Chapter Eight
I leave class with my arms wrapped tightly around myself, and I don’t even look in Waffles’s direction as he trots up to me, rubbing against my shin.
Executed for high treason. The words echo in my head with every step.
No wonder the Queen wants me dead.
“Are you all right, Viola?” Kole asks, a gentle hand on my shoulder.
I nearly jump out of my skin, and he pulls his hand back quickly.
“Hey,” he says softly, concern on his face as he cautiously puts his hand back on my shoulder. “What’s wrong? You were asking those questions in class and now you’re eons away.”
I take a deep breath and come back to myself. The rest of the class streams around us like a river breaking around a rock. Waffles sits between my legs protectively, like he can feel my anxiety.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for anything. Just tell me what’s going on.”
I look up at him, the familiar snap of my heart reminding me how good it feels to be this close to him. His thumb is rubbing little circles on my shoulder, and everything in me wants to melt into him.
But then my treacherous brain recalls those words he said to me not an hour ago. Congratulations. If he makes you happy. Friendly words. Indifferent words.
I force myself to take a step back and smile. “I’m fine, Kole. I promise. I just didn’t sleep well last night.”
Kole frowns but accepts this answer with a small nod.
I don’t give him time to inquire further. “Prefect meeting later, remember? I’ll see you then.” I turn away.
“Viola, wait—”
I stop short, seeing Roze leaning against the wall down the hallway. His stance is relaxed, but his eyes are those of a predator, pinned on me.
“I’ll see you later,” I mumble to Kole, and hurry over to Roze.
He merely raises an eyebrow before extending a hand to me. He really needs to practice the whole affectionate fiancé thing before people get suspicious.
“What’s wrong with your face?” he says as we walk hand in hand down the hall.
I clench my jaw and hold back an eye roll. “My face is fine.”
“No, it isn’t,” he drawls. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I have, but that’s neither here nor there. Obviously, I’m not going to tell him about my conversation with Kole or my fight with Cerise. I need to fill him in on what Sir Patrick said, but later.
“I want to go to the library,” I say.
He snorts. “Shocking.”
I send him a glare. “I want to research some local history. I think it could be tied to your father’s death.”
He sighs and says, “Very well,” as though he’s doing me a favor, not the other way around.
After an hour poring over text after text on the war with Castelle, I’m nearly pulling my hair out at the roots, biting on the end of my fountain pen as I search for anything on the role meigas played in the fight.
I discover a mountain of graphic details on the final days of the war, but there’s no mention of magic at all.
I’m reminded of what Sir Patrick said this morning—magic isn’t discussed. Ridiculous. How is fear of speaking of a thing supposed to protect us from it? How is ignorance supposed to produce answers?
I shouldn’t be doing this. We only have a few days, and it feels self-indulgent to cling to this hope that maybe, just maybe, I might not be the wicked thing they would all think I was if they knew about my shadows.
Yes, Sir Patrick thinks that all magic is rotten, but what I heard in his retelling of the events of the war was that those meigas made a choice. Maybe I have a choice too.
Besides, this research does have something to do with Roze’s father’s death.
On the King’s arm was the tattoo his own son didn’t recognize—the same runes that encircle the crest on the book: lion and dragon, Aragoa and Castelle, twisted together, as though embroiled in a fight. If the King holds the answers, maybe the war is a clue.
I glance up at Roze.
He sits opposite me while I read, his feet propped on the table obnoxiously, holding a book in his hand. I glance at the cover—a book of poetry, of all things.
“Are you going to help?” I ask.
He doesn’t look up. “I thought this was your area of expertise,” he says.
“What, reading?”
“Research.”
I slam the book shut, the sound of it echoing through the hallowed halls. Several stray students look up, and the librarian shushes me with a sour glare. “We’re here trying to solve your father’s death, so if you don’t mind, please put in just the smallest amount of effort.”
He finally looks at me over the top of his book. “Darling,” he purrs with a lazy smile. I narrow my eyes at the false term of endearment—meant to rile me, clearly. “How do you know I’m not?”
“How could a book of poetry possibly be useful?”
“And the books you’re reading? Have you found them to be useful?”
I grind my teeth as I glare at him.
He glances over my stacks of books. “The Queen likely removed all information on magic from public records.”
I groan and massage my temples.
“I need a cup of tea. Let’s take a break for lunch.” I stand and move to return the books to the shelf. Roze shrugs and follows me.
I find Waffles cornering the beloved library cat atop a bookshelf. The poor thing assumed that she could escape him by climbing up high—those little wings of his might not be good for much, but they can certainly help him scale a wall.
“Waffles,” I whisper-call. “Down. It’s time to go.”
He looks at me and back at the cat, its hair raised and mouth hissing. He volleys one more combative growl in its direction before fluttering down to meet us, knocking Roze’s hair askew with the tip of his wing on the way down.
Roze curses and mutters, “Foul creature,” smoothing his hair back into place, and I pretend to cough to hide my laughter.
As we cross under the peaked archway of the library, I notice Roze still has the book of poetry in his gloved hand. I open my mouth to ask about it—
“Oh, I meant to mention,” he says, his voice bored and aristocratic. “We’re expected at dinner.”
“Dinner? Where?”
“With my family, of course.”
I come to a dead stop in the middle of the hall. He turns around and raises an eyebrow at me.
“You must be joking,” I say.
He gives me a bemused look. “What did you think being my fiancée would entail?”
Not that, I want to scream. “Your mother sent an assassin after me!”
“And I’ve assured you that said assassin has no intention of harming you,” he says with a smirk that’s all too charming. “If we want to convince my mother that this courtship is real, we have to show her.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. “You mean act … in love … in front of your family?”
“Obviously.”
My heart does a funny flip.
“I can’t do this,” I say, and I feel my shadows nipping at my fingertips.
He gives me a strange look, like he’s struggling with something. “Viola Sinclair, the rising star of Berlaise House? Surely, she’s not afraid of a bunch of stuck-up royals.”
“But—”
I don’t want to say what I’m thinking, because it would only be fodder for Roze to mock me. They’ll see right through me—not only to the meiga that I am, but to the unwanted child, afraid of her own shadows.
I’m caught up in my own world when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I automatically flinch at the touch, and Roze pulls his hand back like he’s been stung.
“Sorry,” he mutters. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him apologize for anything.
Was … he trying to comfort me?
I blink, and his aloof expression has reappeared. “You don’t need to concern yourself with making my family like you. They make a point of disliking everyone—especially commoners. You never really stood a chance.”
“How very reassuring,” I growl.
He shrugs. “Take what you can get, Sinclair. We only need to convince them that you like me, not them.”
I snort. Easier said than done.
He gives me his best exasperated expression. “This is the surest way to guarantee your survival. We’ll convince my mother that we’ve been grotesquely in love for months and that I’ve declared my intention to marry you in a desperate hope that she will remove the thorn tattoo from my arm.”
I glance down at his forearm, where the rose and its wicked thorns are covered by his sleeve. “And will it? Convince her to remove it?”
His face goes cold, something dark and haunted passing over his eyes.
“Not for my sake. She’d slit your throat herself if she thought it would hurt me.
But if my sisters, the Court, and the whole Kingdom expect a royal wedding, she won’t risk your sudden disappearance.
The death of someone close to the family …
” He shrugs. “It would make her look weak. Like she couldn’t protect those closest to her. ”
I take a deep breath. “All right. So I’ll just pretend”—I look up, meeting those quicksilver eyes, spearing me each time I meet them like a knife through the chest, and yet, I’m always caught off guard by them— “pretend to …”
“Be in love with me,” Roze finishes, inclining his head. “Don’t act like it’s some great millstone around that pretty neck, Sinclair. I won’t bite.”
I choke on my air, but he hardly notices. He turns on his heel and says, “Let’s go to lunch. Hurry up. I’m starved.”
It’s late for lunch, but there are still a few students in the dining hall.
Heads turn our direction as we enter and pairs of eyes throughout the hall glance down at the Roquelart ring on my hand as I pass them.
By now, the rumors must’ve spread—I’m known throughout Vandenberghe Academy as the Prince’s betrothed.
I can only imagine what they’re thinking of me, the common girl who snagged a prince.