Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
B riony
I wake the next day drowning in a bog of guilt.
Shadow weavers took my sister from me. I loathe them. Detest them. I hate them.
And yet, last night what I did …
I groan with shame, roll over in my bed and pull the feeble covers over my head, ignoring the clang of the tower bells reminding me I have to be up.
I brushed my teeth three times when I got back to my room last night and yet I swear I can still taste that son-of-a-bitch in my mouth. Plus, I’m a little sore between my legs and my jaw aches.
However, despite all that, I can’t deny my skin is still tingling, and my core still prickling, with electricity.
I groan more loudly. That’s the worst thing about it. I can’t deny it. I enjoyed what happened last night, even if I hate myself for it now.
It makes the guilt and the betrayal ten times worse, pressing on my chest like a heavyweight.
How could I do this to her? How could I let her down like this?
My sister would have done anything for me – anything. She was the one who looked after me, who looked out for me, who made sure I had clothes to wear, food to eat, a bag packed for school each day. This was long before the days of Muriel, back when father still worked. But without a mom to look after us, Amelia stepped into that role even though I can see now she was still just a kid herself.
When she didn’t return from the academy, I made a promise to her – I made a promise to myself – I’d discover the truth. I’d find out what happened to my sister. And what have I done so far? Nothing.
At some point in the morning, there is a light rap on my door.
“Cupcake, are you in there?” Fly whispers through the wood.
“Urgh,” I moan in reply.
He pushes back the door and creeps inside. “Not feeling so good this morning? You know the perfect cure for a hangover – fat and grease and bread, lots of bread.”
“I’m not hungover,” I say from under the cover.
“Really?” he says, the mattress creaking as he perches on the side of the bed, “because you were pretty wasted last night.”
“I’m fine. Dray Eros gave me some kind of sobering concoction.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
I peel back the cover and peer up at him. To my surprise, Fly is not looking hungover this morning either. In fact, he’s looking his usual bright and dapper self.
“It’s complicated,” I tell him.
“One thing I’m learning, Cupcake, it always is with you.” He examines my face. “Do I take it the rest of your evening was not a success?”
“Define success?”
“Did you get to fuck the Princes?”
“No,” I shriek but I guess my eye must twitch or something.
“Hmmm,” Fly says. “Something did happen though?”
I groan. “Something did happen.”
“Are you going to tell me what?”
I shake my head.
“Spoil sport,” he snips. “So why so unhappy about it?” Horror streaks across his face. “They didn’t–”
“No!” I shriek again. “I just …”
“Have some regret?” he says with sympathy. I nod. “Well, don’t. Life’s too short for that, Cupcake. And life is definitely too short to be lying about in bed. Especially on our one day off!”
“But there’s nothing to do!” I whine.
“No problem,” he says, tapping his fingers against his mouth, “luckily I have an idea. Get dressed and meet me outside in half an hour. I’m going to go see if Clare is still alive.”
Thirty minutes later I’m hugging my jacket tight around me and waiting for Fly, the wind whipping loose strands of my hair around my face.
“What exactly did you have planned?” I call to him as he approaches with Clare by his side. “I hope it’s indoors because it’s a tad bit windy out here.”
“I know,” he says with a grin. “Perfect, isn’t it?”
I glance at Clare who shrugs, then winces. “My head hurts so much!” she groans. “Why couldn’t you leave me alone to die in peace?”
“Because a bit of fresh air to blow away the cobwebs is exactly what you need.”
“It’s a little bit more than fresh,” I complain, yanking hair from my face.
“Come on you two, quit the complaining.”
He hooks his arms through both of ours and drags us along the cobbled pathways and out to the edge of the campus. There he leads us right to where the manicured fields end and the moorland encroaches all the way up to the edge of the towers.
“Come on,” he says, stepping onto the rough terrain.
“Where exactly are we going?” I say.
“That’s the thing with surprises,” he says, “if you tell the person what it is, you spoil it.”
He marches us across the moorland and Clare groans, then makes a queasy face.
“I can’t walk any further. I think I’m going to vomit.” She peers at me. “How come you seem okay? Weren’t you as drunk as I was?”
“Yes, but Dray Eros gave me something to sober me up – seems it cured any potential hangover too.”
“See, being a thrall has its advantages,” Fly points out. I think of the two awesome orgasms I was treated to last night – definitely another advantage. My cheeks pinken. Something Fly spots immediately.
“What?” he hisses.
“Huh?” I respond, pretending to straighten my jacket against the wind and not meeting his eyes.
“What was that?” he sweeps his forefinger in my direction. “That blush.”
“I didn’t blush.”
“You’re still blushing now, Cupcake.” He turns to Clare. “She regrets something that happened last night – something that was obviously dirty enough to make her blush just thinking about it – but she won’t give me the details.”
“I imagine it’s private,” Clare says.
“Exactly,” I respond.
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that!” Fly whines, walking us several hundred meters away from the tall buildings and then stopping.
“This should do it,” he mumbles.
“Do what?” I say, spinning around. There is nothing here. Nothing to see and clearly nothing to do.
Fly unzips his jacket.
“Are we getting our own private strip show?” I ask. “Is this what this is? Couldn’t we have done that indoors?”
“You wish, Cupcake,” he says, pulling out a piece of material from inside his jacket. The cloth is multicolored and cut into the shape of a diamond and he holds it up to show us.
“A kite?” I say. This is not what I was expecting.
“Yep, a kite. It’s the best I could do with the limited resources I had.”
“You made it?” I say.
“I did. Had to sacrifice quite a good shirt for it too.”
“Shhh, don’t let the teachers hear. They’ll have you carted off to Slate Quarter for manual craft work in no time.”
“We can make things in Iron Quarter, you know.”
“And in Granite,” Clare pipes up.
“I used to make and fly these with my grandpa, before, you know, I became the disappointment.” He smiles sadly. Then hands me the kite. “Here, hold this out in front of you, at the bottom tip.”
I do as he says, and he unwinds the string, stepping further and further away from me as he does. When he’s content with the distance, he yells towards me.
“Okay, Briony, toss it up.”
Bending my knees, I throw the kite up into the air. The wind catches it immediately and it swerves around like a crazed bird before crashing into the ground.
“Again,” Fly commands me, untangling the string.
This time, I concentrate on making my throw straighter and higher and somehow Fly manages to time it with a tug on the string and before we know it, the kite is sailing up into the sky. Fly runs out the string and we watch it climb higher and higher into the gray clouds, bright and vibrant among them, a trail of bows bobbing after it.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell Fly as the three of us stand and watch it.
“It’s not bad,” he says.
“You and your grandpa used to make them?”
“Yeah, he showed me how. He was different too. We’d disappear together and for a moment I’d feel like maybe I did belong somewhere. After all, if the kite could escape all the way up there in the sky among the birds and the wind and the clouds, maybe I could belong somewhere just as crazy.”
“Granite’s not that crazy,” Clare says matter-of-factly. “It’s actually pretty boring.”
“Maybe I won’t fit in there either, then,” Fly says, a little sadly.
I lean my head against his shoulder.
“Do you want a go, ladies?” he asks us both.
“I’m barely managing to remain upright,” Clare tells him. “I cannot operate another vessel as well.”
“How about you, Briony?”
“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to break it.”
“Kites are meant to be broken. That’s what my grandpa always said.” He passes the string to me. “Hold it tight.”
I’m thankful for the warning. The kite tugs against the string much more firmly than I expected, attempting to break free, and the whole line vibrates with tension.
We’re so engrossed in watching the kite dance above our heads, we don’t see the Smyte twins crossing the moorland from the woods, heading our way, until they’re almost upon us, their wild long hair caught in the wind and the soles of their boots caked in mud.
Where the hell did they come from?
Their faces are almost identical but I’m beginning to be able to tell them apart. Henrietta’s hair falls more to the left and she has the tiniest of scars above her right eyebrow. Lynette blinks a little more than her sister and talks less.
“Oh look,” Henrietta says to her sister, loud enough to ensure we can hear. “How quaint. They’re flying a kite.”
Lynette giggles. “One they patched together themselves by the looks of it.”
“Now don’t be cruel, Linny. They don’t have magic for these things, do they? Poor pathetic little souls.”
She adopts an exaggerated expression of sympathy, curling down her bottom lip, but then her gaze lands on me. Her eyes narrow immediately.
“If it isn’t that little bitch from Slate Quarter. The one who thinks she’s worth more than she is.”
Clare gasps. She was wholeheartedly convinced Thorne’s speech the other day would end all the abuse directed at me. She’s shocked to find the opposite.
I am not. I knew it would only make it worse. I know how people like the Smyte twins work.
It doesn’t deter Clare though. My mild little friend – who possibly had all her sense pickled by alcohol last night – stares at Henrietta and says, “You can’t talk to her like that.”
Henrietta’s face turns ugly. I doubt anyone has ever told her she can’t do something – certainly not a commoner.
“What did you just say to me, scum?”
Clare immediately realizes her mistake and I step in front of her protectively.
“I-I-I-I just meant that Thor–”
“Are you still talking to me?!” Henrietta roars. “Who the hell do you think you are to dare to presume to tell me what I can and can’t do? Do you know who I am?” We all look at her silently, sensing it would be better not to speak. “Well, do you?”
“We know,” Fly says.
“Then you know what I can do!” Her eyes flicker with menace and she shoots her hand up into the sky, lightning racing from her fingertips and towards the clouds.
“Briony!” Fly shouts out.
But it’s too late, Henrietta’s lightning strikes the flimsy kite high above us and it bursts into flames, electricity shoots down the string and straight into my arm.
I don’t even have time to scream. I’m tossed across the grass, and the lights flick out.