Chapter 8 #2
“Yes,” said Maeve with a strained inhale.
Mal looked down at the desk between them. “I lost control. It isn’t always easy to have this power flowing through me.”
Suddenly Mal’s constant cool demeanor made sense.
“What happened?”
Mal didn’t look at her. “She was drunk. We were arguing. She and I had been. . . I told her I didn’t care for her physical company anymore.”
Maeve hated the hot feeling deep in her stomach that bubbled up at that detail.
“She didn’t take it well. She started screaming at me. It burst from me before I could even think. I’ve never felt anything like it. I hope I never do again.”
“If you had just told them that, everything would have been fine-”
“I panicked. And you don’t know that,” he said darkly. “I do not bare the last name you do. Things are different for me.”
Maeve steadied her breathing and leaned back in her chair. They knew one another’s secret now. Betraying one would mean betraying the other.
“Children of magic are never alone,” she recited the Vaukore motto quietly.
Mal’s eyes met hers. And they understood one another.
“You are able to trace your exact bloodline aren’t you?” He asked suddenly.
Maeve nodded.
“Could you trace mine?”
“Possibly.”
“I’ve searched every book in the library attempting to find the Peur bloodline.”
Maeve bit her bottom lip. “Perhaps they weren’t students here. Perhaps they didn’t attend any magical school.”
“You mean perhaps my father was a Human too?”
Maeve didn’t respond.
Mal stared at the table between them. Maeve thought it must be maddening to not know where one came from.
She knew from Abraxas that when Mal’s mother gave birth to him, before she died in a darkened alley, she wrote his name on a dirty piece of newspaper.
Malachite Peur was all she wrote. The name of her baby boy. She knew she wouldn’t live long.
An old lady whom lived in an apartment nearby said she called herself Mary Peur. That she was a delusional prostitute who insisted her husband was a powerful nobleman.
She was a whore who lived what could have only been a deprived and miserable life.
To die in an icy back alley at the age of seventeen.
Mal didn’t speak of it. Ever.
Maeve only knew because she was nosey. Their first year together at Vaukore when Mal soared past her in every subject she traveled to the archives at The Orator’s Office and pulled the newspaper describing his birth. The headline stuck with her:
Magic Prevails This New Year: Magical Baby Boy Born Unto Human Woman on the Dark Snowy New Years Eve Streets of London.
Maeve pulled herself from her thoughts.
“I can research in our private library over Christmas break, if you like.”
“Yes,” said Mal, his voice eager.
“You’ll be staying here, I presume?”
He nodded. “I’d like you to bring me back everything you can get your hands on. Every book, anything.”
“Consider it done.”
“And this conversation never happened,” said Mal darkly.
“What conversation?” Asked Maeve with an innocent expression.
Chapter 9
The Volaticus dorms were decorated with shades of sapphire silk and crystal. A large fluffy tree covered in gold and white ornaments sat at the center of the room. Snow piled up on the window panes outside as the cold mountain air slammed against the glass.
Maeve attempted to slip past Lavinia and the rest of her book club where they sat on fluffy pillows around the fire, drinks in hand.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Said Lavinia.
“To bed,” said Maeve.
“No one is in bed this early except boring ole Patty,” said Presley.
“Patty has the right idea,” said Maeve.
“Come on Maeve,” whined Presley. “You said you’d come!”
“Fine,” she relented, suppressing a smile.
She curled up on the couch across from Lavinia. Annacorta, a second year, leaned back near her legs.
Harriet was absent from this weeks meeting it seemed.
“Spill it,” said Lavinia, tilting her head backwards.
Maeve’s brows raised.
“Malachite Peur,” said Presley.
Violet stiffened.
“What kind of book club is this?” Said Maeve with a grin.
“The best kind,” said Lavinia, pouring her a cup of tea.
“The kind that gossips?” Asked Maeve.
“That’s what I just said,” replied Lavinia, passing her a cup of tea.
Maeve opened her mouth before taking it, but Lavinia beat her to it.
“Just plain boring tea. Just the way you like it.”
Maeve took the tea and thanked her. “So what are we reading this week?”
“Pride and Prejudice,” said Presley with an exaggerated smile.
“Oh good,” said Maeve. “I’ve read that.”
Lavinia smacked Presley on the arm. “We aren’t reading that, Maeve. We’re reading this.”
Lavinia tossed her a bright red hardback book. Maeve flipped open the inside cover to the vulgar synopsis.
“Oh my,” she said with a laugh.
Annacorta grinned. “I’m already halfway through.”
“I don’t know if this is my cup of tea,” said Maeve.
“If Malachite Peur was shagging me it wouldn’t be mine either,” said Presley with a drunken cackle.
“Classy, Barton,” said Maeve smoothly.
Presley stuck her tongue out.
“Just one detail, Maeve,” said Annacorta. “We won’t tell anyone you weren’t a proper lady.”
Lavinia snorted. “We should be asking Harriet. I heard she went up to his room.”
“Where is she?” Asked Presley.
Lavinia took a swig of her drink and shrugged.
“I dunno. But I do know that she said he left her speechless.”
Clever Harriet. That wasn’t a lie. She had indeed been speechless at his rejection.
“Valeria said the same.”
“I mean,” said Lavinia, “the poor girl tried to off herself when he dumped her it must be the biggest-”
Presley’s hand flew over Lavinia’s mouth and the girls toppled over laughing.
Maeve felt ill at the mention of Valeria, who never returned to school after the incident, but she kept smiling.
“Just tell us!” Laughed Lavinia.
“I can’t because we never have,” said Maeve.
Maeve realized that they likely weren’t the only ones assuming she and Mal were sleeping together.
“What about his lips?” Asked Presley. “Does he kiss with passion or so so softly?”
“I wouldn’t know,” replied Maeve.
“You’re such a liar,” said Lavinia. She tossed back the rest of the Bourbon. “All I can say Maeve is enjoy Mal while you can,” she slurred. “You’re going to need these books when you’re married to your own cousin.” She laughed heartily.
Maeve’s skin turned to ice. Lavinia’s face dropped as her hands flew to her cheeks.
Presley and Violet and Annacorta’s giggling ceased. The rest of the girls looked down at their drinks.
“Maeve,” she started, “I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have said that.”
The next breath Maeve took felt ridiculously long.
Last Christmas Astrea Movros and her cousin Kazir Greenbrier were engaged to be married. They weren’t the first Sacred Seventeen relatives to be engaged. And they probably wouldn’t be the last.
“I didn’t mean that,” Lavinia continued, her voice growing panicked. “It slipped out as a joke-”
Maeve’s glass vanished from her hand. She pushed off the carpet and Lavinia went to grab her hand. Maeve slipped away before she could, making for the doors of the dorm.
“Maeve!” They called after her.
But she ignored them all. She steadied her breathing and rushed across the common room, throwing open the ivory and gold double doors leading into the castle with the flick of her palm. They slammed into the stone walls behind her.
The corridors were dark at this hour. It was well past curfew. The storm outside rose, lightning flickering on the other side of the vaulted windows. Thunder shook in the distance. Low and steady.
She flew down staircase after staircase. She stopped only once she was outside, in the covered courtyard where stone archways allowed the ice cold snow to blow through freely chilling her to the bone.
There were no guards in sight. Thank Merlin.
She slumped to the stone steps beneath her, and pulled her knees up close, breathing in the toxically cold air. The storm picked up. Thunder slammed into the castle, jostling her heart.
She was a fool for letting her guard down in front of them. She should have gone to bed. Instead she was the butt end of a joke.
“Sinclair?”
Maeve didn’t need to turn to know who approached her.
Malachite’s tall, slender frame appeared in her peripheral vision.
“What are you doing?” He spoke lazily, that cool drawl resonating in his tone.
“Good evening to you too, Malachite. Getting some fresh air,” said Maeve, matching his demeanor.
Mal slid his hands into his pockets and looked down at her, waiting for her genuine response. She didn’t care to hide from him. She might as well tell him.
“I’m not like them. I don’t fit in with them.”
“No,” said Mal, “you’re better than them.”
“No,” said Maeve with a frustrated sigh. “That’s not what I mean. I mean they live entirely different lives than I do. Those girls have no idea what it means to be in my position.”
“You envy them for it?”
Maeve didn’t answer.
Malachite’s brow ticked up. “You do.”
Maeve stood and brushed past him. “It’s not that simple.” He snagged her arm gently before she could pass. Electricity shot down Maeve’s arm as she jerked it away from him and stepped back.
“What happened?” He asked. His eyes darted to her hand.
She looked up at him as the magic begging for release danced across her fingertips. Malachite felt it too. He looked down at her hand where it was twitching at her side.
“Do it,” he said quietly, his eyes lifting to hers. “Let it go.”
Maeve shook her out hand rapidly, attempting to suppress her anger.
“Don’t do that,” said Mal. “Let it flow freely.”
Maeve stepped back from him once more. “I need to go.”
She turned on her heel and as he grabbed her again, that surge of magic slammed down her arm, cool water spreading through her veins, turning to electric ice.
She turned on him with two sharp fingers and fired at his throat. Malachite’s shield slammed up as his fist wrapped around her fingers and dissipated the bright green spell that had just burst from them.
A concise and controlled pulse of magic whipped towards her, blowing back her hair. Her breathing was quick and erratic.
Nothing that powerful had ever come from her.
Two fingers. She had used two fingers.
“Finally,” said Mal calmly with a hint of annoyance. “Congratulations. You’re a Supreme, Maeve.”
She looked at their hands in disbelief. His touch became delicate as continued.
“I have watched you for months now dueling. In class as you practice defensive spells. I feel your magic, desperate to unleash its full strength. The only way to release that level of Magic,” he ran his free hand along her middle and pointer fingers, sending ice down her arm, “is here.”
“It just. . .happened,” she gasped.
Mal nodded slowly. He was deep in thought. His smooth fingers running along her skin. His voice barely above a whisper as he said, “such a deadly weapon to be so soft.”
Maeve was suddenly hot and cold all at once.
The storm outside had subsided. Light rain pattered against the castle, spilling over into the open corridor stone.
He released her right hand. And kept her other arm in his grip as he stepped closer.
“Now,” he said, “as for those girls, no, they will never know what it is like to be born of the Sacred. They will never know the burdens you carry for the perpetuation of Magic. They will never know or feel your fear and conflicted emotions about the life before you as a Sacred Seventeen.”
“And you,” said Maeve, through her teeth, “do you feel my fears and confliction?”
“Every day,” said Mal cooly. “They seep out of you, slither across the table, and pierce into my very blood.”
Maeve’s throat caught as her cheeks began to fill with warmth.
“You wonder every day who it will be on your twenty-second Christmas. Who you will be chained and bound to. There are only so many names on the list.” His dark raven eyes sparkled in the moon light as he spoke with the ease he carried himself with endlessly.
“But you don’t want it to happen at all. ”
Maeve didn’t realize she was on the verge of tears until warm wet streams saturated her face. Malachite’s eyes moved down to her lips as they quivered. He released her arm.
She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and fixed her face proudly.
“You do not understand how it feels to be both proud and furious for something you had no say over.”
“Do I not?” Asked Mal, a hint of annoyance seeping into his tone.
They stared at once another in silence. Of course he did.
Maeve knew he did. He may not have been a Sacred Seventeen, but Mal had come from nothing.
He was the most powerful student in history and yet he was found in a damp back alley in his dead mother’s arms at only a few hours old.
With only his name scribbled on a small piece of parchment his mother clutched in her cold, dead hand.
No family or even a scrap of clothing of his own.
“Fair enough,” said Maeve.
“I know what I plan to do. The only question is what you plan to do.”
“I have no intention of letting my life be decided for me,” said Maeve darkly.
It was small, but Maeve could have sworn a smile pulled up at the corner of Mal’s lips.
“I would expect nothing less from a Supreme.”