by Sara Wolf
But at the very bottom of the article I find the most surreal words of all; By rule of primogeniture, Alistair will inherit the title of 15th Marquess of du Larc-Thien on his 18th birthday.
‘It’s 5:34 am on a Thursday,’ I text to Ruby, who’s definitely up at this weird time. ‘You know what that means.’
‘Uh…getting ready for school?’ she offers.
‘Nope. It means it’s time to eat chips until I feel sick and watch videos about how things are made.’
She doesn’t answer me. I do the aforementioned with much gusto - trying to forget how bad my cut hand hurts under the bandage - until crumbs are splayed across my bed like a crispy murder scene and my phone is at 10% battery left. I text her again;
‘Update; feel pretty shitty. Cool machines, though.’
‘Maybe consider sleeping?’ She asks.
‘No can do. Brain broken.’
‘I love you regardless,’ she says, and it gives me just enough courage to put my suffocating uniform on and head out.
“Prickland is going to inherit the title of marquess at 18,” I say to Ana, pulling my stubborn skirt lower between each mincing step down Knight Lyon’s stairs.
“Mhm,” Ana murmurs absently, her braids gleaming in the morning sun as we shuffle to breakfast. She looks utterly nonplussed. I throw my hands up eloquently.
“You know what I’m getting at 18? Over it. And half a million dollars worth of student loan debt, probably.”
“Ah, that’s right,” She taps her chin. “College is expensive for Americans. Well, someone had to pay for you to come to Silvere.”
“My, uh, step-dad?” I try the word on my tongue, but it tastes bitter.
“He obviously cares about your education. So you won’t have any debt. He’ll pay for everything.” She pauses. “Right?”
The way she sounds so sure reminds me exactly of who she is, and who I am. It’s a luxury to be that sure about college. About anything. Where I come from it’s a luxury to be that sure about any money, ever. I look at the floor, my converse squeaking on the freshly-polished wood.
“Maybe. If him and Mom are still together two years from now.”
Ana smiles. “I’m sure they will be.”
Sometimes it’s easy to see she was raised by politicians. That little smile she gives speaks volumes while saying nothing at all. It’s a pleasant smile, don’t get me wrong, but it feels like shards - not the whole crystal. Like a facade. A way to keep people happy. Then again, I don’t blame her. S’not much you can do when someone else talks about their parents breaking up. It’s not like you have any control over it. All you can do is reassure them. It’s their world crashing down, not yours. You can’t ever go into someone else’s world because it’s been theirs from the moment they were born - like a glove fitting a hand or skin fitting a body. There’s no room for you. You can’t go in but you can watch from the outside and shout encouragement.
Just because cliche words are all anyone can give sometimes doesn’t mean they don’t matter.
Even if all my fucked-up fears are screaming at me that Mom and Will won’t last, I try to cup Ana’s words like falling sand. They won’t fall apart. Mom will be happy like this, forever.
He won’t hurt her.
“What happened to your hand?”
I look up and smile. “Aw, this little thing? Papercut. Turned a page in my brand-spanking new textbook angrily and too fast.”
She seems to buy it, thankfully. Because how the hell would I explain to her how I got roped into making a blood promise with Prickland? After being specifically warned against making promises in this place by Lionel? I can barely understand it myself - it made sense in the moment, but now in the cold light of morning it seems so over the top and dramatic. All I know is if I keep my big mouth shut about Alistair’s sister having ESP or whatever, he’ll help me with Ciel. Simple. GG EZ.
“Ana, you’re like, one of the smartest people in the world,” I decide.
Her onyx-polish eyes widen as we plop down at the cafe table with our plates, hers healthy eggs and mine full of pastries again.
“Since when?”
I mash a pain au chocolat into my mouth. “Like - strictly hypothetically - is seeing the future uh, possible? For a person? Just any regular old person.”
Ana sits back in her chair, tapping her eggy fork against her lips thoughtfully. “Well, quantum physics proposes the theory that all things that exist also don’t exist until observed. You know, Schrödinger’s cat.”
I choke on my tea. “Whose dinger has a cat on it?”
“And more recently - ” Ana continues, her eyes glossy and completely enamored with Science™. “- several experts in the field have suggested there are multiple flux states sandwiched between existence and non-existence. To take it one step further, the theory of relativity implies to see the future would require your perception - your eyes, your brain, your whole body - to move faster than the speed of light. Or at least as fast as. Anything with a mass is affected by gravity, and therefore can’t move faster than light. But if one is in a flux state - neither here nor there - one has no mass. So, if you think about it, there could be a great amount of correlation between these flux states and future-sight.”
“Sick.” I shove another pastry in my mouth, half of it crumbling down my blazer. “So that’s a yes?”
“Sort of. There might be someone out there who can see the future. But I highly doubt they’d be a regular person like you or me. Or…maybe they would be! That’s the great thing about science - nothing makes sense. Until it does.”
She beams at me and munches on a square of toast. I nod and try to pretend I didn’t scrape by physics with a C-. Alistair chooses that moment to swagger into the cafeteria, Rafe and Maria at his side. I narrow my eyes in his general direction.
“Will you excuse me, Professor Ana? I’ve got a parent-teacher conference to get to. My boy’s been behaving very badly.”
Ana laughs and waves me off. I do my best impression of a confident, not-injured saunter as I walk over to Alistair’s table.
“G’morning, ladies and gentlefolk -” I smile at Maria and Rafe, and then turn to Alistair. “- And ogres.”
Alistair graces me with a single-shouldered shrug, his bandaged hand sequestered under the table. Maria is far less accommodating.
“Go away.” She grips a butterknife for effect.
“We didn’t get to introduce each other yesterday. I’m Lilith.” I extend my not-bandaged hand to her. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too!” Rafe bolts up, grabbing my hand with his meaty one and shaking so hard he might as well be trying to dislocate my arm. His smile’s so huge and cheeky, it’s almost infectious. “I’m Rafe. Alistair’s talked a lot about you -”
Three things suddenly happen all at the same time; Alistair goes completely rigid like a statue, a clattering thump resounds from under the table, and Rafe lets out a wounded howl.
“Moron.” Maria sneers at him.
“What was that for, Mare?” One tear wells up in Rafe’s eye as he rubs his shin frantically. “I was just talkin’ to her - ”
“Enemy.” Maria jerks her syrupy butterknife in my direction, and Rafe looks between it and me and then Alistair, whose green gaze is suddenly riveted on a distant potted plant.
“Oh. Oh yeah.” Rafe turns back to me with a frown. “Sorry we can’t be friends. I mean, not sorry. I mean…uhhhh - ”
I smile. “It’s fine. Enemies cost way less upkeep, anyway.”
Rafe thinks about this very seriously with his nose in a crepe. Alistair finally lets out the sigh I know he’s been holding in.
“Why are you here, new girl?”
“Because my parents reproduced,” I say. “You?”
“An extraordinarily long streak of bad luck.”
“Well your luck’s about to change, because I need my notebook back before first period, and I’ve chosen you -” I jab my finger at him. “- to retrieve it for me
.”
Maria watches every word fly between us like a hawk watching a tennis match with a squirrel as the ball. Alistair’s tired eyes harden.
“Getting your notebook back wasn’t part of our deal.”
“You said I couldn’t talk about it,” I say. “And I won’t. But that notebook’s still mine. I had important notes in it. For, you know. Class. Classes me gots to passes?”
We stare each other down, me smiling as big as I can and him glowering as deep as he can. And then, something breaks. One of us wins and I think it’s me, because Alistair leans back.
“Von Arx has it now. And you’ll never pry it out of her painstakingly-moisturized grip.”
“Watch me.”
“Wish I could, new girl,” He hefts off the chair suddenly. “But I just remembered I have literally anything else to do.”
I slam my hand down on the table, rattling the silverware. It’s the loudest noise in this damn cafe, and people stare. Maria’s eyes narrow, Rafe’s widen, and Alistair’s just roll.
“You promised me,” I insist.
“Refresh my memory?” He drones in the general direction of the ceiling.
“Ciel.”
“In all honesty, you’d have a better chance at winning the lottery than him saying yes to dating you.”
“Why?”
“He’s not the type to date.”
“Excuses?” I simper. “This early in our relationship?”
“Hardly,” He scoffs. “If anything, it’s a warning. Ciel doesn’t date. He walks every Fashion Week in Milan, Paris, Seoul. He’s been in every major designer’s show since the age of thirteen. He accrues girls like you accrue bedhead - with sheer offensive effortlessness.”
I glower and pat my hair. Alistair looks down from the ceiling with a lazy smirk.
“I’m more in your range, new girl.”
I blink. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? My whole body deflates as the traps snap closed. Figures. Just like every other horny teenage dude.
“What range would that be, Prickland? Dirty and desperate?”
“I was thinking more ‘roguish’ and ‘painfully self-aware’.” When I don’t stop glaring, he exhales. “That was a joke.”
“Don’t change the subject. You were the one who made me cut my fucking hand open. I’m keeping your dramatic Dracula promise - now you keep your end of it.”
Our gazes meet for another moment, the quiet murmur of the cafe dulling to nothing more than background noise. The dark circles under his eyes are deeper, today, and I hate that I notice that. I hate that I’m talking to him like it’s a normal thing. I hate that life has forced us into each other like this, when the only thing I wanted was to stay fifteen feet away from him at all times.
Finally, he shakes his head, and mutters wearily under his breath; “I should’ve expelled you the moment I saw you.”
“That’s a yes, then.”
“It’s a promise, new girl. Not an agreement. Just don’t blame me when everything doesn’t go according to your rosy teenage fantasy.”
My face immolates, and I barely manage to spit out a “Fuck you”.
“That would be easier, yes,” He sighs and walks off, voice fading as Maria and Rafe follow dutifully. “But something tells me you’ve never taken the easy route in your life.”
So, Alistair’s right.
No, I will not say those two words ever again in that exact same order. But right now, staring down the Knight Augustin building, I realize…he’s right. The hard way is my way. Everything else feels like a cop-out. I’d rather beat my head against a brick wall than eat my way through a cotton-candy one because I’m me, and I need to feel like I’ve deserved my rewards. Lilith Pierce needs to constantly test her abilities against the world or she will perish out of utter boredom.
Which is why I’m retrieving my notebook myself.
Von Arx’s office looks a lot more intimidating with its doors closed. The nice secretary lady with her hair in a bun waits for me to knock with a saintly-patient smile.
“They may look thick, but I can promise you the headmistress will hear you.”
“I forgot,” I blurt.
“Forgot what?” She asks.
“How to knock. They should have, like, professionals who can do it for you. If you forget. Or don’t want to. Professional knockers.” I pause. “Not titties. Just. You know.”
The secretary blinks. “Pardon?”
“Uh, nothing. Thanks.”
“Of course. I’ll be behind my desk if you need further assistance.”
I listen to her clip away in her mature-working-lady high heels and swallow acid. Like fuck I want to be here, in the lion’s lair of a lady who doesn’t exactly like me, but that notebook’s mine. Sure, it’s got a creepy future-picture in it, but it’s also got my notes from the past two days. I’m not trying to fail out of school. Not this year, anyway.
My knuckles hover over the door. Why am I afraid? Von Arx is just an old lady. I’ve met a lot of those, and only two have ever tried to metaphysically gut me. We’ll be fineeee. We’re not afraid of anything, remember? Pretend-bravery. If you’re fancy you call it bravado. But alas, we are not. We are the one not-fancy thing in this stupid school.
C’mon, Lilith. Pretend-brave.
I raise my bandaged hand and knock. There’s a beat, and then the giant wooden doors click open and a cool voice filters out.
“Come in.”
This time, I get to see everything in her office slowly, at my own, decidedly less jetlagged pace. The paintings are still here, the line of kabuki masks and that one weird, out of place gold beaked mask on the end. Glowingly healthy plants burst out of every vase on every table. Von Arx sure loves her green shit, doesn’t she? I do too, but like, from afar. Without getting poked by thorns. Also, these plants feel different than the carefully-manicured campus trees and hedges. They feel…alive. Like as I pass they’ll try to reach their stems out and strangle me. Like the flowers could turn their gorgeous faces to me at any moment and spit poison right into my eyes. Everything smells overpoweringly like green stuff - wet soil masked by hundreds of competing flower-scents. But among the choking greenery, there’s a spot of fresh air by the windowsill. An airy little windowbox, crowded with the cute heads of lettuce I’ve seen from time to time. But now that I’m up close, I can tell it’s perfect lettuce. Too-perfect. The sort you see in, like, garden magazines, or food photography that’s been photoshopped to hell and back. Each little head of lettuce is such a vibrant green it doesn’t look quite…real.
Note to self; don’t break any shit, this time. A tall order for a chaotic good, but she’ll give it a damn try.
“Please take a seat, Miss Pierce.”
Von Arx’s voice rings, but I can’t see her anywhere in the office. Unnerved, I flop into the chair in front of the massive desk. Principals always have boring stuff on their desk - cheap ‘best teacher’ awards and those lines of hanging iron balls that click together on their own - but not Von Arx. All kinds of weird shit sits next to her ultra-modern computer; an ancient gold scale that’s broken and tipping to one side even with nothing on it, a tiny bonsai tree in a red clay pot that’s utterly withered, a glass orb as big as my fist with a real holographic-green butterfly frozen in it. And then, of course, there’s the breathtaking miniature stag, the black glass gleaming darkly in the sunlight. It rears up, antlers proud and tall and its eyes two small, perfect rubies.
Red.
This time, looking at the rubies feels different. It makes all the baby hairs on the back of my neck stand up for no reason at all. It’s just a deer. A goth-as-hell piece of deer art. So why does staring at it now make my stomach lurch like the beginning of a throw-up? Wait. I know. I know what it reminds me of - the shadow in Rose’s drawing.
But that still doesn’t explain why in the seventh layer of hell I want to touch it so badly. It feels like I’ve gotta touch it. The sunlight fractures through the smoky black of the deer’s body. I reac
h one trembling finger out, slowly. Inch by inch, until I’m almost -
“I see you’ve found the Nightrose.”
Von Arx’s voice is disturbingly close, my finger retracting fast. “T-The what?”
“The Nightrose.” She rounds the desk, her arms full of fresh flower clippings. Her mauve dress billows out as she settles in her high-backed chair, the flowers scattering on her desktop. “That’s the name of that impressive piece of art. My friend made it for me - constructed of volcanic obsidian from Greenland, and the antlers are jet from Spain.”
“And the rubies?” I lead, my mouth dry. “From hell, by any chance?”
“Close. Scotland.” Her emerald eyes still stun me, that pale spring-green ring in the center glowing brighter in the sunlight. “I presume you’ve come to be tested early on the rulebook I gave you. I must say, I appreciate the initiative.”
“No.” I blurt, and she quirks one gray eyebrow. “I’m actually here for my notebook. Alistair gave it to you yesterday. Or this morning, I dunno. But I know he gave it to you for sure.”
I watch her face, but it doesn’t so much as twitch. So that’s where Alistair learned that stone-face trick. She reaches for a pen, and then starts to write something in a heavy book. There’s a whole two minutes of silence, her scribbling and me sitting there, the thick scent of flowers and her own dignified gardenia perfume nearly choking me. I stare at the uber-lettuce behind her on the windowsill. She doesn’t eat it, does she? Maybe she does. Curiosity suddenly burns a hole in my brain.
“Why doesn’t he eat in front of people?”
She looks up briefly. “Excuse me?”
“Alistair. I noticed he doesn’t eat in the cafe. And then I accidentally found him in this room, with this sad little sandwich? And he got pissed -”
“It is a family matter,” She asserts. “Which means it’s none of your concern.”
“Yeah, I get that. But he snapped at me and sort of made it my concern, is all, and I feel like -”
“When he was younger, someone attempted to poison him. He very nearly died.”
All the wind presses out of my lungs at once. Von Arx continues on.
