by Eva Chase
I turned to Connar. My gut knotted all over again. “You can get the hell out of here too. I don’t know why you bothered stepping in, but I didn’t need it. I’m never going to need any help from you.”
He didn’t budge, so I veered around him and strode into the hall. After a moment, footsteps thumped after me. I ducked into the stairwell, but Connar could cover a lot of ground fast. He caught up with me halfway up the first flight. I stopped before he could come up beside me, bracing my hands on the railings on either side, taking a little extra strength from standing a couple steps higher than him. For once, I was looking down at him.
“What?” I snapped. I might have the advantage of height, but being alone in a relatively enclosed space with the Stormhurst scion made my skin want to leap off my body and run away. Deborah was still crouched against my inner elbow, but she couldn’t do anything to help.
Every part of me ached with the memory of the tenderness Connar and I had shared and how brutally he’d torn all that to shreds. The words he’d hurled at me echoed in my head.
You don’t mind getting down in the dirt, do you? You can start begging any time now.
Connar hesitated, uncertainty sitting strangely on the planes of his chiseled face. The dim light of the stairwell turned his pale eyes from blue to a misty gray. A hint of his familiar scent, musky and smoky like vetiver, touched my nose, and I gripped the railings harder. I was not going to feel sympathy for any supposed vulnerability he showed.
“I don’t like how this all happened,” he said finally in his low voice. “But it’s better this way. Okay?”
I bit back a harsh laugh. “No, that’s not okay. What would have been okay is if you’d figured that out before you strung me along. Do you expect me to forgive and forget just because you’ve decided it’s ‘better’?”
He shifted his weight, his mouth twisting. “It’s complicated. Everything here is complicated. You should know that by now.”
“There was nothing complicated about us. You convinced me to trust you and then you stabbed me in the back, plain and simple.”
A shadow flickered across his face. “You never would have trusted me anyway if you’d known everything about me.”
“Is that your excuse?” I did laugh then, short and choked. “I know now. I heard all about your parents and how you supposedly destroyed your brother. But you know what? If I’d heard it back then, I would have asked you about it first. I would have listened to what you told me about it. And if I’d still seen the good in you that I thought I did, I’d have trusted you anyway. So don’t blame me for judgments I never even made. This is all on you. And I guess your good friend Malcolm too.”
Connar’s expression hardened at that last comment. “You have no idea who Malcolm really is either. I’ve stood with him because he’s earned it.”
“And I didn’t earn any of that loyalty?”
“It’s not— You don’t know. He’s been there for me for years.”
“Fine.” I eased up a step. “Then go tell him how wonderful he is, and leave me alone.”
“Rory…” He reached into his pocket and held up a small glinting shape that sent a bolt of nausea through my center. “I kept it. I remember what you said. Everything I’ve done, it’s just trying to be—”
Fuck that. As I looked at the little dragon figurine I’d conjured for him out by the cliff, that I’d given to him telling him he could be his own person apart from the other scions, tears pricked at my eyes. That right there was the faith I’d had in him—the faith he’d burned to the ground.
“No.” That one syllable carried all the power I needed it to. I flicked my hand with a clench of my fingers before he could get any further with his justifications, and the little figure crumpled into the specks of metal dust that had formed it.
Connar let out a rough sound. His fingers snatched after the dust as if he could hold it together.
“If you want credit for being the person I thought you could be, then you need to make it happen for yourself,” I said, not caring that my voice was shaking, and spun to hurry up the stairs.
This time, the Stormhurst scion didn’t follow.
Chapter Nineteen
Rory
“Credit to Insight,” Professor Crowford said with a slightly bemused expression. My fellow student from the Insight league gave a little bow and smirked at the guy whose spell she’d just pre-emptively diffused by revealing his intentions. Then she glanced at me with an expression I wasn’t so used to around here—looking for approval.
I gave her a thumbs up, because why not? I was glad not to have to watch the dude cast his nauseating illusion—no doubt the maintenance staff would really have appreciated the clean-up afterward—and she’d gotten the drop on him at the last minute. The other leagues were becoming more guarded at the beginning of class now that they knew we’d be scanning them. I hadn’t read anything from him in my quick skim coming in.
Malcolm hadn’t said anything during the whole exchange. It wasn’t his league the girl had interrupted anyway. He lounged casually in his seat with a bored expression. But when Crowford motioned for us to get up and go, I felt the Nightwood scion’s attention on me.
Fortunately, I’d picked a seat closer to the door. I hustled out and down the stone steps, looking forward to the warm spring air outside. The music department’s concert was starting in ten minutes. If Malcolm wanted to hassle me, he could wait until after I’d seen the performance Shelby was so excited about.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make my getaway quite fast enough. Maybe the other scion had lent a little magic to his feet. Somehow or other, I’d only come up to Killbrook Hall when his voice rang out just behind me.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry, Glinda?”
I guessed I’d have to get this over with now. I spun around, throwing as much focus as I could summon into my mental shields. “What do you want, Malcolm?”
He prowled around me with a predatory vibe that made me tense up even more. I had to turn to keep facing him. His handsome face stayed calm enough, but a spark of what I thought was anger already glittered in his dark brown eyes.
“I’d like you to answer my question,” he said, cool with just a bit of edge.
I set my hands on my hips. “Where does it look like I’m going? The end-of-year concert is happening now. I’m going to listen to some music. So sorry if that offends you.”
Malcolm’s lips curled, but it was hard to tell whether that tight shape was more a smile or a grimace. “It is offensive how quick you are to run off to see what the feebs are going to do.”
“I was under the impression most of the school goes to listen. They’re here because they’re freaking good musicians, aren’t they?” I sighed and moved to walk past him.
He caught my wrist, jerking me to a halt. “You really still think you can just ignore me.”
I glared right into his eyes. “It’s been working all right so far.”
“Then you haven’t been paying attention. I can still play you like a puppet. You were born for this, but so was I, and I’ve been living it while you were off playing house with the joymancers who slaughtered your real parents.”
The words brought back the images from the battle I’d unintentionally summoned up in the desensitization chamber. The screams, the violence on both sides. My stomach lurched.
I gritted my teeth. “I know who my real parents were, and I’m not afraid of you. As you should be able to tell. Not feeding your magic one little bit right now, am I? So let go of my fucking arm before I have to make you.”
Malcolm released me, but he laughed as he did. “I’ve gotten plenty from you, Bloodstone. You just never know where and when. You’re never going to make it, here or anywhere else until you throw in your lot with the right side.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the pavilion where the concert was being held. “You might not want to go over there. Things could get dangerous.”
My body stiffened. “What are you tal
king about? What are you going to do?”
“What have I done, you mean. It’s already in motion. You’ll be just fine back here, though. It’s not as if there’s anything you can do to help.”
For fuck’s sake. There would be if I knew what the hell he’d planned. I eyed him while he gave me that cocky smile of his. I’d gotten past his own mental defenses before, but I didn’t think he’d fall for the same trick twice. Maybe, if I dove in there sharp and fast…
I turned as if I were going to head toward the pavilion anyway. Malcolm chuckled. As the sound reached my ears, I whipped back around and aimed my gaze at his forehead with a hastily whispered word. “Franco.”
My magic surged up my throat. My awareness shot forward as fast and narrow as I could focus it—and sliced into the barrier I’d been expecting.
Not quite far enough. I jarred against Malcolm’s internal wall before a single impression reached me from his mind. Just as my effort fell away, he spoke the command he must have been holding at the ready.
“You will do as I say. Stay out of my head.”
The persuasion spell flitted straight into my mind past my own lowered barrier the instant before I yanked my defenses back up. The commands jangled through my thoughts. Shit. I opened my mouth to try to catch him now that his mind was vulnerable, and my tongue faltered.
He’d ordered me to stay out. The persuasive power of that order was wriggling through my brain behind my mental shields now. I couldn’t force the casting word to launch my Insight spell out.
“Give me a little curtsy, Glinda. Let’s see how well you can bow if you have to.”
My legs swayed despite myself. He hadn’t even needed to add the lilt of magic to those words. The impulse to obey him was embedded in my mind as well. I dipped my head to him with a scream of frustration locked in my throat.
Malcolm was outright grinning now. “Not bad. We can work on that. How about a spin?”
My body swiveled in an awkward twirl. I wasn’t going to add any more grace to it than I was compelled to. I closed my eyes, shutting him out, trying to train my attention on the energy of his casting moving through my head. All I could sense was a faint quivering through my nerves.
It was almost impossible to diffuse a persuasive spell once it’d hit its target. You either waited for its power to fade on its own—or you put up obstacles to fulfilling it.
I’d done that before, when he’d tried to walk me out one of the tower windows. I could do a more elegant job of it now. “Wall,” I murmured, picturing the air hardening into an invisible barrier fit right against my body.
“Come back here,” Malcolm said. My muscles shifted and strained as my conjured wall held them perfectly in place. The Nightwood scion sighed. “What have you done to yourself? There’s no professor around to intercede just because you tried hard. You know I can break whatever you conjured up.”
“Go ahead and try it,” I shot back.
The faint strains of orchestral music carried across the field and past the building behind me. Damn it, the concert was starting. I didn’t know if Shelby would even notice I hadn’t turned up, but if she did, I might lose the one person who’d been there from me since I first got here. The way the other fearmancers treated her, she’d probably assume I’d been faking my appreciation for her musical talent.
My expression must have shown my worry. Malcolm stepped closer, cocking his head. “Getting a little scared now, Bloodstone? I don’t even have to break whatever armor you’ve put on. You still can’t get to your precious feebs like you wanted to. And you can’t stop up your throat. Why don’t we have a chat? I’ll tell you want I want to know—and you’ll answer any question I ask.”
Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. If he started prodding me, he could stumble on information that’d put me in deep shit not just with him but the entire administration in a matter of seconds. Unless…
“What would—” he started, and I jumped in.
“Not if I shut you up,” I said, urging my magic into a physical punch of energy to jam Malcolm’s mouth closed. I trained all my will on muzzling him. If he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t activate the persuasive spell any more.
Malcolm’s jaw clenched as he attempted to open his mouth, but I was plenty strong in Physicality, and today my efforts appeared to be holding just fine. Fury blazed in his eyes. He looked down, humming to himself, and shook his head with a snap and a crackle in the air. My muzzle shattered.
“Don’t you dare—” he said with a rasp.
“Shut up,” I snapped again with another burst of magic, and his lips smacked together. He glowered at me as he moved to free himself again.
I didn’t know how long I could keep this up. The magic churning behind my collarbone was starting to burn and fray. I’d accumulated a lot simply by existing and being Rory Bloodstone, the unpredictable new-found scion, but I’d thrown all I could into each of these castings.
I drew in a breath to try another spell before he’d even broken through this one, and a shriek split the air from the direction of the pavilion.
My heart skipped a beat. More shouts and screams rose up in a wave, punctuated by a clatter of thumps and clangs. My gaze jerked to Malcolm, who’d just wrenched his mouth open again. “What did you do?”
To my surprise, he looked momentarily bewildered, staring in the direction of the pavilion where it lay out of our view beyond the hall. Then his expression molded back into his usual arrogant mask. “I haven’t got a clue, Glinda. Didn’t you realize? I only said I’d messed with the concert to get you to try me. Whoever’s having their fun over there, it’s got nothing to do with me. You’ll have to blame some other villain.”
A metallic-sounding crash made me wince. I believed him, if only because of that brief unguarded reaction—and because I couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t be rubbing his triumph in my face if the chaos across the field was his doing.
I hesitated for just a second, long enough for a pained cry to pierce my ears, and then I smashed the wall I’d conjured around my body with a click of my tongue. The second the pressure left my body, I dashed along the path past the Killbrook Building. If Malcolm called after me, I didn’t hear him.
A crowd of at least a hundred students and various teachers had gathered around the open pavilion at the far end of the field. They’d scattered now, some of them running back to the main buildings, some of them holding their ground and staring warily toward the stage. The stage where the orchestra set-up lay in a jumbled mess.
Instruments were strewn across the high wooden platform beneath the pavilion’s arched roof, music stands tipped on their sides, chairs toppled. The performers lay sprawled between them. As I dashed over, I spotted one girl clutching her scraped elbow. A boy hissed as he moved his leg, his ankle twisted at an unnatural angle.
A familiar face emerged in the dispersing crowd—Imogen, her freckled face pale. I veered toward her. “What happened?” I said, breathless. “What’s going on?”
She hugged herself. “Three bears,” she said quietly. “They charged right past us and onto the stage. We could all guess they weren’t really bears—you don’t get ones that big around here anyway—but the Naries panicked.”
Someone trying to top that bear-shifting prank Declan had told me about. My hands clenched at my sides. “Where’d the ‘bears’ go?”
If I found the mages who’d put on this performance… I’d find some way to make sure they never did it again, that was for sure.
“They charged off into the woods,” Imogen said, and another thought raced through my head with a jolt of fear rather than anger.
“Where’s Shelby?”
“I don’t know. I saw—she was near the back—I think she might have fallen off the platform.”
Oh, no. I took off again, heading around the back of the building.
Two students had taken the four-foot tumble onto the grass, alongside a couple of chairs. One, a boy, was picking himself up on wobbly legs. The other sat slumped w
ith a hand pressed to her temple, her other arm tucked close to her chest. I didn’t need to see her face to recognize Shelby’s mousy brown ponytail.
One of the staff had already knelt down beside her. “People are coming from the health center right now,” he reassured her as I came to a stop a few feet away.
“My arm,” Shelby said raggedly with a sound like a swallowed sob. She shifted, and I realized her arm wasn’t just tucked against her. It was bent wrong at the wrist, the joint already swelling and red.
A tear streaked down her face. She tightened her jaw. “I’ll be okay,” she insisted. “It’s nothing. Nothing that bad.” But I could tell she didn’t believe that any more than I did.
Chapter Twenty
Declan
I’d never really enjoyed sitting at my spot around the table of the pentacle of barons, but over the last several weeks, the meetings had become increasingly uncomfortable. Mainly because the other barons—and my aunt Ambrosia, whom I was stuck with here until I could be named full baron—were spending increasing amounts of time interrogating me.
They pretended it wasn’t an interrogation, of course. Baron Nightwood, Malcolm’s father, smiled the confident smile he’d passed on to his son as he asked one or another prodding question. Baron Stormhurst, Connar’s mother, didn’t ask anything at all, just made pointed statements framed by huffs of breath. Baron Killbrook, Jude’s father, had a perpetual furrow in his forehead as if he were questioning me only out of well-meant concern.
The fifth chair, at the Bloodstone point of the pentacle, stood empty still. They hadn’t wanted to bring Rory in for a meeting until they were sure they could count on her carrying the party line. And that was exactly why so much focus was turned on me.
“You’ve been seeing the girl twice a week for how long now?” Baron Nightwood said, leaning back in his chair at a casual angle as if he didn’t know the answer already. “I’d have expected more progress by now, Ashgrave.”
