by Eva Chase
The way she’d lain down right next to me, kissed me so carefully and yet with enough emotion to set me on fire…
It was a sweet sort of anguish, thinking back and wishing I’d been in a state where I could really have pulled her to me, have touched her, have set her alight in turn.
We’d get there. Maybe she’d never be completely mine, but she was starting to see more than just the, well, jackass I’d presented myself as at the beginning of our acquaintance. She was willing to give me that chance to make up for the shit I’d put her through. And that fact right there proved exactly why she hadn’t deserved most of that shit to begin with.
I let myself linger in the recollection for a moment longer, and then I pushed myself out of bed.
The doctor might have melded my bones solid again, but that healing effort didn’t change the fact that I’d been lying around for three days, barely even eating. My legs wobbled when I put my weight on them. I straightened up slowly, gripping a bedpost, and made my way over to my desk with cautious steps.
My phone’s battery was dead, of course. I plugged it in and sat down in the chair while I waited for it to catch the initial charge. After a few minutes, a flood of alerts popped up on the screen.
Most of the texts were from my fellow scions, friendly asides and then more concerned messages at my lack of response. A smile slipped across my face looking at them.
During the time when I’d still been intent on breaking Rory and the other three guys had started to take her side, the pentacle of scions had felt fractured, with me increasingly on the outs. They hadn’t involved me in most of their discussions about her hearing or whatever attempts they’d made to prove her innocence in the last couple weeks. But we were still our own sort of family. Maybe we could be a solid one again once I got back.
I sent a group text to all of them, including Rory. Sorry for the radio silence. Phone issues. I should be back on campus tomorrow. Scion meeting in the lounge that afternoon?
They’d know that my lack of response had nothing to do with my phone, but I wouldn’t put it past my parents to be monitoring my recorded communications. Anything we wanted to discuss covertly, we’d need to do in person.
Declan the Ever Responsible was naturally the first one to respond. We’ll be glad to see you back. Sunday afternoon works for me.
He knew to be circumspect too. I wasn’t sure how, but he’d somehow managed to ensure the staff wouldn’t mention his visit here to my parents. Dad grumbled enough about the Ashgrave scion and soon-to-be-baron without adding nosiness to his list of transgressions.
I shouldn’t give the guy such a hard time, even in my head. Declan’s dogged attention to detail was more likely to help us win whatever battles we had to fight against the older barons than anything the rest of us could offer.
I wavered for a minute over Rory’s number, debating sending a private message just to her. But what could I say that would be safe and that would mean anything? I’d told her to her face how much it mattered to me that she’d taken the risk of traveling out here just to check on me. Anything else I needed to say, I could do it tomorrow.
As the last remnants of my painful punishment faded, my stomach let out an insistent gurgling. Dad’s punishment hadn’t left me with much appetite while I was in the middle of it, but now that I was out the other side, I’d probably recover faster if I got some food into me.
It was the middle of the afternoon, so the staff wouldn’t have an official meal set out. That was fine with me though, because it meant I’d have the dining room to myself. I didn’t really feel like facing my parents’ scrutiny while I dug into lunch, or whatever exact meal this was.
Walking into the kitchen on my still shaky legs, I exchanged a nod with the guy wiping down the counters. He looked a little terrified at my presence. Without interrupting him, I took it upon myself to peruse the fridge. I didn’t need help to assemble a perfectly good sandwich.
I layered on plenty of cold cuts and a good slathering of mayonnaise onto a couple pieces of rye, and carried that and a tall glass of sparkling lemonade into the dining room. Reaching for a more adult beverage didn’t seem like the best idea in my current state. I wasn’t sure I wanted to test how my temporarily weakened body would react even to caffeine, let alone alcohol.
I’d plowed my way through half of the sandwich when a slim form passed the doorway. My little sister glanced into the room, saw me, and froze for a second with a widening of her eyes that made my stomach drop.
What had Agnes figured out about what had happened to me? At the very least, she must have known that Dad was furious, that he’d prevented me from returning to school, and that I hadn’t been in a position to leave my room even at mealtimes.
My parents had always hassled her just as much as they did me. They didn’t believe in focusing all their energy on the most obvious heir. But she had no idea what hypocrites they were or how far they’d compromised themselves for whatever the hell their goals were.
And every time I did go back to school, I left her here alone with them and the tutors they hired. She wasn’t quite fourteen yet—it’d be more than a year before her magic would emerge and she’d be able to at least escape to school like I did.
I motioned her over. “Hey! How’s it been going?” Casual, warm, as if nothing all that horrible had happened. Let her see that Dad hadn’t shaken me in any way that mattered.
She came over to the table but didn’t sit down, her pale hands resting on the mahogany surface. “Everything’s okay,” she said hesitantly, and I mentally kicked myself for how little attention I’d given her since I’d made my partial escape five years ago. When we’d both been stuck here all of the time, I’d looked out for her more, and she’d confided in me more. This summer, I’d started offering some gestures to repair that relationship, but I had lots of making up to do here too.
Agnes bit her lip and then ventured, “How are you?” The emphasis and the anxious intensity in her gaze made the question much more serious than off-hand small talk.
“All good,” I said in the same easy tone as before. “Just had some things to work out with Dad. I’ll be around for the rest of the day if you need me for anything. I’m sure they’ve got you working hard on your lessons and all that.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. Some of the stuff…” She tugged at a lock of her blond hair and then managed a quick smile. “You probably don’t remember it anymore now that you’ve gotten to go to the real school.”
I smiled back. “You’re welcome to try me.”
The moment of connection faded, and she ducked her head, still looking too tense to sit down. I reached across the table toward her, letting my hand rest there until she raised her eyes to meet mine again.
“Listen,” I said in a low voice. “I’m fine. I’m going to stay fine. No matter what they do, we still get to choose who we are and who we’re going to be. You hear me?”
A hint of sharper anxiety flashed through her expression, but there was a hunger there too. She held my gaze as if searching for more certainty there. She might not totally believe what I’d just said, but she wanted to.
“Okay,” she said. She probably didn’t dare to say more than that. But she gave me one more darting smile before she slipped off again, and that was enough to satisfy me—for now.
Chapter Eight
Rory
Evening had fallen deeply during our trip. By the time Jude’s red Mercedes crossed the bridge into Manhattan, the city lights glowed brightly against the growing darkness.
“It’s a pretty quick jaunt from here,” he said, scanning the traffic ahead of us. “I know a good route.”
His tone was breezy, but his hand gripped the wheel tightly. I respected his privacy too much to attempt any dips of insight inside his head, but even though bringing me here had been his idea, I suspected he was nervous about showing me his apartment. The first home he’d picked out for myself.
I couldn’t imagine finding anything to comp
lain about there, given how much more luxurious most other fearmancers’ tastes were compared to mine. Jude probably would have turned up his nose at the comparatively tiny house where I’d spent most of my life in California—or he would have before he’d adjusted his attitudes about Nary life, at least.
Knowing more about the joymancers and how their values had differed from what I’d grown up hearing from my parents raised questions I hadn’t considered before. Had Mom and Dad’s living situation, conducting themselves like normal people with average jobs, also been something specific to them? Did the other joymancers share that attitude, or did they accumulate wealth and flaunt it as much as the fearmancers did, in their own way?
That didn’t matter right now. Right now, I was a little giddy knowing that I was the first person Jude was sharing the new place with.
“No need to rush,” I said. “I’m happy right here.”
So was Jude’s familiar. The ferret had scampered around in the back seat burning off its apparently boundless energy for the first half hour of the drive, but not that long ago it’d slunk between the front seats and snuggled up on my lap like a very long, skinny cat. I stroked the soft but coarse fur between its shoulders, and it turned its head against my leg with an expression that looked nothing but content.
Jude shot us an amused glance. “Mischief isn’t always that friendly. She’s got good taste.”
I laughed and gave her back another rub. “As long as she steers clear of my familiar, we can be friends.”
I’d tensed up a little when I’d first seen the ferret in Jude’s arms. My first month at school, he, Malcolm, and Victory had arranged a prank where I’d believed Mischief was attacking Deborah. I couldn’t really blame the ferret, though, since Jude had egged her on—and he’d only given her an illusion of the mouse in the first place. She had a hunter’s nature. And she was awfully cuddly when she decided to be.
I just wasn’t going to bring Deborah around for any attempted reconciliation of familiars.
“Have you told the other guys you got this apartment?” I asked. I hadn’t heard Jude mention it in front of them.
He grimaced. “I think that might prompt too many questions. Obviously it’ll come up eventually.”
“You’re still not sure how you’re going to tell them about your family.”
“I’m not sure I’m going to have to tell them at all. If I don’t have to, if I can just hand off the barony to the new kid…”
As he trailed off, his expression showed how torn he was. I reached over to touch his arm. “They’re your best friends. Do you really want to keep a secret that important from them for your whole life? Do you honestly think they’re going to care that much? You’ll still be you.”
“That’s easier for you to say when you didn’t spend your whole life tying your identity to a barony,” Jude said with a crooked smile. “The whole reason we are friends is because we’ve been shoved together as scions since we were kids. They wouldn’t need to include me if I wasn’t one.”
“You don’t think they’d want to anyway?”
From his hesitation in answering that, he wasn’t so sure about that either. I exhaled roughly. “From what I’ve seen, they like you. You all hardly talk about politics when you’re together, and you still get along.”
“Well, there’s also the judgy aspect. Even if they don’t want to see me differently, knowing I’m not actually a Killbrook is going to downgrade me in their eyes. They won’t be able to help it.” He made a flippant gesture in the air. “Hell, I can’t say it wouldn’t affect me if I found out one of them couldn’t claim half of what we’d thought they could. Some ideas are ingrained pretty deep.”
“So’s your friendship,” I said, but I wasn’t going to keep pushing. “Anyway, you have time to figure all that out. I just wondered.”
The smile he shot me then was a happier one. “For now, it’s just you and me.”
Mischief perked up as if she could tell we were almost at our destination. Jude took a turn at an intersection that brought us into view of Central Park.
This was my first time seeing the iconic location outside of pictures and video. I gazed at the sprawl of trees so avidly I almost didn’t catch the jerk of Jude’s head as he slowed the car by a tall, pale gray building.
“Everything okay?” I asked, looking around.
He peered out his window for a few seconds longer, his lips moving with an inaudible casting. Then he frowned and drove on toward the underground parking garage, which opened with a tap of a console on his dashboard. “No big deal,” he said.
His stance stayed wary after he’d parked the car and gotten out, though. I grabbed the overnight bag I’d packed out of the back, and Mischief leapt into Jude’s arms. We walked straight to the elevator, but his eyes kept flicking back and forth with a vigilance that made me nervous.
By the time the elevator let us off on one of the upper floors, he appeared to have relaxed. In the hall, he set down Mischief so the ferret could race toward the apartment and then glanced back at me—and his expression stiffened for just an instant before I caught up with him and he turned the other way again.
Before I could ask what was bothering him this time, he took on a jovial voice I could tell was partly forced. “Prepare yourself. You’re the sole attendee of the grand opening of Jude’s Apartment the First.”
He swept open the door and ushered me into a soothingly modern space. The floors were a light peach hardwood, the furniture all soft neutral tones, the open-concept living area stretching from the front hall all the way to huge windows with a spectacular view.
In short, it was the complete opposite of the usual baron properties with their mazes of rooms and dark antique furnishings. It didn’t feel quite like Jude yet, but I could see why he’d like it. Stepping farther inside felt like taking a deep breath of fresh air.
“It’s lovely,” I said, coming to a stop by the linen sofa. “You know the one thing it’s missing, though? You need to rearrange things a little so you can fit a piano in here.”
Jude brightened at the remark. His piano-playing was another secret he’d kept from his friends, something I’d stumbled on by accident that had ended up bringing us closer together… in various ways.
He motioned to one corner by the window that was already a little emptier than the rest of the space. “That’s the plan. I’m just working on finding the right instrument.” He swiveled toward the kitchen area. “Do you want anything to drink? And we can order in dinner or go out—there are some pretty nice places within walking distance.”
Did he really think he was going to distract me that easily?
I sat down on the arm of the sofa. “First, why don’t you tell me what you’re worried about? You saw something outside the building and then in the hall that you didn’t like.”
Jude made a face at me, but then he sighed. “Hold on.”
He moved through the apartment, making a show of nonchalance, but I could tell he was examining pretty much every surface. He ducked into the bedroom and the bathroom before coming back to the sofa, where he flopped down next to me.
“It looks like my security efforts have kept the actual apartment safe so far, at least,” he said. “It seems my father has been keeping a close eye on me since I officially ‘moved out’.”
A shiver ran down my back. “What do you mean?” I hadn’t seen anyone else in the hall.
“I noticed a guy hanging around at school with a deflecting illusion on him so most people wouldn’t even realize he’s there. He’s followed me around campus a few times. There was a woman with the same kind of spell standing outside the building next door when we drove up. And in the hall, there’s an illusion covering a camera that wasn’t there before—it’s pointing toward my apartment. I wouldn’t even have clocked that one if I hadn’t been on high alert already.”
I winced. “That’s awful. What does he think you’re doing that he suddenly needs to be following you around?” I paused. �
��Does he know that you know about your real father?”
“He shouldn’t.” Jude’s posture slumped. “He might suspect, given the moving out. He’s obviously decided that whatever my reasons are, he can’t trust me. I just wanted to get away from him. Apparently it was too much to ask just to be left alone.”
The frustration in his tone made my gut twist. He wasn’t saying it, but we both knew that his dad’s interference could escalate further. If he really believed Jude had figured out his treasonous secret, if he had any suspicion that his supposed son might reveal what he’d done… He might arrange for Jude to disappear completely, one way or another.
And with my current limited authority, I couldn’t really protect Jude from that any more than I could have shielded Malcolm from his father.
Or could I?
I sat right down on the sofa so I could take Jude’s hand and twine my fingers with his. The possibility had crossed my mind a few times before, but it hadn’t felt urgent enough to bring it up. Jude had seemed sure his illegitimacy wouldn’t be a real issue until his half-sister was born. But if his father was going to these lengths already…
“Jude,” I said, “we could prove to him that he doesn’t have anything to worry about, right? If… if I marry you, then you’re not a Killbrook anymore anyway. You wouldn’t be a threat.”
Jude blinked at me, his eyebrows rising. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard that right,” he said. “Did you just propose to me?”
“Um, I…” My face heated. I looked down at our joined hands. “I’m not saying I really want to jump into getting married—to anyone. I mean, we’re only nineteen. We haven’t known each other that long. I just—” I made myself meet his bemused gaze again. “It seems like such a simple solution. And I know I’d rather make sure you stay alive even if it makes things complicated than hold off because it seems fast and then…” My throat closed up at the thought of the guy in front of me meeting some horrible death.
