Paige chews at her lip nervously. “Oh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea...”
Grinning widely and moving as stealthily as a cat, Fallon slides off her cloak and creeps toward Diana. I hold my breath as she kneels down on one knee, takes a thick bunch of Diana’s hair and places the shears around it...
Fast as a blur, Diana leaps out of bed and slams Fallon to the ground. Paige lets out a scream, and Tierney and I fall back.
The next thing I know, Fallon is belly down on the floor and Diana is astride her, grasping both of Fallon’s wrists in one hand, the shears in the other. Fallon cries out as Diana wrenches her arms behind her back and throws the shears toward the wall to impale Fallon’s new uniform with a sharp thwack.
“You dare attack the daughter of an alpha?” Diana snarls. “You fool! Do you not think I can sense your attack? Even in my sleep?”
Diana holds her free hand in front of Fallon’s face, and we all watch in complete horror as her hand morphs into a wild, hairy appendage with curved claws.
“If you ever try to attack me again, I will mark you. To remind you what happens to those who challenge the daughter of an alpha.” Diana morphs her hand back, reaches under Fallon and grabs hold of her wand. “And your attempts to use your pathetic stick magic bore me!” She takes the wand in hand, snaps it in two and tosses it aside.
Fallon cries out as Diana gives her arms a final wrench, then, in another blur, Diana is off Fallon and looming over her. Fallon forces herself quickly to her feet, her face red and furious. She grasps at her forearms, wincing in pain.
Fallon shoots Diana a murderous look. “I’ll be back for you!” she cries before fleeing from the room with Echo and Paige.
Diana tosses her blond mane over one shoulder and pads over to her bed. She grimaces at the blanket, throws it to the floor, then plops down onto the bed and curls up, her naked back to us.
Tierney turns toward my hiding place, her voice hoarse. “She’s gone.”
“Of course she’s gone,” Diana mumbles into her pillow. “She’s a coward without her stick. You can come out now, Elloren Gardner.”
My head jerks back with surprise. I look to Diana with dumbfounded awe.
“Elloren.” Tierney pushes a box of vials toward me as I come back into the room. She gestures at the door with her chin, her eyes urgent.
Legs unsteady, I take the vials and let Tierney tug me out of the room.
*
“Who’s Leander?” I ask Tierney once we’re back in the deserted lab.
Tierney’s work is uncharacteristically sloppy and slipshod as we rush to finish our project, topping off each vial with warm syrup.
It’s full dark now, the apothecary lab’s arching windows black as slate.
“Nobody,” she says testily, not looking at me.
I wait, unmoving, until she finally relents.
“He works for my father.” She shrugs, her mouth trembling. “He’s...nothing to me.” Her mouth turns down and she begins to cry, then sob, shoulders heaving, her head bent low. “He’s nothing. I don’t care... I don’t care what happens to him...” Her arm comes up to cover her eyes, and she’s momentarily unable to speak coherently through her tears. “Why did they do it?” she moans. “Why did they have to make me so ugly?”
Suddenly, water explodes from the few open containers in the room, flying to Tierney, swirling around her in a great rush.
My hands fly up to ward off the liquid. The swirling lines abruptly fizz into a great cloud, obscuring the view before me.
I can just make out Tierney’s ghostly face in the white haze. She’s staring at me, wide-eyed and terrified.
Fae. She’s full-blooded Water Fae. That’s the only explanation.
And someone “made” her ugly. Which means someone glamoured her. Her real hair is probably blue. Her skin, too.
And I’m bound by Gardnerian and Verpacian law to turn her in. Sheltering Fae is punishable by imprisonment.
I force the idea from my mind as the cloud falls to the ground in a thin puddle.
Maybe she isn’t Fae. Maybe she’s like me. Like Gareth. All of us Gardnerian, but with some Fae blood, maybe. That’s all. Her Fae blood is just...extraordinarily strong.
No, I finally admit to myself, the crushing truth settling in. She’s Fae. She’ll be sent to the Pyrran Isles if she’s discovered.
And she’s done nothing to deserve any of this.
“Elloren...” Tierney starts, her throat hoarse. Gone is her usual guarded cynicism. She looks small and lost and afraid.
“No.” I cut her off, bringing my hand up to stop her. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. Let’s just not speak of it. Whatever it is.”
I meet her eyes, and her face is an open book, filled with overwhelming, stunned gratitude.
Something shifts between us in that moment, and I can feel the beginnings of real friendship start to take root.
“Here,” I say, grabbing a rag. “Let me help you clean this up.”
Tierney nods stiffly, and I can see her fighting back more tears. She wordlessly picks up a rag, stoops down and together we clean up the floor.
*
Outside the rain has stopped, and a cold mist hangs in the air. As we start to walk away from the lab complex, we’re approached by a young Gardnerian military apprentice with the tree insignia of the Twelfth Division.
He bows and hands me a letter. “I’m to give this to you, Mage,” he says. He bows again stiffly and takes his leave.
I look down at the letter. My name is written on it in clean, elegant script. I break the wax seal, the Twelfth Division’s River Oak, and pull the letter open as Tierney looks on over my shoulder.
I’m to rejoin my division at Essex.
I’ll be back for you. At Yule.
Lukas
My heart speeds up, warmth flushing my face, then indignation.
The sheer arrogance of him.
How could he possibly think, after what happened with Ariel, that we could still go to this dance together? And yet...it’s flattering that we could be so at odds, and still he’s trying to pursue me.
“At Yule?” Tierney queries, pulling my thoughts back to the present.
“There’s a dance,” I explain, conflicted. “I promised to go with him.”
Tierney’s brows fly up in amazed surprise. “Oh, ho!” she crows, wickedly delighted. “Looks like Fallon Bane’s going to wish she’d frozen your blood after all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Diana Ulrich
Diana Ulrich slams her books down on the Chemistrie lab table, and Aislinn and I both jump, our eyes snapping up.
It’s early the next morning, class about to start, two sleepy Kelt scholars shuffling in, followed by a straight-backed Elf.
Diana falls into her seat with a loud huff. Her brother looks over at her, raising his eyebrows.
“You would not believe what I had to deal with this morning!” she cries to him, her voice as loud as usual.
The Kelts turn and blink at her, the Elf shooting her a quick look of annoyance.
“What happened?” Diana’s brother asks her calmly.
“I’ve been put on warning!”
“But why?”
Diana snorts indignantly. “Because of Fallon Bane, that stupid Gardnerian I am being forced to live with against my will!”
Aislinn and I shoot each other quick looks of surprise.
“I don’t understand,” Jarod says.
“Last night,” Diana snipes, “Fallon Bane thought she would amuse herself by cutting my hair off while I slept.”
Jarod whistles to himself and laughs softly. “Poor Fallon.”
Diana’s whole posture stiffens. “Poor Fallon?” she exclaims self-righteously. “She’s a bully!”
Jarod makes a valiant attempt to rein in his amusement and look serious. “And I can just about imagine how you reacted,” he says, suppressing a smile.
“I reacted with extraordinary restraint!” Diana proclaims, clearly annoyed that her brother isn’t taking this more seriously.
“Does she still have four limbs?” he asks, not completely in jest, it seems.
“I simply gave her a warning.”
“That was very diplomatic of you.”
“And I broke her wand.”