Chapter Seven
We’re surrounded by other students streaming into the lecture hall for Early Modern History when Roze stops and looks down at me, frost in his eyes. “I’ll be back by the time your class lets out. Do not go anywhere without me.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” I say with a bite in my voice and a mocking smile.
He glances around at the other students, most of whom are blatantly staring at us together. At our joined hands. At my hand with its obnoxiously large engagement ring.
Roze turns his gaze on me, a hard, fiery look in his eyes. My breath catches. I’m not sure how I know, but the air around us has changed, and I’m certain … he’s going to kiss me.
It’s for the benefit of the crowd. It shouldn’t matter.
Because he’s awful, and a beautiful face doesn’t change that.
And yet, my heart is thumping wildly against my ribs, and my eyes fall of their own accord to the perfect bow of his lips—lips I’m so used to seeing curled into a sneer.
But they’re not sneering now. They’re relaxed and open and—
I don’t remember deciding to wet my lower lip with my tongue, but when I do his eyes unmistakably catch the movement.
The knot of his tie bobs with his swallow.
Something swoops in my chest, and suddenly, I want him to kiss me, even if it’s a horrible idea, even if I’ll regret it later.
In this moment, all I know is an undeniable need to feel his lips on mine, to know whether they’re soft or needy, careful or as cruelly demanding as he is.
But then Roze quickly leans down, grabs my hand, and kisses it. His lips never even touch my skin. Instead, he kisses the enormous Roquelart ring on my finger. His own family’s crest.
He can’t even stand for his lips to touch my skin. He finds me that repulsive? Sure, kiss the Crown jewels. Stay far away from commoner skin.
I tear my hand away from his a little too harshly and plaster on a saccharine smile. “I’ll see you soon, Prince,” I say sweetly.
He doesn’t even reply—just offers a swift nod, turns on his heel, and strolls off. Saint Waffles yips at him as he leaves, as though he were the one to scare him off.
“What the hell?” says a voice behind me.
Cerise. I’d been so focused on watching Roze leave, I hadn’t noticed her approach. Saints, I haven’t thought through what to say to her about the engagement. I’m burning to tell her everything—the whole nasty ordeal.
But I can’t.
Because I’m a murderer. I covered it up. And the Queen, of all people, wants me dead. There is only one person who I can trust with that information, who is already as much at risk as I am—Roze. For Cerise’s sake, there’s no way I’m going to drag her into this.
I turn toward her, and her expression turns guarded as she glances between my face and the Roquelart ring. “Viola, what happened? You went to see your adviser, and now everyone’s talking— Tell me you’re not actually engaged to Roze Roquelart.”
Word travels fast. How many people saw us together at breakfast?
I chew on the inside of my cheek. I have to come up with a lie, and quickly. “It’s true,” I say carefully.
Her eyes go wide. “But you hate that little weasel.”
“I wanted to tell you,” I say, looking down as I fiddle with the hem of my sweater. “But … you know, with him being a prince and all, we didn’t want the pressure, so we kept it a secret.”
She blinks. “For how long?”
I hesitate. It must be long enough that an engagement would be reasonable. I shrug. “A few months.”
“A few months?” she nearly screeches. People are starting to stare.
I sigh and grab her by the elbow, leading her out of the crowd waiting outside the lecture hall and finding us a semiprivate spot beside a suit of armor. “Yes, a few months,” I say. “I would’ve said something, but I had to keep it quiet.”
Her face doesn’t relax. Instead, she knots her brows. “How … how did this even happen?”
“That’s … hard to say. It just sort of did.”
Her glare clearly tells me I’ll have to do better than that.
I shuffle my feet, wrapping my arms around myself as I try my best to lie like my life depends on it to my best friend.
“A few months ago, at the start of term, I was … in the library one day, and he was there. Just up to his usual antics with his friends, I suppose. Anyway, I told him off, and we started arguing. After a while his friends got bored and left, but Roze and I were still at each other’s throats. And then somehow arguing turned into …”
An image unfolds completely unbidden in my imagination—a dark corner of the library, my back against a wall of books, Roze’s face buried in my neck. My head is flung back, and his hands are running up my sides.
I shake my head, banishing the image.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks. “You know you can trust me.”
Saints, she sounds so sincere. My heart squeezes painfully. It hadn’t occurred to me until now that the hardest part of this nightmare isn’t going to be staying alive or spending time with Roze. It’s going to be lying to my friends.
“I know—”
“What about Kole?”
I take a deep breath. I told Cerise weeks ago about my growing feelings for Kole. I hadn’t wanted to deal with that reality yet—what he’ll think now that I’m engaged to the Prince.
“A … decoy,” I lie. “I told you I liked Kole so you wouldn’t pick up on things between Roze and me.”
She looks so hurt, and my heart feels like a rubber band is squeezing it.
“I’m so sorry, Cerise,” I say, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I trust you. I do.”
But she’s not looking at me. “You sure lie a lot for someone who does.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. What else is there to say?
Behind her, the doors to the hall have opened and the bells signaling the beginning of the lecture period have started to chime.
“I don’t want to be late for class,” she says, not meeting my eyes. Her face looks gray. “See you.”
She enters the lecture hall without waiting, going to a seat near the back, far away from where she usually sits beside me.
I leave Waffles outside, where he takes up his usual sentry position by the door, and find my way to my seat, fighting the weight of my heart in my stomach.
The lecture hall smells of thick dust and polished oak—pure academia.
It’s a smell I’ve come to associate with home, joy, friendship …
But today, it makes my chest ache. The whole world can burn around me as long as Cerise and I are okay. But if she’s mad? If I hurt her?
Saints, all I want to do is crawl back in bed and pretend this day never happened.
Kole is already in the seat beside mine, bent over his notes on the small foldout desk.
All three of us coordinated our schedules to have this class together this semester to fulfill our history requirement.
Our professor, Sir Patrick Porcher, is notoriously difficult, and we knew we wouldn’t survive without each other.
As I go to my seat, heads turn my way, and whispers scatter across the room. I drop my eyes to the ground. I wish this stupid ring wasn’t so conspicuous. It feels like a beacon on my hand.
I slip into my seat beside Kole and mutter a rushed greeting, hoping to avoid eye contact. After Cerise’s interrogation, I’m not keen to hear what Kole thinks of my engagement.
“Morning,” he mutters.
I look up, meeting his eyes, and my heart warms the way it always does with him.
His hair is slightly unkempt today, like he’s just woken up, and his expression is tired but pleasant.
The only word that could describe him like this is cozy.
He’s the human version of a wool sweater and a hot cup of tea. Adorable.
“Congratulations, by the way,” he mumbles, and my heart sinks.
“Oh … uh, thank you.”
He’s silent for a few moments, apparently reading his notes. But that can’t be it, can it? That can’t be all he has to say. I just got engaged.
“You approve?” I ask.
He blinks and lifts his eyebrows. “Sure. If he makes you happy.”
I stare, completely dumbfounded for several seconds before I remember that I’m supposed to be pleased. I nod and try to smile, but my stomach turns sour.
I didn’t realize until just now that I’d hoped to see a glimmer of … of something from Kole. Shock, protectiveness, maybe even a little jealousy. But he seems perfectly content to accept that I’m now engaged to a man I claimed to hate only yesterday. It’s like he doesn’t know me.
But I’m reminded that no one really does. Not with my secrets.
I busy myself with retrieving my notes from my bag, but my heart is aching in my chest, and shadows push at my fingertips.
I quickly hide them under the table and take a steadying breath.
Calm.
Control.
I can’t lose it now. There’s too much on the line.
I’m taking deep breaths, begging my body to steady itself.
Kole doesn’t even notice—he’s so fixated on his notes.
I’m normally the one who can barely peel myself away from my homework, and yet here he is, so distracted by school that he isn’t even aware that I’m imploding in the middle of the lecture hall.
Calm.
Control.
And then there’s Cerise. Who would have noticed, should have noticed that something was wrong, but she’s at the back of the room, quick to abandon me as soon as she thought I’d slipped up.
But I hadn’t. I hadn’t lied to her about some months-long dalliance with the Prince of Aragoa or pretended to be infatuated with Kole to cover it up.
I hadn’t lied until today, and only because I had to.
I didn’t have a choice. Did she give me the benefit of the doubt?
Did she stick with me, promise to talk it through?
No, she got hurt and shut me out. Was our friendship that fragile? Was I that easy to leave?
And now … I’m alone.
I am utterly alone.
Calm!
Control!
Darkness snakes around my fingers as my vision blurs with unexpected tears. Damn Cerise. Damn Kole. Damn Roze. Especially Roze. Damn my horrible, treacherous shadows!