Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
She cocked her head to the side, brows furrowed in momentary confusion before she shook her head and resumed her angry countenance. Jokes were lost on her.
“You know what I mean, Third Ringer,” she spat.
I nearly yawned. I’d grown quite bored of the use of my former status as an insult.
“I know he doesn’t really want to marry you.
I know he’s only doing it because Cosmo is pushing you together, but I can see you scheming your way up the social ladder.
That’s all your kind ever wants, a chance to be one of us. You stole him from me.”
“What?” I asked, almost laughing. “Olympia, the Trials assigned us to one another. I had just as much say in the matter as he did. Besides, if he turned away from you so easily, maybe you never had him in the first place.”
She threw a punch. I dodged it, sliding to the side and coming up with a tsk.
“No, no, no.” I shook my head. “Better not bruise the candidate.”
I wasn’t sure why I was baiting her. Maybe I was tired of her glaring at me from across the room at every party.
Maybe I was frustrated about having to time out my visits with Milo to ensure she wasn’t around.
Or maybe I was bored of this party and its attendees’ high expectations of me.
At any rate, goading Olympia into a fight turned out to be easier than I thought.
She howled in rage and threw another punch. Thanks to my enhanced speed, I slid out of the way easily, propping out a foot for her to trip over. She fell onto the coarse stone. I bent down, elbows on my knees, and tsked again.
“If you would stop trying to hit me for a moment, you might realize you can’t.”
She swung again, from the ground. I simply leaned back and raised a brow.
“Olympia,” someone barked.
Dante stormed from the house toward us. I rose, dusting off my hands, and strode a few feet away. Olympia pulled herself up and frowned, shoulders sagging.
He was furious. There was a part of him, though the size of that part depended on the day, that was always seething with rage, but never had I seen it so prominently displayed on his features as it was now. He was practically red with fury.
“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped when he reached us.
I clasped my hands casually in front of me and leaned against the edges of a stone pillar, looking over to Olympia with a raised brow. Olympia stared at the ground, silent. I sighed.
“She attacked me,” I said. “At least, I think that’s what she was trying to do.”
If looks could kill, the glare Olympia shot my way would have burned straight through my heart.
“What are you, a child?” Dante screamed.
“Adrian is my partner, and my fiancée. We’ve been over this.
I don’t know how many times I have to explain it to you.
No matter how much you hate her, no matter how much you brood, it isn’t going to change the fact that the Trials put us together.
And do you know what? It’s clear the Geist were right! ”
Olympia looked stricken. And as much as I hated her, even I cringed at Dante’s words.
“I mean, obviously you’re an inconsolable child who needs babysat every minute of the day.
And Adrian…” he looked my way and his gaze eased in a way I hoped Olympia couldn’t see.
It wasn’t soft. Nothing about Dante was ever soft.
But it wasn’t as sharp around the edges, it wasn’t as angry.
As if my presence had somehow become calming for him.
“Do you love her?” Olympia asked.
Dante’s gaze snapped back to her.
“What?” he spat.
“Do you love her?” To her credit, Olympia held her ground. But the way Dante’s jaw tensed as he took a few rigid steps forward would have sent any sane person running. Not that they could outrun him.
“What matters, Olympia,” he began, his voice so low and cold, even I hardly recognized it, “is that I don’t love you.”
I hadn’t seen the knife before. Not while she attacked me. Not when I’d had her on the ground. Not even during the party when she’d glared at me from the shadows. But I saw it now; the flash of a blade caught the light. A millisecond before it mattered. But it was enough.
Somehow, it was enough.
Dante cursed. Olympia roared something unintelligible, and the enormous porcelain vase behind me shattered.
I looked down at my chest but saw nothing there. Literally. No knife, but also no torso. I held out my hands just as my fingertips began to reappear, then visibility spread from them into the rest of my body, bringing me back into the physical world.
Dante gaped at me, stunned. Olympia was on the ground, crying into her hands.
Officers spilled into the garden. They pulled her up and away from us. Cosmo bellowed nearby, demanding to know what had happened while partygoers gasped and whispered as they looked on. But I only saw Dante as he took a step toward me, grinning from ear to ear.
“You did it,” he whispered in awe. “The seventh blessing. You did it. You…shifted.”
Shifted. It seemed an apt term for what I’d done, considering the test which had granted us with it.
I’d phased out of reality, dodging the knife Olympia had hurled at me.
It had passed straight through where I’d been standing.
Dante laughing hysterically at my side, but I couldn’t join his mirth.
If I hadn’t shifted, I’d probably be dead.
“Where are you taking her?” I called out to the guards dragging Olympia away. They had stopped to ask Cosmo for instructions.
“Adrian—”
I pushed past Dante and stormed up the path toward my would-be murderer.
“Adrian, let me get a handle on this, alright?” Cosmo attempted to calm me when I reached them.
“She tried to kill me!” I screamed, loud enough for everyone who’d come outside during the commotion to hear. More gasps and whispers arose.
Cosmo tried to calm them too, holding up his hands and smiling.
“It’s fine,” he called out easily. “It’s all under control. Please, go back inside and enjoy the festivities.”
“She tried to kill me,” I said again, stunned that no one else seemed to be concerned by that little detail.
“I said I would handle it, Adrian,” he growled through gritted teeth. Cosmo turned to the guards. “Take her home. In the morning, I’ll pay a visit to Nascha, and we’ll—”
“Home?” I bellowed in disbelief. “You’re sending her home? You dragged Dahlia straight to the Deck, gathered the tribunal right away. You stripped her of her Ring!”
“Enough, Adrian.”
I stepped forward, right into in Cosmo’s face, jaw clenched and seeing red. “How many murderers roam free up here in the First Ring, Cosmo? Hm?”
His eyes widened. He opened his mouth, but Dante pulled me away from him.
“Calm down, Adrian. Just calm down. Everything’s okay. You’re unhurt. It’s fine. Just please—”
“It’s not fine,” I snapped. Cosmo and the officers stormed away with Olympia in their midst now that my fury was on my partner.
“But you wouldn’t understand that, would you?
Dahlia killed her friend out of mercy, and she was stripped of everything and everyone she’s ever loved.
Your ex-girlfriend just tried to kill me in cold blood because you broke her heart, and all your supposedly judicial grandfather has to say is we’ll talk in the morning?
I knew my life meant nothing to them, Dante, but to you? ”
I wrenched my arm out of his grip and stepped back.
“I expected more from you.” I spun on my heels and stomped off to my room.