“Shhh, now. No one’s going to send you anywhere.” Fernyllia turns to me, the haze of fear still on her face, showing through her attempt at fake pleasantry. “Mage Gardner, you look tired. Why don’t you ice the spice cakes over there?”
I nod mutely, then go over to the sheets of brown cake, my stomach clenched into tight knots as everyone around me silently does the harder, heavier work.
For the rest of my shift, no one meets my eyes.
Except for Yvan.
Every time he brings a load of wood in to fuel the cooking fires, he shoves it into the stove, slams the iron door, then glares at me with a hatred as sharp as the kitchen knives.
I find myself withering under his hostile stare, my shame spiking when little Fern is quickly ushered out of the kitchens, countless worried glances cast my way.
I plop a pile of sticky frosting down on the sheet of cake and begin to slather it around as tears sting at my eyes.
I wish Lukas hadn’t threatened everyone so mercilessly—especially the child. I wish he hadn’t threatened to harm their families.
My sickening shame stiffens my movements as I work, Fern’s terrified sobbing fresh in my mind.
But what’s the alternative? To let them bully me? To let them kick me and slap me and threaten me with further violence? No, it’s better to make idle threats, if they now fear me.
I may be devoid of magic, but I’m Carnissa Gardner’s granddaughter, Vyvian Damon’s niece and favored by Lukas Grey.
For the rest of the shift, I try to cling to my roiling fear and anger to bolster myself and justify Lukas’s actions, but it’s impossible to hold back a fierce wave of sickening guilt. And I’m careful not to meet anyone’s eyes for the rest of the shift.
Especially not Yvan’s.
CHAPTER TEN
Confrontation
After my shift is over, I leave without saying goodbye to anyone, and no one says goodbye to me.
The large dining hall outside the kitchen is crowded with scholars and professors and tight groupings of military apprentices sitting at marshwood tables, a steady hum of conversation reverberating throughout the hall, the clinking and clanking of silverware and serving spoons creating a noisy din.
Dusk is descending, the stream of pedestrians passing by the windows fading to dark silhouettes. One of the Urisk laborers busily lights the wall torches and table lanterns.
I scan the vast room, worriedly searching for Lukas’s face.
And that’s when I see the Icarals.
They’re seated at the far edge of the hall, the tables around them deserted as if all the other scholars are actively avoiding them.
My lodging mates—Ariel Haven and Wynter Eirllyn. I didn’t get a very good look at them last night, but I know it has to be them.
Wynter is similar in appearance to every other Elfin maid in the room. Like them, she has silver eyes and long white hair decorated with tiny braids, pale skin, gracefully pointed ears and ivory clothing. But unlike them, her clothing is modified in the back to make room for thin, black wings. She sits slumped, her wings wrapped tight around herself like a blanket.
She looks weak and sad.
Ariel, on the other hand, looks like something out of a nightmare. She’s dressed in complete, screaming defiance of the Gardnerian dress code. Instead of a tunic, she wears a tight black top, laced haphazardly up and down her back. The lacing makes room for wings that are ragged and torn, making her seem like a crow that has suffered a run-in with a clawed predator. She wears pants like a boy, and large clunky boots, and her hair is chopped very short, standing out at odd angles in greasy-looking black spikes. Her eyes are darkly rimmed with black kohl, making her pale green eyes seem almost as white and soulless as those of the Icarals in Valgard. Unlike Wynter, whose wings are low and now folded discreetly behind her, Ariel seems to be making a show of flapping her wings menacingly. She crouches over, as if dodging a blow, her eyes narrowed and angry, scanning the room darkly.
There they are. My tormentors. Sitting there, eating spice cake.
It all comes flooding back—Ariel’s demonic show, the scraping on the door, my terror when I thought I was about to die.
Lukas might have been too harsh with the kitchen workers, but these creatures—they deserve everything they get and more.
I forget about fear as anger rips through me.
My fists balling, I stalk down a side aisle, straight over to their table, and snatch the cake out from under them. They both look up at me with wide-eyed surprise.
“The denizens of hell do not get to eat cake!” I snarl, heart racing.
Ariel shoots up to a standing position, her hands supported by rigid, spindly arms crisscrossed with what look like fresh and healing knife marks. She screws up her face into a frightening grimace and lunges at the cake.
I step quickly aside and she loses her footing, crashing down onto the table, plates and food scattering everywhere. Wynter’s hands fly up to ward off the stray food and drink as sounds of surprise and shock go up around us.
“What’s going on here?” an authoritative male voice says from behind me.
I whirl around and come face-to-face with a green-robed professor—a slightly disheveled Keltic man with messy, shortish brown hair and spectacles.
The professor’s eyes go momentarily wide with shock.
My resemblance to my grandmother. That’s what’s stunned him so. I can see it in his eyes.
The broad room has gone nearly silent, except for some astonished whispering, almost everyone staring at us.
Ariel, now covered in food and drink, pushes herself off the table and points a long finger at me. “She took our food!”
The professor’s shock morphs to extreme dismay then barely concealed outrage.
He glares at me. “Give that scholar back her food!”
That “scholar”? Is he kidding?
“No,” I refuse, stepping away from him, guarding both slices of cake protectively. “She does not get to terrorize me all night long and then get to eat the cake that I iced!”
The professor turns to Ariel, who’s flapping her moth-eaten wings agitatedly. He eyes her suspiciously. “What’s this about, Ariel?”
Ariel? He’s on a first-name basis with her?
“It’s not my fault!” Ariel cries. “She shows up in our room last night, says she can’t lodge with filthy Icarals and throws herself into a closet! I tried to get her to come out, but she kept yelling about how she’s a Gardnerian and the granddaughter of Carnissa Gardner and can’t mix with Icarals or Elves or Kelts! That we’ll pollute her pure blood! She kept going on and on about how the Gardnerians are the superior race, and how everyone else is an inferior Evil One, and how she’s the next Black Witch!”
I’m momentarily paralyzed with shock and outrage.
The Keltic teacher turns to me with an odd, pained look before his expression goes hard.
“That’s...that’s a lie!” I sputter as Ariel’s face behind him morphs from that of the traumatized victim to a dark, calculating grimace. “She stalked me! Terrorized me! I had to barricade myself in a closet! And then she spent most of the night scratching at the door with a knife!”
The professor looks back at Ariel appraisingly then back at me, his eyes cold, his lips set in a tight line.
I’ve lost. Of course he’s on her side. He’s a Kelt.
“Mage Elloren Gardner,” he orders, his face tensing as if my name pains him. I’m not surprised that he knows my name. Everyone knows my name. “Give those scholars back their food.”
The sheer injustice of this roils through me. “Fine!” I snarl, throwing the cake down on the table so hard it bounces off the plates, adding to the general mess.
“Thank you, Professor Kristian,” Ariel says with wide, puppy-dog eyes.
I want to strike her.
“Elloren,” I hear a familiar voice say from behind me, “aren’t you done with your shift?”
I turn to see Lukas approaching me.
His eyes flicker over to Professor Kristian and the Icarals disdainfully then back to me again, his sword and wand at his side. I straighten and set my jaw forward defiantly.
Good. I have backup. Real backup. A Level Five Mage. Not some useless Kelt teacher who’s too ready to believe lying Icarals instead of me.