I glare back at him, tears pooling in my eyes, my lips trembling, suddenly unable to disguise my naked hurt.
Yvan’s expression turns momentarily conflicted then unexpectedly concerned.
The softening of his vivid green eyes sparks a powerful ache deep inside me, and then a sudden, fierce resentment of him and Iris and how they all belong.
Feeling shaky and struggling to fight off my humiliating, angry tears, I avert my eyes from him, grab up a damp cloth and roughly wipe the jam from my face.
I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
Everything around me beginning to blur, I throw down the rag and flee. I run all the way back to the freezing North Tower, throw myself into bed, shut my eyes tight to block out the hateful Icarals and cry myself to sleep.
*
A crash wakes me up the next morning. I’m shivering and mentally reeling from yet another Selkie nightmare. Disoriented, I look around. Ariel and Wynter are gone, but Ariel’s chicken is on my desk, pecking at my pens and papers, haphazardly pushing things down onto the desk chair and floor. My eyes slide down to find the ceramic portrait of my parents cracked to smithereens on the floor.
My only likeness of my parents.
Anger crashes through me like an avalanche long straining for release. I launch myself from my bed, rush toward my desk, stoop down and pick up a small slice of the portrait, my mother’s eye still visible on the tiny sliver as tears streak down my face.
I’ll never see my mother and father’s faces again.
My anger grows and grows, until it becomes a vicious tide.
That’s it. It’s time to fight back. Let Ariel try to set me on fire. It will be well worth it. Then I can go to the High Chancellor’s office and get her sent back to the insane asylum she grew up in.
I get up and throw on some clothes.
Then I pick up Ariel’s chicken, bring it outside and set it roughly down on the blue-frosted grass.
I know her chicken probably won’t survive long on the University grounds. It’s likely someone will pick it up and return it to the poultry yard. Or it will be eaten by some predator.
I beat down a small stab of guilt and go to class.
*
My classes grind by slowly. And through all the lectures and laboratory work, I find it impossible to fight a mounting unease.
She deserves it, I angrily remind myself as I grind roots and help Tierney prepare a new distillation. And it’s just a chicken. Stolen from the poultry yard. It should have long ago graced a supper plate or been served up as soup.
*
Late that afternoon I make my way back to the North Tower, wanting to drop off my heavy shoulder sack before going to my kitchen labor. I push through the blustery, gray day as I trudge up the long hill, a light, icy rain pricking at my skin, anger at Ariel spiking with every step.
When I finally reach the North Tower, I’m mentally girded for battle, ready to take her on.
I march up the tower steps, each stomp smashing away at my guilt.
She deserved it. She deserved it. Over and over on each new stair.
As I reach the upper floor and make my way through the oddly quiet hallway, I notice a strange smell—something charred, like an old cook fire. With nervous trepidation, I grasp the cold handle of our lodging’s door and pull it open.
All the blood drains from my face when I see what she’s done.
My quilt. My most beloved possession.
It lays in the middle of the deserted room, reduced to a charred heap, only a small portion still on fire, the flames crackling and disintegrating the dry fabric.
I run to it, a cry tearing from my throat. I stomp at the flames and burn my fingers as I grab at the last remaining scrap, feeling faint when the piece falls apart in my hand.
She’s destroyed it.
I fall to my knees in front of the smoking ashes of my only remaining link to my mother and sob.
*
“I want her gone.”
Lukas turns from where he stands watching a long row of military apprentices shoot arrows through the cool, damp air toward circular targets. Twilight is descending, torches being lit around the range. Lukas does a double take when he sees my expression.
“Who?” he asks, eyes narrowing.
“Ariel.”
He searches my face for a long moment, then takes my arm and leads me away from the archery range. “What happened?” he asks.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him, my voice unforgiving. “I just want her gone. I don’t care what you have to do.”
I expect him to tell me to fight my own battles. At that moment I’m ready to hate him forever if he does. But instead, his expression turns calculating.
“The only way to get her out is to get her to attack you,” he cautions.
“I don’t care.”
He draws a deep breath and motions toward a nearby bench. “Well, then,” he says, a dark smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Sit down. Tell me everything you know about Ariel Haven.”
I’m bolstered after a long talk with Lukas, sure he’ll find a way to help me get Ariel kicked out of University and sent far away from me. But almost as soon as I’m alone again, I think of my destroyed quilt and quickly descend back into misery.
I go to my kitchen labor in a fog of despair, distracted and unable to focus even on the simple task Fernyllia Hawthorne gives me of stirring a pot of gravy, unable to hold back the tears as I stand beside the large cast-iron stove.
Iris and Bleddyn find it hard to hide their pleasure at seeing me so beaten down, the two of them shooting each other smiles full of dark satisfaction.
“Oh, the Roach is sad,” Bleddyn mockingly remarks to Iris in a low voice, the two of them increasingly bold, as if testing the waters.
“Awww.” Iris glances sidelong at Bleddyn, her face screwed up in a mimicry of sympathy, as she plucks hot biscuits off large trays and arranges them in a series of wide baskets.
Bleddyn brings her cleaver down harder than necessary onto the cooked chicken carcass she’s dismembering. I jump at the sound, and the huge Urisk girl smirks, her eyes narrowed caustically at me.
Iris spits out a laugh.
Yvan comes into the kitchen carrying a load of wood. He pauses in annoyed surprise when he catches sight of me, green eyes piercing. “Why are you crying?” he asks harshly.
“My quilt,” I choke out as I watch my tears plop down into the gravy. “It’s been destroyed.” I have no idea why I’ve bothered to confess this to him—it’s not as if he truly cares about why I’m upset.
His face screws up with disgust. “You’re crying over a blanket?”
“Yes!” I sob, hating him, hating Iris and Bleddyn, hating all of them.
“It must be nice to be Gardnerian,” Yvan sneers as he smacks down the stove’s iron lever and throws in some logs. “It must be nice to live such a charmed life that the loss of a quilt constitutes a major tragedy.”
“That’s us,” I counter, my voice stuffy. “We Gardnerians live such charmed lives.”
His lips curl up into an obnoxious sneer. “I am so sorry for your loss.”
“Leave me alone, Kelt!” I snarl.
Iris’s eyes flit toward Yvan with a knowing look that he briefly returns.
“Gladly,” Yvan replies, glaring at me. He loads more wood into the cookstove and slams the iron door shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kindred
That evening I trudge back to the North Tower, lugging books and notes. A rancid, churning hatred fuels my every step. I picture hurling Ariel across the room, ripping at those foul wings of hers.
My hands balled into tight fists, I storm up the tower’s spiraling staircase, enter the hall and freeze.
Ariel is lying passed out on the floor, her wings limp behind her. Wynter is cradling her, frantically murmuring in Elvish. She looks up at me, wide-eyed and horrified.
Ariel’s chicken is dead.
Lukas found it somehow.
It hangs from the door, two stakes driven through its breast, its head dangling. Its severed wings are staked on either side of the animal’s body. Blood streaks down the door and pools on the floor below.
“Oh, no,” I breathe. “Oh, Ancient One.”