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I look at the wall above her, my fingers hovering over the letters, tracing the message drawn in blood.

SHE BEARS THE MARK OF NIMUE. SHE WILL BE OURS.

Nimue was one of the last handmaids lost during the Fall and one of the great enemies of the leader of the guild. She’d been gone for centuries. It’s a game, lives being weighed and discarded as chess pieces, all in pursuit of the final objective.

The capture of the white queen.

40

Summer

After the assembly, Connor goes to speak to his brothers. Rafe’s furious stare nearly burned a hole through Cons’s forehead while the headmaster spoke. He’d wasted no time in cluing in the rest of his brothers about Connor being the one to discover the body. I stare at Rafe with a scowl. He has some nerve being pissed at Connor for keeping him in the dark when he’s been putting Con through the ringer for the last two weeks.

Alice turns to me the second they are out of earshot, her eyes surprisingly serious. “You should tell him.”

“Tell him what?” I know the answer, but telling him and vocalizing my concerns will just make them more real. Ignorance is a silly little blanket I can wrap around myself and hide in.

“About Gia. That she kind of looks like you. He said nothing is too small.”

I finally pull my gaze away from Connor, who looks like he’s getting the verbal ass-kicking of the century led by a very angry Rafe.

“It’s probably just a coincidence. We have no proof that it’s more than that.”

I’ve been running for so long, Alice. Let me stay wrapped in my blanket of delusion. It shields me from the glare of reality. The messages from the blank account warning me. The fact that Gia looked like me. The way my acceptance to Avalon showed up right when I needed it. So many threads of truth are wrapping around me, and I want them to be coincidences. I need them to be.

Alice nods slowly, her eyes narrowing on me. “So, you’re going to stay and tell me why you and Connor are weird? Cool.”

My stomach rolls, and without saying anything else, I stand and start for the headmaster’s office. I hate that I’m so fucked up that I’d rather face the fear of someone potentially wanting to torture and kill me than face up to the words my boyfriend said to me in the shower. But here we are, and this is my reality.

Every step through the long corridors is heavier than the last, and my stomach drops when the headmaster’s office door comes into view. He’ll think I’m an idiot and a narcissist for making everything about me. But you know, maybe I can live with that and even find comfort in it because if someone as smart as the headmaster can’t see any merit in the idea, then I must just be paranoid. I can go back to my blanket. There is no evidence that the person chasing me actually mistook me for Gia. I wasn’t even being chased. The eyes on me were simply a figment of my imagination.

I stop in front of his door, the dark wood looming in front of me. A faint buzz of power emanates from it. No doubt it’s covered with so many runes that the wood is struggling to conduct them all. Or, maybe the headmaster’s power is so vast it can’t be contained by something as mundane as an office.

I lift my hand and knock twice. The sound echoes, followed by an eerie silence before his low voice seeps through the crack beneath the door.

“Enter.”

One word, it’s so simple, yet it’s dripping with power, strength, and fury. Clearly, the veil he’d dropped during the assembly is still down. At least now I understand why he doesn’t cover his runes up like other sorcerers. It’s a threat and a promise. They could know all the magic he could throw at them, every spell, every secret, and they would still be unable to defend against him.

I swallow, taking an extra beat to steel myself before I open the door.

The room is not at all as I expected. It is a large circle lined with bookcases filled with the most ornate books. The floor is composed of dark stones perfectly aligned and laid in a pleasing pattern, a large, luxurious midnight blue rug covering over half of it. The desk is in the center of the room, expertly littered with books and papers. It’s perfectly organized but also chaotic to the untrained eye. I can’t help but think there is a purpose to this. Sorcerers are known to conceal their abilities. Knowledge is power, and it is often best to be underestimated.

There is what looks like a skylight just above the desk, but instead of a view of Avalon’s sky, an orb of light blue light ebbs and flows in the space, lighting the room. Occasionally, sparks of bright light spark away from the sphere and fly through the room. A small model of the campus sits at the corner of his desk, small lights moving through the intricate map. A spelled crystal hovers above it, projecting a surveillance feed into the air.

“Miss Tuatha De Daanan,” the headmaster says, a note of impatience in his voice.

I step further into the office, finally pulling my gaze from the splendor of the room. His penetrating silver gaze pierces theastral projection. The closer I get to the desk, the more I notice. The small-scale campus surveillance feed switches from place to place. He waves his hand, and it disappears before I can make sense of it. Sorcerers and their secrets.

I stop in front of his desk. “Headmaster Emrys.”

He lifts his chin, his silver eyes stormier than I’ve ever seen them. “What is it you wanted to speak to me about?”

I nervously play with the pleats of my skirt, averting my gaze, looking anywhere but at him. Fuck, this is so stupid. I focus over his shoulder, staring at a particularly ornate book. “Gia. Well, not directly about her, I don’t suppose, but?—”

He slams his hand down on his desk, making me jump in surprise. “Miss Tuatha De Daanan, when you speak to me, you look at me. Otherwise, this is not a conversation I need to be here for.”

My cheeks heat as I meet his gaze. There is something very intriguing about the way my body reacts when he speaks to me like that. His fury is palpable, but despite his harsh words, I can tell it’s not directed at me. Even with that knowledge, it doesn’t make it any easier to bear.