Chapter 3
My mother might be the most venomous snake of them all.
Never before have I seen that side of her, and I have seen so many sides, so many faces, so many masks over the years.
I have witnessed the cold steel shift in her when she’s challenged, especially among other aristos witches; the way she lifts her chin and her eyes darken into black holes when Father is curt with her; the clack of her nails when her own mother won’t conform to the ways of the aristos; even the silent snarls she reserves for Grandmother Ethel, mostly behind her back.
I have seen Mother chew up and spit out a hairdresser, a salon manager, my uncle, my father—anyone who crosses her.
I have even seen her react to Oliver’s childish antics, when on our eighth birthday, he tried to convince me I’m adopted, and she snapped—and she smacked him on the backside about a dozen times, and it frightened me so much that I was frozen in place for the whole thing.
But I’ve never seen that.
The hollowness in how she looked at me, a disappointment that yawned on like an eternal chasm in her eyes, a coldness in her that—now having witnessed it—I figure is the reason she got to where she is.
Now, as she walks the corridors alongside me, a chaperone to my bedchamber, and Abigail is rushing ahead with my pillow and overnight bag, I can’t stop cutting my gaze aside to her.
What she told me, it wasn’t only to help me. It was to chide me.
Mother is disappointed in me.
Disappointed that I didn’t figure it all out on my own. That I will probably make a subpar elite aristos woman in these tricky games our lives revolve around.
She made sure to emphasise that, not only does Serena understand the game, but Mother did too, when she was just a gentry student at Bluestone.
It makes me wonder…
If I’d never been pushed out by Dray, literally shoved down onto the snow at VeVille that very first day at the academy, would I have learned the game better?
Maybe all those years on the outs of the inner circle has damaged my hand in the game.
Father cares about my grades at the academy, and that’s where I put in most of my effort. Not that it was ever much.
But all this time, Mother cared most about my tactics among aristos—and truly, that skill will be more useful to me than the classwork I struggle with.
Mother doesn’t hide the disappointment, the judgement.
Her chin is lifted, and when it is, it looks extra sharp; a jaw like a fistful of knives. Her inky eyes bore into Abigail rushing ahead up the corridor.
And she doesn’t speak a word as she steps through the open door to my bedchamber, leaving me to trail behind her.
The weather outside has iced me to the bone.
I’m shivering by the time I’m kicking off my shoes at the door—
And I bolt, rigid, as the rotary phone on the side table chimes.
Mother moves for the phone.
Panic flurries like a plague of moths in my belly.
Please don’t be Eric, please don’t be Eric—
The steeliness of Mother’s mood clings to her. She snatches the receiver and brings it to her sharp profile.
Her greeting is as cold as my prickled flesh, “Olivia’s line.”
My heart is pinned to my spine, struck silent. I’m rooted to the spot, just two steps in from the doorway.
Mother’s voice softens, “How are you, dear?”
I loosen a breath.
Dear.
Can only be Serena.
The who isn’t the mystery.
It’s the why that hums through me.
Serena has pretty much blanked me since Rugby Sunday. So why she’s calling me now, that is a fucking mystery—but then, so is the behaviour of every viper in this den of serpents I live in.
I feel like a worm among them, sort of the same, mostly not, and hoping they don’t see that I’m not one of them.
An exhale deflates me before I peel off my sweater. It’s sopping wet, and so it slaps when I toss it onto the sideboard.
The pillow and bag are set down by the door, abandoned there, and now, the rush of water comes from the ensuite.
It’s the only good news I’ve had today—Abigail is running me a bath.
“Olivia is unwell.” Mother’s soft voice lures my gaze back to her. “I will tell her you called.”
My frown lands on the phone before she lowers the receiver, and it clangs as it slots in place.
Mother spares me a cold look before she makes for the door.
‘You know it, don’t you? That is why you always hide from your father’s calls.’
My frown fades. It softens. I feel the slackness washing down my damp face as I watch her leave. And she does.
‘You know your father only tolerates you…’
Without a word of comfort, no offers to help me, she just brushes by me and closes the door behind her.
‘His greatest shame.’
My mouth tilts.
I stare at the door, as if I can will her back to my room, back to her warmth, and she’ll tell me all the things I want to hear, that she will end the engagement, order Father to protect me.
‘How difficult it must be for him to love you—for the sake of your mother.’
She doesn’t return.