17
I return to my room at the end of the day with a woven basket full of antique textbooks, jars, and quills. If I thought the rest of the instructors might take it easy on me, I was wrong.
In Alchemical Designs, we brewed sleeping draughts.
Rather, we were expected to brew sleeping draughts, and instead, I nearly burned the room to the ground because I added too much smashed faerie fruit to an enchanted mixture of lavender, rosemary, and literal stardust. In Astronomical Astrology, I had to chart a map of the entire universe with another stupid quill that tore through about nine sheets of parchment.
And in Werewolves: Ancient Evolution through the Roman Empire, Instructor Helios stood me at the front of the classroom and made me recite what mortals know about werewolves to my peers, who promptly laughed at me when I said that, for one, we aren’t supposed to shift outside of full moons.
Apparently, a hilarious concept to real werewolves.
I’m ready to curl up in a ball and sleep the night away—or maybe cry the night away.
As kind as Portia was to sit by me in each class and lend me supplies, it didn’t lessen the sting of failure after failure.
It didn’t change the fact that my existence—my tragedy—has become a joke to Evie and her friends.
Princess Evelyn.
I storm down the hall, past an open doorway swarming with maids, and wince at the fangs cutting into my lips from the sudden burst of emotion in my chest. But— wait .
I glance at an unfamiliar blue door that is most definitely not my own, then turn around.
I missed my room. Retracing my steps, I count the doors along the hall.
Mine was right near the end, however, which would make it—the open room with the low hum of commotion. Fantastic.
Two maids exit, hoisting my dresser with preternatural ease above their heads, while another enters, carrying a sudsy bucket filled with rags.
I scoot inside after her, observing the chaos with a frown.
Every inch of my room bustles with frenetic activity.
Maids scrub the walls. One tears the comforters from my bed.
Another lugs my huge mirror from the room.
Lord Allard stands in the center of it all, snapping his fingers and directing the chaos with that typical stern, raspy voice.
“Wh-what?” I manage, setting my basket of school supplies on the ground. “Why?”
Lord Allard turns his glare to the black dust on my nose—from the accident in Alchemical Designs—and then to my dress. I try not to remember how that glare felt in the back of the SUV before he stabbed me in the neck. Try so hard not to expose the two claws that begin to stretch from my fingers.
“Bitten one,” he says, his lips curling around the odious nickname. “Stay away from the maids. We don’t need you ruining anything else today.”
He pivots away from me, large nose stuck arrogantly in the air, and I understand well enough that none of my earlier failures have been contained to the classrooms where they occurred.
I wince and cross my arms, as though I might be able to disappear from this moment, this castle. I hate it here. I want to go home.
But… I can’t.
And that leaves me with no choice but to stand in the corner, hiding my crooked claws and fangs and the red flush that spreads in a rash over my chest. I was never meant to be a werewolf.
Oona pops out her head from the bathroom as if she can hear the thought—or maybe she can just scent my embarrassment—and waves me through the passageway. “Come, come, girl. You have decisions to make.”
“Yes, girl ,” Lord Allard murmurs viciously as I trudge past him. “Go.”
I harden my steps, rolling back my shoulders as if I don’t care about any of this.
Only when I enter the bathroom do I slouch away from the facade.
Oona perches on a clamshell seat at a candlelit vanity.
A journal sprawls open on the marble surface, and she quickly traces a trimmed peacock feather over the yellowing pages.
“Not your best day?” she asks, and though she keeps her head down, I hear the sentiment in her voice. The care and concern.
“I’ve had better,” I say quietly.
She nods once, her ringlets bouncing with the terse motion. “The maids are here to clear your room,” she explains without needing me to voice my questions. “I’m to schedule the new ornamentation. What would you like for your room?”
My old one , I think desperately. The one with the wrinkled bedsheets that might still smell like Celeste, and the door that’s mildly dented from how often my father would knock on it, and my teddy bear.
But I can’t say that, especially not with everyone listening.
I slump against the vanity and shrug. “I… I don’t know. ”
“A garden theme, perhaps,” Oona suggests, “or an oceanic theme. Are you interested in star charts or the violin? We could craft you a pianoforte trunk, or a roaring fireplace if you catch cold easily?”
With each idea, frustration simmers hotter and hotter under my skin. Today is too much. An avalanche of this new world. An ambush. I can’t handle anything more. I snatch the quill from her hand and slam it down on the vanity with trembling fingers. “Please, Oona, no—”
Her gaze flicks to the passageway, to the bedroom and the cruel lord that wait beyond it, and she shakes her head. Lifting a finger to her lips briefly, she says only, “We must.”
We must. Because if the court knows how miserable I am, there will be more ridicule.
Maybe punishments if they view me as unworthy or ungrateful.
I shut my eyes, rubbing away tension with claws that scratch my skin from a temple that heals itself instantly.
I am a monster. There is no escaping it.
And perhaps before I had harbored daydreams of my father showing up with the entire force and stealing me back, but…
it’s been days. He’s not coming. Even though it’s my birthday, he won’t come. He can’t come.
I am alone here.
“Vanessa,” Oona says, her gaze finally meeting mine, “you can ask for anything.” She nods again, this one more encouraging, as though she’s telling me this should be a bright spot amidst the darkness. I chew on my lower lip, contemplating my answer.
“My favorite colors are purple and black, and I—I like movies. Television. My bedroom has always been my safe space, so I would prefer for it to feel cozy. I liked the flowers, though. The wisteria. And… and roses. And—” I stop myself before I can finish the request. It’s silly, probably insulting.
But Oona nudges me to go on, so I suck down a breath.
“Cherry perfume. If there’s a way to get any—”
Oona takes her quill and scribbles everything down, underlining the cherry perfume request several times. “Consider it done.”
I reach out to take her hand, but she’s bent over the journal, writing furiously, so instead I say, “Thank you, Oona. I appreciate it.”
“I hope you haven’t compelled her again,” a deep, infuriating voice says behind me. I whirl around to find Calix blocking the whole of the passage, a stack of dusty tomes in his hands and a scowl on his brutally handsome face. The worst.
I’m not pleased with Sin either, but while he spent the day ignoring me, Calix spent the day laughing at my failures with the meanest of my classmates.
Okay, he didn’t exactly laugh , but he would watch me with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, and I knew he wanted to—if only he were capable of such a human action.
Oona swivels around on her seat before I can respond. “Calix—er, Lord Severi, hello.”
“Not lord , Oona. You know that.” Calix doesn’t take his gaze off me, and he steps forward.
It feels threatening, the same as the blood on my chest or the note thrown at my back, but he doesn’t do anything except dump the books in my arms. The weight of the thick texts nearly sends me sprawling on the floor, but I collect myself and shift them onto the vanity.
“More books,” he explains shortly. “Born werewolves read them as children.”
I grind my teeth. I hate him I hate him I hate him.
“Gee, thanks.” Glaring at him, I almost forget that I was ever embarrassed at all. Rather, rage tethers me to this moment. It seems to strengthen my resolve. “What a lovely gesture.”
He scoffs, rolling his gaze to the ceiling and spinning toward the exit.
Before he can leave, however, a maid darts away from him as if Calix is carrying a plague.
One scrubbing the wall holds her breath, and another drops the vase she’s holding right where she stands.
The porcelain shatters into a thousand tiny pieces on the ground.
Calix doesn’t remove his gaze from the ceiling—doesn’t seem surprised, just…
annoyed. I narrow my eyes, watching him and the maids who do their best to avoid him.
Why?
Before I can properly contemplate this, Lord Allard shouts, “You fool!” And I blink out of my stupor. Calix stiffens.
Lord Allard grabs the maid who dropped the vase by her ruffled collar and hoists her in the air. “Do you know what century that pottery was from?”
Her brown eyes widen, and the stench of fear thickens. “N-no, my lord. I’m sorry, my lord.”
“Pick it up,” he demands.
“B-b-but…” The maid licks her burgeoning fangs. “My lord, I will fetch the dustpan and broom—”
“No,” Lord Allard snaps. His yellow eyes burn brighter, brighter. “ Without shifting, you will use your hands, and you will pick up every single piece of detritus until the floor is sparkling.”
He drops her, and she lands directly on the sharp porcelain.
The scent of copper blows toward us as her blood leaks on the ground.
She does not cry, though. She does not even argue.
The task is impossible—the pieces are so tiny, it would take hours to clean them all, not to mention the injuries.
But… she begins to pick them up. Collects the jagged remains, so many that her fingers appear as if they’ve been impaled by crystals.
Scarlet runs down her arm. She hardly blinks.
Compulsion , I realize suddenly. He compelled her.
I stumble farther into the bathroom, and Oona yanks me away from their view.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to see the maid to smell her blood and fear.
I don’t need to see Lord Allard to be disgusted by him.
He compelled her over a broken vase. Monster.
Hatred ripples through me, unleashing the rest of my claws.
Calix glances at me and tenses even more.
Low, under his breath and barely audible, he says, “You will never survive here, Hart.” Then, before he can leave, “If you know what’s good for you, stay away from us. Stay away from the prince.”
Sitting on the edge of the tub, forcing my breaths to even, I have no choice but to agree with him.