“Our people,” I hastily caution her, my eyes darting carefully around, relieved to find no one in earshot or seemingly paying attention to us.
Tierney hunches down, her voice lowered to a rough whisper. “The number of Gardnerians living and settling here in Verpacia—it’s rising every year. That’s why they’ve gained a majority on the Verpacian Council. If Vogel wins in the spring...” She stops, swallows nervously. All fire is gone from her eyes now—only pure dread remains. “If he wins, the Verpacian Council will fall right in line behind him. The Gardnerian members will out of true allegiance. The rest, out of well-founded fear.”
“So, if Vogel wins,” I venture worriedly, “it affects much more than just Gardneria.” I run Vogel’s motions over in my mind, all of them uniformly and disastrously harsh. The feel of his dark void that day I met him, his eyes pinned tight on mine, creeps into my mind. And the startling image of the dead tree.
It’s like his black void has spread to this room and beyond. Gathering patiently at the edges of everything.
Chilled, I rub at my arms, trying to warm myself.
There’s stark fear in Tierney’s eyes. “Elloren, if Vogel wins, the world changes.”
The entire Western Realm quickly becoming one giant trap for everyone who isn’t Gardnerian.
“They’ll hunt down the Icarals first,” she whispers, her tone deadened. “Then the Urisk and the Kelts...” She stops, her voice breaking.
Stricken, I finish for her. “And then they’ll come for the Fae.”
CHAPTER TWO
Randall Greyson
The following morning I arrive at apothecary lab to find Tierney waiting for me at our lab table with a look of profound alarm.
We’re early for class today. Gesine is quietly talking to a group of white-arm-banded apothecary apprentices, all four of the young women shooting me a troublingly smug look as I pass them.
I glance at our lab table as I near Tierney.
My violin is sitting right in the middle of the table, case open.
“Tierney,” I question, deeply thrown, “why...”
“I didn’t put it there,” she quickly points out, her eyes full of warning.
My stomach lurches, my whole body tensing.
Fallon. How on Erthia did she get it out of my brothers’ lodging?
I quickly pull myself together, assessing the situation with a wary eye. “That’s her big revenge?” I scoff, loud enough for Gesine and the other apprentices to hear. “Moving my violin from one place to another?”
I give them a defiant smile and reach out to pick my violin up. As I lift the instrument, it falls apart into two neat halves, cleanly split down the middle.
Just like Lukas’s portrait.
My center drops, and I can feel myself blanching.
“I’m sorry, Elloren,” Tierney says, pained, keeping her voice low. “It’s important to you, I’m sure.” She glances darkly toward Gesine and the other young women, her eyes narrowing to slits. “Or else she wouldn’t have bothered with it.”
Tears sting at my eyes, and I can barely choke the words out. “It was important, yes.” And I’ll never be able to make another violin with Uncle Edwin again.
I can’t say any more than that without bursting into pathetic sobbing, my mouth trembling.
Gesine and the other women’s eyes dart toward me, the four of them barely able to suppress their gloating smiles, waiting for me to fall apart.
No. I will not give them the satisfaction.
“What will you do?” Tierney asks me worriedly.
“Nothing,” I say, my fury pulling me firmly together, searing the tears to oblivion. “I imagine, in Fallon’s warped mind, that we’re about even at the moment.” I pick up my violin, force a trembling, defiant smile and look right at Gesine and her cohorts as I calmly slide my precious, broken-beyond-repair violin back into its case.
I dust off my hands, sit down next to Tierney and turn to see her blinking at me with unwavering concern.
I give her a wide, chilling smile. “You know, I just might go to that Yule Dance after all.”
* * *
It’s early evening, two days later, and I’m sitting with Jarod Ulrich in an out-of-the-way alcove of the main University archives. Chemistrie notes, paper, pens and ink are spread out on the rough wooden table in front of Jarod and me, my mounting hatred of Fallon Bane having to get in line behind the need to buckle down and study, but I can’t seem to let it go.
* * *
Soon after I found my destroyed violin, I marched straight to my brothers’ lodging. Only Trystan was there, his face lighting with concern the moment he opened the door and took in my expression—my whole body practically vibrating with hot fury.
She’d wounded me, Fallon. Hit me where the blow would truly hurt. I was increasingly finding that this was her specialty.
Trystan quietly stepped back, opening the door wider in welcome. I stepped inside and pulled out the remains of my violin for him to peruse.
His eyes widened as he took it into his hands, strings dangling.
“Fallon Bane’s work.” I spat out each word.
He shot me a quick look of surprise before turning his attention back to the violin. “That’s quite a clean cut,” he marveled as he ran his finger along the perfectly straight edge, studying it. “She must have used a jigsaw.”
“Or some evil spell,” I ground out under my breath, abhorrence coursing over me in waves.
“I knew something wasn’t right,” Trystan said, shaking his head. “When I got back here last night, our doorknob was so cold it hurt to touch it.”
Of course it was. Compliments of the Ice Witch.
“How could she know I kept it in here?” I wondered.
Trystan shrugged. “The cleaning women? They’re in and out—and the case is marked with your name.”
And Fallon’s got every servant girl in Verpax terrified of her wrath. It’s not a great leap of logic to assume I’m storing things here, with Ariel Haven as my lodging mate.
“She should be thankful,” I told him, voice menacingly low, “that I have no magic whatsoever.”
Trystan eyed me soberly and set down the violin halves on his desk. “Do you want me to go to the Vice Chancellor with you? To file a complaint?”
“No,” I spat out. “I want you to freeze Fallon’s head. Or set it on fire. Can you do that for me?”
Trystan took a deep breath and looked at me with his usual measured calm. “Um...yes. I could, Elloren. Followed by my immediate expulsion from University. Minor detail.”
I glowered at him petulantly and plopped down on his bed, defeated.
Trystan quietly took a seat beside me. “You know, you might be able to enlist Diana Ulrich to your cause.”
I looked to him questioningly.
Trystan’s lip lifted with a trace of amusement. “Apparently Diana’s been going on and on about putting Fallon’s head on a spike and posting it at the city gates. ‘For the crows to devour.’ Her words, not mine.”
I can’t suppress a smirk at this, both heartened and darkly gratified by Diana’s bloodthirsty sentiment.
* * *
The tap, tap, tap of Jarod’s pen draws me back to the present.
He’s bent over the table transcribing my Chemistrie notes, his script neat and compact. My notes are now a necessity for him, since Diana won’t share hers anymore.
Initially contemptuous of Professor Volya, Diana has reversed course entirely now that she’s realized how knowledgeable our professor is. As a result, Diana has taken a very hard line against sharing notes with her inattentive twin brother, who, in Diana’s words, should “put away the ridiculous poetry books and concentrate on the lecture.” So, in a wildly improbable turn of events, I
’ve become the note-taker for both Aislinn and Jarod, who continue their written dialogue about great literature throughout every class now.
Jarod’s head suddenly lifts, nostrils flaring. He turns just as Aislinn rounds a long bookshelf and comes into view. She hurries toward us, her expression strained.
“I’m so glad I found you two.” She’s flustered and out of breath.
“Randall was looking for you earlier,” I inform Aislinn, confused by her troubled demeanor.
“I’m trying to avoid him, actually,” she admits, her eyes darting around the bookcases and shadowy halls.
I let out a small, rueful laugh. “You won’t be able to avoid him forever. Not if you plan on wandfasting to him.”
Her face tenses, and she looks down at the floor, hands clutched at her skirts. “I know.”
Jarod, who’s been quietly watching Aislinn, straightens and looks past us, his nostrils flaring.
“Aislinn, I’ve been looking all over for you!”
She turns around to where Randall has just emerged, and her face falls. “Well, now you’ve found me,” she says, her voice flat, her body language unwelcoming.
Randall turns a critical eye on Jarod and me. “Elloren,” he says guardedly. He shoots Jarod a look of disgust and pointedly turns back toward Aislinn.
I find myself bristling at this, while Jarod calmly regards Randall, his face neutral.
“You told me you’d be in your room,” Randall complains, the well-pressed slate-gray silk of his military apprentice uniform stiff and new, a white ribbon neatly pinned around his arm. “I don’t like having to search for you.”
Aislinn stares back at him, emotionless. “I’m sorry, Randall. I didn’t mean to inconvenience you.”
“Yes, well.” He sniffs. He casts another sidelong glance at Jarod, then takes hold of Aislinn’s arm. “You need to come with me.”
A look of reluctance crosses Aislinn’s face. “Why? Where are you taking me?”
Randall narrows his eyes at Jarod. “Out of here.”
Aislinn’s expression turns deeply conflicted, and I notice that she has the same book of poetry tucked under her arm that Jarod has sitting underneath his Chemistrie notes.
“Maybe I’ll see you later?” she asks me hopefully, her eyes flickering toward Jarod and then to me again.
“Of course,” I says encouragingly. “I’ll be around.”
We watch as Randall pulls her away. Aislinn glances back longingly before she’s led from our sight.
I turn to Jarod. He’s staring after them, his face newly tense.
“Is that who she’s wandfasting to?” he asks me, incredulous. “Please tell me that’s not him.”
“That’s him.”
“But...she’s repulsed by his touch.”
“Yes, well...” I pause, frowning at him. “How do you know that?”
Jarod shrugs as he gathers some papers together. “I can smell it on her.” He looks off in the direction they’ve gone, his blond brow furrowing. “He’s not repulsed by her, though,” he grinds out, surprising me with the level of disgust in his tone.
“No, unfortunately.” I stare hard at Jarod. “Can you tell that, too?”
He nods.
“That’s an interesting skill to have.”
“What? To sense attraction?”
“Mmm. But it must complicate life in your societies, everyone knowing everyone else’s romantic secrets. Everything completely out in the open.”
“On the contrary,” he replies thoughtfully, “I think it simplifies things. It makes it easier to find the right life mate. Your people have to go around guessing how you feel about each other.”
“It is a bit frustrating,” I agree.
“I can’t imagine.”
“So, what do you do if you fall in love with someone and they aren’t interested in you?”
“Well, it’s immediately apparent, so you back off before chasing after a lost cause.”
“But what if you really like someone?”
“If they didn’t reciprocate, it would all feel...wrong. Their scent, their emotions, their body language. It would just be too off-putting.”
“So if Randall and Aislinn were Lupine, he would stop chasing after her?”
“No,” Jarod says after considering this for a moment. “He seems...special. I think if he were Lupine, he’d still be an idiot.”
I laugh at this, and he smiles at me.
Jarod resumes transcribing where he had left off, but I’m having a hard time concentrating. “I wonder where he took her,” I say, thinking out loud.
Jarod doesn’t look up from his writing. “They’re still in the archives. I can hear him lecturing her.”
I listen closely, straining my ears for sound. Nothing. “You can hear them?” I say, disbelieving.
Jarod continues to write. “He’s warning her about staying away from me. Thinks I’ll attack her, do what he wants to do...”
My mouth falls open, and I gape at him.
After a moment he looks up at me. “Our hearing is vastly superior to yours.”
“Another interesting skill to have,” I say, amazed.
“It’s a horrible skill to have here,” he replies, exasperated. “I’ve been privy to countless conversations regarding the Gardnerian females’ worries that I will abduct them at any moment, which is absurd.”
“There might be a reason why they’re so concerned,” I point out. “The Northern Lupine packs may be different from yours. Aislinn’s father visited them and came back with some very disturbing tales.”
“Really. What exactly did he see?” Jarod asks with deep skepticism. He lays his pen down and gives me his full attention.
“Aislinn said that he saw one of the men get up in front of the entire pack, grab a young woman and drag her off into the woods to...” I gesture vaguely with my hand to fill in the blanks.
“And you believe this?”
“Jarod, he saw it with his own eyes.”
“People see what they expect to see,” he says sharply. “Through a filter of their own hatred and prejudice. You should realize this by now, rooming with two Icarals.”
“Couldn’t a different pack have different ways?” I rejoin defensively.
Jarod shakes his head tersely. “Our pack is no different from the Northern packs.”
“But, Jarod, he saw it—”
“Here’s what Aislinn’s father saw,” he says, cutting me off. “When two Lupines decide to take each other as life mates, one of them stands up and announces his or her desire to be with each other to the whole pack. The two then go off privately into the woods, and when they return, there is a joyful gathering to celebrate their union. Now, correct me if I’m mistaken, but this doesn’t seem to be all that different from your people’s traditions. Don’t you have some type of religious ceremony where couples who wish to be life mates announce their intentions before friends and family? And then the couple goes off to mate with each other afterward?”
I bite at my lip, my face coloring. It’s embarrassing to hear him talking about mating the way he and his sister do, so bluntly. But...he’s essentially right. “I guess...it’s similar, yes,” I admit.
“Except for just a few details, perhaps,” he continues, his tone clipped. “The mutual love and affection of the couple is an absolute given, or the pack would never approve of the match.” He leans back in his chair, his glowing amber eyes full of disapproval. “Aislinn’s father saw something beautiful, and twisted it into something sick and ugly, reinforcing his own unfair prejudices against us.”
I think about everything I was told about the Lupines before I got to know Jarod and Diana. How much of it was blatant lies? How much of it was twisted truth?
“That may be a
fair assessment,” I finally agree.
“Hmm,” is all he says before returning to his studies.
* * *
“Elloren, can I speak with you?”
It’s later that same evening, and I’m still ensconced in the back of the main archives.
I look up from my pile of books and notes as Aislinn sits down across from me, her face strained, her book bag slung over one shoulder.
“What’s the matter?” My table sits near a window with a strong draft, but I’m blessedly next to a large iron stove that pumps out warmth.
“It’s Randall.” Aislinn glances around furtively before continuing, her voice low. “He doesn’t want to wait. He wants to fast to me as soon as possible.”
“Can’t you put him off a little longer?”
“I’ve already put him off for over a year. He wants to wandfast over Yule and then have the sealing ceremony as soon as I graduate.”
“How long would you like to wait?”
Her face goes tight with anxiety. “Forever.”
I set down my pen and level my eyes at her. “Well, then, why don’t you just do that?”
“You know that’s not an option for me.” She’s quiet for a long moment. “He insisted on bringing me to this secluded spot behind the history buildings so he could kiss me and...” She looks away, blushing.
“And what?” I press, concern spiking. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, no. He’s not like that. He’s just gotten very...insistent. Kissing used to be enough. Now he...grabs at me. I hate it. It’s embarrassing.”
“What do you mean, grabs at you?”
She slumps, her face coloring. “He...he grabbed at my chest.”
I shake my head, angered on her behalf. “Aislinn, they need to find someone else for you.”
“It doesn’t matter who it is!” she cries. “I wouldn’t like these things with anyone! I just don’t like it. I don’t like any of it.”
“Have you told your parents how you feel about all this?” I ask, trying to find a solution.
Aislinn wrings her hands together. “I spoke to my mother about it.”
“And...what did she say?”
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