?” I asked, but there was no heat in it. She’d proven her point: Th
at there was no point. Not to any of this.
My home wasn’t home to me anymore. Father had all but disowned me in favor of his stepdaughter. All I had left were sickening memories and regret… and Sura, I supposed, but whatever he was feeling, it was eating away at him. My hate for Tori had driven a wedge between us, and now I didn’t have much of my best friend, either.
Tori stopped next to me, looking up at the long wooden altar looming over us. Her full lips were turned down in a frown. “I could ask you the same thing.” Unlike me, she was in a fleece jacket, her arms wrapped around herself.
I wanted to feel the cold. The discomfort was a welcome sensation.
“Visiting old memories.” It was nice, for once, to talk to her without the venom welling up between us. I sensed her anger was still alive, but it was a banked coal now, instead of an inferno of rage. She knew she’d won. “You?”
Tori shrugged. “I wanted to see where you were sneaking off to,” she said, but her heart obviously wasn’t in it to needle me. “What memories? Their wedding?”
Even in the dim interior of the chapel, the honey shade of her eyes was as warm as summer. My stomach twisted in a knot. During the wedding, everything had been draped with woven garlands of ivy and pink roses, even the altar itself.
That was the day I realized what a genuine sociopath Father was. The horrible things he said behind closed doors, how casual he was about placing a knife to a beating vein… none of that was as bad as seeing the place where Mother had died decked out with pretty decorations.
“No. That wasn’t what I was thinking of.” Well, now I was. I’d held back the urge to vomit all over my own shoes throughout the ceremony. Even now, the smell of roses made me gag.
I swallowed a mouthful of saliva as Tori cut an opaque look my way. “What, then?”
“That’s where Mother died.” I tipped my head towards the altar, looming over us like a monolith.
