Chapter One
Prince Pompous, His Royal Heinousness, Roze Roquelart, has shredded my last nerve.
I don’t hate easily, but after years of enduring him—the way he flaunts his wealth and status, his bullying, the cruel sneer on his lips—Saints, I hate him. And I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. He deserves every drop of my contempt.
Today, for example, he’s torturing some poor freshman in the Commons, a space that once upon a time was filled with the aroma of freshly cut grass and golden sunshine.
That was before I was born. Now, it’s as gray and grim as the rest of the castle—a compact dirt floor and a glass ceiling arching overhead to keep the deadly Mists, the curse of our Kingdom, from reaching the students of Vandenberghe Academy.
Roze has forced his victim to sit astride the statue of a griffin at the center of the Commons, where the student now wails the school song at the top of his lungs, completely naked except for his socks.
Around the griffin and its disgraced rider, students howl with laughter.
The poor boy’s face is rose red, and he’s shivering in the winter cold that seeps through the enclosure.
And no one is doing anything. Students litter the Commons, leaning against the stone of the castle in groups, sitting on benches with open textbooks, or crowding around the griffin to laugh at the freshman.
I sigh and look down at Saint Waffles, my pet gargoyle, sitting at attention at my feet.
Sweet little thing. Cerise, my best friend, says he looks like a dirty dish towel, but I think he’s adorable—wrinkled from claw to nubby tail, two little tusks poking up over his sagging lips, matching horns jutting from between his ears, and bat-like wings tucked onto his back.
“No one is going to stop him,” I tell Waffles.
“He’s their Prince. The Queen terrifies them. ”
Waffles blinks at me.
“If I don’t do something, no one else will.”
Waffles snorts like he knows what I’m thinking of doing and he doesn’t approve. But I have to do it. I know the sting of being outcast all too well to let it happen to someone else when I have the power to stop it.
The freshman’s voice cracks, and a chorus of laughter breaks out. I’ve had enough. I charge into the Commons, shouldering my way through the crowd, Waffles at my heels.
“Stop it!” I shout over the noise. “Let him down this instant!”
I halt just before the dais where Prince Roze stands, towering over me. He freezes when he spots me, and his face twists into a scowl. His lifeless eyes focus on me in a way that makes him look more like a portrait than an actual human being.
No, that’s not right. He’s more like a statue, cold and gray and lifeless. Irises the color of shattered glass. Hair like snow-white ash. Every angle of his face is sharp and perfect—so beautiful that he’s difficult to look at—like he’s cut from marble by a particularly disturbed sculptor.
His hands are covered in those black gloves he always wears. He slides one into the pocket of his trousers. In the other, he’s holding a bright red apple. In the leached light of the Commons, it looks like the only living thing around.
Those damn apples. Such an obnoxiously simple way the Prince shoves his wealth and status in all our faces.
The Mists came nearly two decades ago, clouds of ravenous poison sent by our enemy kingdom Castelle to destroy us, killing all life in their path—plant, animal, and human.
They forced the whole Kingdom to cage itself inside the castle, shoved together like the seeds of a pomegranate.
All that’s left of the once expansive orchards of the Aragoan countryside is a small apple grove left in the royals’ private courtyard, caged in glass and for their use and theirs alone.
In the autumn, I rarely see Roze without a beautiful ripe apple in his gloved hand, red as blood. It’s disgusting.
He takes a languid bite as he watches me.
“Sinclair.” He says my last name slowly, savoring each syllable. Roze is known for his unpleasantness, but he hates me with blistering particularity—probably because I’m the only one who refuses to tolerate his awfulness. “No ‘Good morning, Your Royal Highness’?”
I close my eyes, breathing deeply. That old familiar darkness lurks in the back of my mind, but I’ve had plenty of practice keeping it in check.
Calm.
Control.
I am the paragon of composure, and it’ll be a dark day in the sun when I let the likes of Roze Roquelart break me.
My shadows only come when anger, fear, or even unchecked joy rise too high.
But that hasn’t been an issue in a long time.
I learned self-control at a young age, as one must when the consequence of being a meiga, a wielder of magic, is death.
And if my emotions have been a little more …
difficult to contain lately? Well, I’m eighteen, aren’t I?
This is my last year at Vandenberghe—there are enormous academic and social pressures, and I have the added headache of being a prefect, which means policing the delinquent behavior of our dear, beloved Prince.
“Let him go, and give him back his clothes, or I’ll report you to the dean,” I say coolly.
The corner of Roze’s mouth bends cruelly. “Come now, Sinclair, it’s just a bit of fun. A good old-fashioned hazing. He doesn’t mind, isn’t that right, um—” He turns to the boy.
“Johnson,” the boy mutters miserably.
Prince Roze snorts, glancing down at his naked body, and the surrounding students snigger. “Who doesn’t love a little irony, eh, Sinclair?”
I glare up at him. “Let. Him. Go. Now.” I keep the command in my voice, but my breathing is turning uneven. I can feel the itch at the ends of my fingertips—my shadows begging to be set free.
The Prince’s face flickers from casual amusement to sharp cruelty. My heart pounds as I stare into his unblinking eyes.
Calm.
Composure.
I will not let him affect me.
Roze leaps down from his spot on the dais—right in front of me. He’s in my space now, a tower of arrogance. He takes another bite of his apple. Crisp, sweet-smelling flecks of apple flesh sprinkle my cheeks, and I flinch.
He swallows, and his neck bobs where a tattoo of a death’s-head hawk moth spreads its peculiarly patterned wings.
It’s one of only two things about his appearance that are slightly lifelike.
The other is the single earring of a black rose he wears in his left ear—a narcissistic reference to his name, I suppose.
But these symbols of life, the moth and the rose, contrasted with his emotionless eyes and the coldness of his features, only make him look more like a corpse.
“Why do you do this, Sinclair? Why do you make it your personal mission to be such an utter killjoy?”
I tilt my chin up at him. “You think I’m a killjoy. I think you’re a slimy, entitled ass. Regardless, you’re breaking the rules.”
“Rules,” he mutters, eyes roving over my face. “Don’t pretend you care about rules. You care about control. Just admit it, Sinclair. You’re such a bore, you wouldn’t know fun if it stripped naked and danced around in front of you. It’s pathetic. You can’t have fun yourself, so you spoil mine.”
Bore. Pathetic. The words sear me, and my chest clenches.
For just a fraction of a second, I feel a ribbon of shadow slip free from a finger.
In less than a breath, I have my breathing under control, and my hand hidden in my skirt …
but I catch the Prince’s eyes flash to my hand and then back up to my face.
I almost think he saw something, but his expression doesn’t change a bit. I quickly pull his attention back to the argument. “Believe me, Your Highness, there’s little I could do to add to your spoiling.”
Students chuckle behind us, and Roze’s frown turns brutal. He drops the apple on the ground, half eaten, and I wince at the wastefulness.
“You’re supposed to be some sort of genius, Sinclair, but you don’t have much sense if you think you can speak to me like that.”
He takes another step closer, leaning in, his perfectly bowed lips sneering at me. Then he brings his mouth close to my ear. I can feel his cool breath on my cheek, smell the aroma of spice, winter, and apple juice on him. Gooseflesh travels down my arms, and I clench my fists in my skirt.
In a voice so low only I can hear, he whispers, “You ought to be more careful. Especially now that I know what you are.” And then he breathes the final word that sets my blood on fire. “Witch.”
The last dregs of my self-restraint slip through my fingers.
I punch him.