Chapter 9
Nine
Byron
With each step up the front walk, my nerves twitch harder. I keep my back straight and my head high, expelling as much of the tension as I can with a long but quiet exhalation.
Ever-entitled Elodie Devine shouldn’t have gotten under my skin like this. She’s had everything else in her life handed to her—I’m not giving her the satisfaction of rattling me.
I must have misheard her. I’ve never slipped up, never even given away a hint that my parents picked up on.
Of course, that’s almost worse. She was simply mumbling to herself about radiants know what, and I went off on her?
Well, I didn’t yell or make a scene. I kept most of my cool, as I always have. No one heard me but her.
She probably deserved it one way or another. When are the Devines and the rest of lucent high society not scheming about how to one-up someone else?
The moment I step into the house, I can’t think about Elodie or what she might or might not have said under her breath anymore.
All three of my parents are already home, Mom adjusting Dad’s bowtie by the staircase’s gleaming mahogany banister, Pa bustling around the front hall flicking through something on his phone.
“There you are!” Mom says when she sees me. “You took your time getting home. Hurry up and get your tux on. This isn’t the kind of event where fashionably late applies.”
Event?
A sketchy memory comes to me of some mention of another benefit gala coming up. Either I didn’t catch the date or it slipped my mind.
A renewed jitter runs through my nerves. I curl my fingers just slightly, the words I most want to say forming on my tongue.
I forgot it was even happening. I’d rather skip this one. It won’t make much difference whether I’m there, will it?
Before I can decide whether to say any of that, my sister dashes into the foyer, her cloud of tight curls bobbing around her face. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”
She’s chasing a piece of folded, paint-splattered paper that’s scuttling ferret-like across the Persian rug. Another magical experiment that’s gotten away from her, no doubt.
All three of our parents look at her. Pa lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Hannah! This isn’t the right time for goofing around.”
“I know,” Hannah calls over her shoulder as she sprints onward into the family room. “I didn’t mean—it was only supposed to take a minute—I’m sorry.”
Our parents exchange a glance of knit brows and tensed mouths. They were hoping Hannah would outgrow her scattered, artsy nature by the time she hit ten. It’s been three years after that, and not so much, so far.
“Maybe we should leave her at home again?” Mom murmurs to Dad.
His frown deepens. “We don’t want people to get the impression we’re hiding her. That’ll raise more questions. I’m sure she can handle herself… decently once we’re there. No one will pay her that much mind.”
Because they’ll have my parents, my Worth grandparents, and me to focus on.
I’m the heir to the Worth name. I’m the one they’re counting on.
I swallow down my protest. “What time do we need to leave?”
Mom answers without needing to look at a clock. Her organization-oriented glim means she always knows exactly what time it is. “You’ve got half an hour. The gala starts at six, but it’s an hour’s drive.”
“I’ll be ready.”
I stride up the stairs as if I always intended to. As I reach the second floor, the padding of Hannah’s footsteps below reaches my ears.
I dawdle just long enough for her to catch up. She hurries onto the landing, her dark hands with their finger-bitten nails clutched around the colorful paper.
“It would have been amazing if it’d worked like it was supposed to,” she informs me, lifting her chin. “Dad always says we should be ambitious. I’m simply extending myself.”
I give her shoulder a quick squeeze, the pang that resonates through my chest stirring up more twitches of agitation. “I don’t think he meant right before one of their galas. Show me what you were aiming for after we get back, and maybe I can help you sort out the rest.”
The flash of her smile soothes the pang but not the awful jangling sensation that’s been building beneath my skin. The second she’s moved on, I hurry into my bedroom.
One of the staff has laid out the pieces of my tux on my four-poster bed. I walk straight past it to one of my bookcases.
Every volume, alphabetical by author last name, stands with its spine perfectly aligned with all the others along each shelf. My hand reaches for the first book in one row.
Slide it just a smidge out, then back into place. Confirm it’s exactly where it should be.
And the next. And the next. And the next. All of them exactly in order.
Nothing can be that wrong if everything’s where it should be.
Gradually, the compulsion fades, taking the worst of my edginess with it. I keep going to the end of the shelf, until my mind feels totally clear. Then I step away and get on with making myself look gala-presentable.
As I shed my school uniform, I can’t stop my thoughts from drifting back to Elodie. It was her fault I got so agitated.
Not just her muttered comment after we finished our work. There’s been something about her this week… Nothing I can explain, just a vibe that keeps niggling at me every time she’s nearby.
She seemed offended by Professor Raith’s comments this morning, when normally she’d have merely rolled her eyes if he criticized her. She was blunter with me than I’d have expected when it came to working out our approach for the practicum assignment.
And what the hell was going on with her when she rushed off after class? When I first saw her, it looked almost like she was… crying.
The way she told me off afterward was pure Elodie Devine, though.
Why did I follow her? Idiotic.
There was just something so… unsettling about the way she dashed off.
I shake myself and finish buttoning up the formal shirt before looping the bowtie around my neck. I shouldn’t bother even thinking about her. The Devines are going to do what they do, and we Worths have to keep proving we’re every bit their equals.
“We have to work twice as hard, perform twice as well, just for them to see us as on the same level,” Dad said to me once, when I was ranting about the handful of classmates in fourth year who ranked higher than me even though I knew I was performing better.
It was a shitty lesson for an eight-year-old to learn, but time has proven over and over again that it’s true.
And I am performing, in every sense of the word, every day I step into the company of the established families.
Because we’re never offered one bit of the respect we’re due after our two generations proving ourselves in this country and all our history in England before that.
We look different from them. Most of the other Black magical families in North America have been stuck in the Beacon-Prep-to-void-enforcement pipeline, sent off to risk their lives exterminating the soullessly feral animals before they can wreak much havoc.
The few who’ve managed to get a foothold at Luminary Academy still tend to get stuck with lesser management jobs after graduating.
Eventually, we Worths might be able to change that. If we keep showing our successes until the establishment can’t ignore it. If we never give them a single reason to see us as different other than the color of our skin and the texture of our hair.
Speak like them. Dress like them. Act like them, except the overtly conniving behavior they’d turn against us.
I can do all that. I’ve been doing it my whole life.
I just wish I didn’t feel like I’m performing every bit as much even when I’m only in the company of my own family.
After working a bit of ephemera into my hair so the short curls lie smoother, I decide I’m ready to face this stupid gala.
I reach for my gloves instinctively and pull my hand back. It’s going to be a room full of drabs. The Worth family maintains appearances with both magical and nonmagical society. “Better to keep our options open,” my grandmother would say.
No need to worry about accidentally sparking a match, only about making an odd fashion statement.
The other gala-goers might not know about our lucent powers, but our business holdings and bank accounts are enough to impress them just fine on their own.
My parents cover the bond marks on their palms with glamours so no one remarks about those either.
I run my thumb over my own palm, provoking a tingle I didn’t expect. It always feels a little strange being around so many strangers with my hands uncovered, even though I should be used to it by now.
I’ve heard a few of my classmates bragging to each other about hooking up with drab girls. It’s one of the few ways an unmatched lucent can get their rocks off without risking additional consequences.
It’s never seemed like much of a temptation to me. Meaningless grinding of bodies, using and then discarding.
A Worth is better than that. I’m happy to wait for my match.
But as my thumb skims over the sensitive skin again, an image of Elodie flickers up in the back of my mind. How would she respond if I trailed my fingers down her slender arm, over the curve of her hip…?
Fucking hell. What is wrong with me?
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing her lithe form out of my head. Open them again and tap out a count of the knobs on the bedposts, the diamond shapes embroidered on the bedspread.
There. Everything is fine.
Squaring my shoulders, I head downstairs.
Hannah follows a minute later, fidgeting with the lacy hem of her dress.
Dad ushers us all out to the waiting car, guiding both his matches by the smalls of their backs.
When we’re in drab company, we pretend Pa is his brother rather than a second spouse, but there’s no one here to find their fated arrangement unusual.
As we wait for the driver to open the doors of the SUV, Dad reaches over to clap me on the shoulder.
“We can tell everyone you’re ranked first in your year, all set to graduate summa cum laude.
” He chuckles, but he doesn’t sound at all like he’s joking when he adds, “Don’t you let the Devine girl take it back this time. ”
With a surge of conviction, I draw my stance even taller. “Not a chance.”