Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“It is in facing the unknown that one’s character is truly tested. Real strength is greeting uncharted waters with a confident smile.”
Iavoided Warren for a while after our conversation, though I sent him a letter, which Bria helped me write and would have to read to him as well, to reassure him that I wasn’t upset with him and that what he was doing for Dahlia was incredible.
But still, I stayed away from the house.
I had no right to decide who he married or what Dahlia decided.
And I wouldn’t have objected to the plan even if I could.
I knew I was being foolish, but I could hardly stomach being around Darius’s family anymore.
They reminded me so much of him that my heart ached whenever they were near.
Which is why my brother’s disclosure of his perfectly rational plan had nearly destroyed me.
Are you going tonight?
Dante had stayed out of my mind for everything but necessary communication since we’d won the fourth Trial.
I’d been practicing keeping him out of my every thought but knew I failed to do so more often than not.
He hadn’t mentioned it again though. He could tell I was going through something, and I could tell he was too.
Nearly dying tended to do that to a person.
He hadn’t asked what had happened to me. For that, I was grateful. He seemed to understand, better than anyone, that certain things were just better left alone.
Of course I am, I replied.
I wasn’t sure since…
Since I’ve been avoiding my brother?
Silence. I sighed and laid back on my bed.
We’ve been busy with training.
Adrian.
Alright. Maybe it’s time I settled things between Warren and me. It isn’t as though he did anything wrong anyway.
He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he might ask what had happened between us, but Dante just said, I’ll meet you there. Grandfather has some work for me to do here first.
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me, and forced myself to rise from my bed.
I went to my closet and threw it open, taking my time selecting an appropriate outfit. Something casual but without any holes or patches, something that was fitting my new status without being overly obnoxious of the fact that I’d moved up in the world.
My new status...I hadn’t quite gotten used to that yet.
I settled for some faded jeans and a long sleeved black shirt. Probably not the most elegant ensemble, but it was just a birthday party after all.
I made my way down to the Second Ring without any trouble from the guards.
Some of them even nodded as I passed. Word about mine and Dante’s latest success had gotten around enough so that no one ever asked who I was or where I was headed anymore.
It seemed the whole of Sanctuary knew I was a girl from the Third Ring, recently promoted to the Second, who was partners with a boy from the First. I could practically move freely about Sanctuary in a way I’d never been granted access to do before, and not many of my class ever had.
It would have been freeing if I still had anywhere else to go. But since I’d been avoiding my family on the Second, I’d pretty much remained at the top, training my days away until Dante had to practically force me to sleep.
But I’d promised my mother I would be there for my birthday, so I had no choice but to stroll up to the front porch of my family’s new home. I extended a fist, wondering whether or not I should knock or just walk right in.
Before I could decide, the door swung open.
“Were you about to knock?” Maurice asked, raising a brow. “On your own front door?”
“Good to see you too.” I pushed past him into the house.
“You probably should’ve knocked, given how much of a stranger you’ve been this last month.”
I tried to ignore the sting of his remark as I peered around at the crowd already enjoying my mother’s party. “Is Warren here?”
“Oh, now you’re looking for him after avoiding him for weeks?” Maurice bumped my shoulder with his own as he pushed past me toward the snacks laid out on a nearby table. He grabbed a fistful of chips and stuffed them into his mouth.
“Did he tell you what happened?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“No. But I can tell when things are weird between you.”
“Yeah, well, I think it’s time we sorted it out.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He pointed toward the door to the living room, and I nodded a thanks before pushing through into the densely crowded space. For a moment, I paused in the threshold, stunned by the amount of people who’d attended a party in my honor.
My mother had invited an eclectic mix of people from my life.
There was an assortment of our old friends from the Third Ring.
Bakers who raised a glass as I passed, seamstresses gathered in a corner who all worked with my mother and had taken turns watching my brothers and I when we were younger.
Handymen who were always available to fix the pipes or reset a cabinet drawer.
There were also people I recognized from my new life in the upper echelons.
Cyrus’s mother and father mingled with a few other couples in the corner.
Bria smiled serenely from where she stood beside Luca, who was locked in conversation with none other than Milo.
Warren was at the back of the hall, laughing at whatever the man he was speaking to was telling him.
I didn’t recognize the guy, but he seemed to be of an age with my brother.
In that moment, Warren reminded me of Cyrus from when I’d long ago stood on the other side of a street and watched Cyrus entertain guests at his own party, throwing his head back and smiling in a way that somehow managed to show all of his teeth at once, as Warren was doing now.
Something clenched around my heart, but I pushed it aside and approached my brother.
“Adrian,” he said in delighted greeting when I arrived at his side. His eyes sparkled but remained cautious. “Happy birthday, little sister.”
He reached out a hand; a test. I accepted it, and his grin broadened.
“Congratulations on the Trials, Adrian,” the man he’d been speaking with said abruptly, and I nodded a polite thanks before turning back to Warren.
“Where’s mom?”
“Somewhere around here,” Warren glanced about the party, “trying to get some inter-class mingling going.”
I looked around too, but instead of finding our mother, I noticed something else that had escaped me when I’d walked in. Sure, various people from various rings were here, but they were all clumped together in little miniature versions of their individual classes.
“This whole thing’s got a bit of a first co-ed party vibe going, doesn’t it?” the unidentified man asked, and Warren snorted into his drink.
“Yeah,” I replied slowly, still looking for my mother. “It does.”
Finally, I spotted her at the back of the party, attempting in vain to introduce a snooty looking couple to one of her oldest seamstress friends.
I could tell, even from a distance, that it wasn’t going well, not with the way the couples’ lips seemed to be curled up in a permanent sneer.
I took a few strides toward her, but someone stepped into my path.
“Adrian.”
I halted, dumbfounded.
“June,” I replied in near disbelief. How, of all the people in the Third Ring, had Juniper been granted an invitation to my birthday party?
“I wanted to say congratulations,” she started, then the words began tumbling out of her faster than I could keep up with.
“It’s so crazy, isn’t it? I mean, when this whole thing began, you were right in front of me in line waiting to take your oath and now this?
Who would’ve thought that someone from our ring would have gone so far?
And you of all people? I mean, not that I didn’t think you could.
Well, that’s not true. I didn’t, but not because of you, specifically.
Just because of the whole, no one has in a thousand years, thing.
Sort of hard to get around that, really.
Then again, you’ve only passed four so far, so maybe—”
“Adrian,” someone interrupted. I looked up, grateful, to find Milo already reaching for my arm. He cast Juniper an apologetic smile. “Your mother was asking for you. Something about refilling the punch?”
In truly artful form, Milo dragged me easily away from Juniper, who simply shrugged and moved on to her next unsuspecting victim.
I breathed a sigh of relief the moment we were out of earshot.
“Thank you,” I whispered as he led me from the living room. “I’m forever in your debt.”
“Remember you said that.” Milo winked. “By the way, I’m to inform you that your presence has been requested at the eighth tunnel this evening.”
His bright eyes shone with mischief as he grinned at me.
“Really?” I asked, surprised.
“A young woman dropped in earlier. She said her name was Sophie. She passed the information along to everyone here under thirty, claiming that the real party would begin at the eighth after your mother has been satisfied. She asked me to tell you that your friends are only missing this stuffy affair to set up a party much more suitable for a twenty-two year old woman at the top of her game.”
I smiled back at him.
“I see,” I replied as we continued walking. “Tell me you’re planning on attending.”
“I wouldn’t miss an illegal soiree held in a friend’s honor if my life depended on it,” he mused.
Milo released me as we entered the hall, just mere feet away from where my mother stood, engaged in conversation with Cyrus’s mother.
It appeared the two of them had become fast friends in the past month. Milo nudged me forward.
“I’m glad you came,” I called back to him over my shoulder. Milo raised his glass in mock salute and downed the entire thing, then turned back to the living room. I chuckled and closed the distance to my mother.
We both startled when the door burst open and Harrison, Felix, and Noah entered, broad grins on their faces as they prowled into the foyer.