Chapter 14 #2
Astrology is split between my least and most favourite class, depending on the day.
Sometimes, the master can’t be bothered running the lesson, and so we’re left to pair up and read each other’s charts.
It’s fun. But then the days come where we do actual work, and we have to create someone’s chart, calculate with their dates and times of birth, and gods, it’s awful, tracking coordinates of planetary alignments on a particular day, at a particular time—my brain melts.
Right now, Astrology is a lot of the not-fun side.
Society History, World History, Mathematics, Basic Sciences, and the Study of Print Magic are all about the same—boring before, boring now.
Even the lessons are prioritising the upcoming examinations. To practice in class is fun—but it’s also a distraction, having to stay concerned about a brew out in the gardens, or in the herbs in the greenhouse growing well, any of that could distract a senior from the print exams.
But I don’t need to worry about those.
The thought of skipping the next lesson breezes through my mind as I push my weight into the solid wood door.
Vanilla perfume and damp warmth hit me like a smack to the face.
The bathroom is over-fragranced, the burn quick to ignite at the back of my throat, and I rush through the bubble of too many diffusers in one spot.
I do my business, feeling a bit lighter at the thought of skipping class, because it’s all tailored to them, the witches with access to their prints, to their magic, and I don’t need to suffer boring-ass lectures for their benefit.
As I sling the backstrap over my shoulder and fiddle with the lock at the same time, the faint whirl of a tap running is a distant echo through the bathroom.
I slip out of the water closet, letting the solid wood door shut softly behind me.
But I hesitate.
My gaze latches onto the slender figure curved over the sink, pale and delicate hands cupped under the running tap, and my eyes throw back in a dramatic roll.
Asta mirrors that disdain.
Her sharp eyes lift in the mirror, and the moment she spots me, her face hardens.
She watches my entire slow, unwilling approach to the row of sinks.
I halt at the basin three down from her—and she turns her tap off.
I expect her to leave.
So as she flicks her delicate hands, aiming droplets into the porcelain sink, like she’s stalling, I rush the lathering of my fingers.
I can’t deal with this, not again.
Like Eric, Asta is the least of my problems, and I don’t have the energy to spare on her and her jealousies.
Even if they are justified.
For a moment, she just flicks and flicks and flicks her hands, until there are no more droplets to spring free.
I rinse the soapy suds from between my fingers.
Finally, she speaks—and it isn’t at all what I expected, “I thought Landon was with you.” Her delicate voice glides like silk, and I want nothing more than to grab a pair of scissors and hack at it.
The look I throw at her is unimpressed, but the snap of my voice is utterly annoyed, “What?”
The gloss of her nails shimmers as she reaches for the dispenser, and she slides out a paper towel. “He isn’t in the mess hall.”
I blink at her, then turn my cheek with a slight shake of my head. “And that’s my business, why?”
The dullness of my gaze matches my tone, my sagged shoulders, the overall aura of energy vampire I’m wearing today.
But that doesn’t deter Asta.
“Aren’t you two the best of friends now?”
There it is.
The reason she stalled and loitered. To wait until she had me trapped, then launch her attack.
Thankfully, Asta’s attacks are words.
Vicious, but words, and in the face of the true threat, the unavoidable consequences of the interview, Asta isn’t all that intimidating anymore.
“Or is that you and Serena?” she adds, and there it is, the shift from silk to a sword.
A sigh deflates me.
I finish rinsing my hands, then turn off the tap. “I don’t spend much time with them, actually.”
It’s true.
Not a peace offering, not an excuse, just a fact.
Landon and Serena might be trying their best to fit into my shadow, but I’m quick moving, and I’ve learned in my time at the academy to be as evasive as possible within these walls.
Avoiding is my specialty.
I hit the slopes with Landon over the weekend.
Mildred’s attack on me gave me the excuse to stick to my dorm. It has only been a couple of days, but in those days I’ve made sure to hide out from the Snakes and the dangers that come with them.
As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t stolen any of Asta’s friends.
Her scoff is as delicate as a chime. “If she isn’t with Oliver, she is with you nowadays. How things change over a single winter.”
My face contorts, and I lift the look to the mirror.
The fright of my reflection should startle me.
I’m certain I ran a brush through my hair this morning before running off to Star Theory, but my hair has apparently forgotten that.
Strands are pilled and pulled from the ponytail, wisps around my face, and not in the cute way, and—is that a crumb?
I lean over the sink and, with wet fingers, pick out a small piece of white burrowed into the thickness of my limp ponytail.
My mouth downturns.
Pinched between my fingers is a scrap of paper.
I did fall asleep with assignments around me on the bed. Looks like I maybe didn’t brush my hair before wrangling it up this morning.
Asta’s nose crinkles, her gaze glued to me as I flick the scrap of paper into the sink.
My huff is impatient. “What do you want?”
Asta is tight-lipped as I snatch out a paper towel and, unkindly, smack it along my hands. I’m too rough with it, and I can hear the echo of Mother’s voice, ‘Hands tell age where a face does not.’
In other words, I’m worsening the future wrinkles and roughness of my hands, and there’s no botox to be injected into my fingers to make them look youthful.
I toss the paper towel into the bin, then turn to face Asta. I lean against the sink, my hip digging into the porcelain edge, and fold my arms.
“Go on,” I say. “Now’s your moment. Say what you need to say—and get this over with.”
Her lashes lower.
Slowly, like a curling snake, she turns to face me, and her hand comes down, firm, on the edge of the sink. “Serena does not like you.”
My lashes flutter, just once, but enough to betray the surprise flickering through me.
Not quite where I thought this would go.
My shuttering mask encourages Asta.
“She never did. Even when we were children, and no one knew you were a deadblood,” she says, and states it plainly, like a fact, as truthfully as stating that the mountains are snowy and cold. “Serena was your friend because she had to be.”
There’s something not wholly malicious about the way she’s telling me.
The words themselves are cutting at me, papercuts slashing through my insides, but Asta’s delivery, her tense expression, her rigid fingers on the basin, and even the hesitation in the clench of her jaw as she takes a beat, it’s all quite nervous.
“Do you have a point you’re getting to, or are you just jabbing?” I tilt my head, smoothing out the hurt from my face. “I do have other places to be. Literally anywhere but here with you.”
“Serena is out for herself.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Her smile is terse. “If she is cosying up to you, there is a reason for it.”
Is this Asta’s way of hinting at my engagement? Her push in the direction of the revelation?
Dray has orders out there, orders to not tell me anything about my secret engagement.
I’m sure Asta doesn’t want the blame of telling me outright, so she’s hinting and guiding me to the right thought process—but I already know.
So I sigh something impatient, then glance at my watch. “We all have our motives. Is that all?”
Asta’s mouth purses for a beat, and it’s a look I’ve never seen on her perfectly beautiful face before. A face that now ends with a cat’s bum.
It’s unseemly, her parents would chide her for it, my mother might too, but it sticks as she glides a menacing step closer to me.
“Serena, for all her confidence, is as scared as any of us.” She takes another step closer. “Serena cannot stand alone.”
Asta stops at the sink, her hand firm on the edge of the basin, and her nose just a minty breath away from mine.
“Serena has had motive to befriend you for a decade.” Asta arches a preened brow.
“Considering she’s engaged to your brother, she could have at least maintained a friendly acquaintanceship with you—and look at all those events over the years, all those opportunities to speak to you, when it would have been most acceptable for her to do so… did she?”
My face tightens. My teeth clench together.
I don’t answer.
“How many times at Rugby Sunday did Serena ask how you are, ask about your winter break, ask anything at all about you?”
The thickness in my throat is barbed.
I swallow the pain back.
Asta’s smile isn’t victorious. It’s grim. “What about all the balls, all the trips around the world, all the dinners and the New Years? Name one time she treated you like the sister of her fiancé.”
My mouth thins, and I bite down on my lips for a beat before they pucker back into place.
Asta sighs, soft. “Everyone at this school, in our world, underestimates you.”
My brows lift—and then the surprise fades, and I’m just waiting for the final blow.
The punchline.
“They all think you are so stupid. But you aren’t, are you? You are sharp, calculating, and observant. They all think you haven’t realised what’s going on. But I know better.” Her gaze steadies mine. “I know that you know.”
Ice trickles through me.
I lift my chin, giving nothing away.
But Asta doesn’t care. “I promise you, Serena’s motivations to befriend you go beyond that.”
Go beyond Dray’s engagement to me.
Go beyond alliance and convenience and positions.
That is what Asta is telling me.
Serena has an entirely different motive.
I turn my flushed cheek to Asta and stare down at the unpolished tap. The brass is starting to erode.