Page 12 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Kiss?” cried Eliza.

Silas would rather be skinned in snake form. He’d rather be milked for venom. He’d rather be shipped back home to the mercy of his father.

Perhaps not that one. But the list of rathers was still nearly infinite.

Especially when Yvette said, “Nothing quick, either. You’d have to mean it.”

Silas turned away from the princess, banishing her from even the corner of his eye because if he looked at her, he’d suffer another rage transformation. Instead, he breathed steadily and counted Yvette’s books by multiples of three.

For a moment, he wished he’d never agreed to Aria’s deal, but he couldn’t make that resentment last. He’d been the one to request her help first, and she’d saved Maggie from a miserable future. He’d pay any price to save his sister. Even this one.

“Can you break it?” Eliza asked before Silas could, and he angled to see her clutching Yvette’s hands, pleading. “You’re a Stone Caster!”

Yvette squeezed the princess’s hands and dropped them, stepping back. “Breaking a Cast I didn’t lay comes at high cost. But more than that, I’m not sure it’s for the best in this case.”

Silas stiffened. “What do you mean ‘not for the best’?”

Yvette caught him by the arm, pulling him to the other side of the room for a hushed conversation.

“I’ll tell you what I mean,” she said quietly, speaking Loegrian. Her sharp eyes pinned him like a research subject. “I remember two years ago when Iyal Afshin brought a new student to my office, fresh off a boat from Loegria, full of fragile hope.”

Silas shifted uncomfortably. “What do I have to do with—”

“Afshin told me your father did all the talking for you, enrolled you in university and demanded you be taught a respectable field. Economics. Your father said by the time you returned in two years, you’d have a true appreciation for your own country and be ready to inherit your title.”

“I remember well enough,” Silas muttered.

“Then you’ll remember why Afshin brought you to me instead of to the head of economics.”

“Because you spoke Loegrian.”

She snorted. “Because the only question you asked during your university tour was, ‘Is it true Pravusat has no laws against magic?’ Because you still wore a bandage on your throat from a fresh wound that was nearly fatal, and you flinched whenever your father lifted his arm near you. We’re not fools, Silas, and our primary objective on this campus is to help every student, in whatever way is best for them.

” With clear meaning, she tipped her head toward the princess.

“She’s not a student,” said Silas, with more petulance than he cared to admit.

Yvette raised a smooth eyebrow, and she held her pose, firm as a statue, until Silas fidgeted.

“You are,” she said. “You were, at least. And if there’s one lesson I never managed to pierce through that snake’s skull, it’s that life is about more than lessons.

It’s about saying goodbye to friends when you leave the country.

It’s about looking at a lost girl, far from home, wounded and in need of help, and thinking of how, just two years ago, you cast the same shadow. ”

“You can’t condemn me to this”—Silas lifted the bracelet—“out of a grudge that I didn’t say goodbye. That’s petty.”

Yvette looked far too smug. “I am not above pettiness. This is good for you, Silas. I feel it with every bone. And what a horror I condemn you to—take your head out of the books, out of the political bitterness, and spend some time with a beautiful young woman. Other young men would beg for this opportunity.”

Silas hissed. She took him by the shoulder in a firm grip and turned him to face Eliza.

“Well, Your Highness, you are fortunate,” she said.

“There is no better guide to Pravusat than a snake. Give it a week, and I’m sure my reliable student will find Henry.

Once that’s done, come back, and I’ll see what I can do about breaking the Cast. That is, unless you fall madly in love and break it yourselves with a passionate kiss. ”

She grinned as if such a thing was the most desirable outcome. As if it was even possible.

Eliza stared, her jaw slack, her brow furrowed. Silas waited for her protest; maybe if she broke down in tears again, she’d soften Yvette’s stubbornness.

But in the end, the princess didn’t cry. She shuffled closer to Yvette and whispered, “How can you . . . trust him?” But not quietly enough for Silas not to hear.

He clenched his teeth. He looked down at the bracelet and considered taking a hammer to it. A broken wrist might be worth the subsequent freedom. Unfortunately, it was his writing hand.

Yvette said, “You seem like the kind of girl who understands a leap of faith. Take one now, Eliza. He won’t hurt you. He knows too much of hurt himself.”

Silas resisted the urge to fidget. Instead, he resolved to never ask Yvette for help again. He would find a way out of this situation on his own.

And it would not involve kissing a reckless princess.

Eliza missed Yvette as soon as they left. She’d been gruff, but like a concerned aunt, and more than that, she’d been compassionate. After hearing Eliza’s story, she hadn’t insisted Henry was gone. She’d even said Silas could find him, and she’d seemed to really believe it.

Perhaps Eliza’s mistake with the Cast was not as world-shattering as she’d feared. If she couldn’t quite believe that yet, she could at least hope it.

As she and Silas emerged into the sunlight on campus, Eliza steeled herself for what needed to be said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for . . . this to happen, so I’m sorry about that. But I’m not sorry to have your help, not if it means finding Henry.”

Silas hardly glanced at her.

Eliza tensed, trying not to think about how she’d seen snake scales on his skin while he’d argued with Yvette.

The professor’s words echoed in her mind—He won’t hurt you—and she willed herself to believe it.

Perhaps Silas was a . . . mild shapeshifter.

One who abandoned people to his fellow snakes but did not swallow them himself.

In stories, some demons were tricksters rather than devourers.

This is not a story. The memory of her father’s voice cut through her imagination, making her flinch. Shapeshifters are real, Eliza, and they are monstrous.

The setting sun cast an orange glaze across the alabaster university buildings, reminding her of torchlight. Of a man-turned-eagle spilling innocent blood in the street.

With purpose, Silas set off across campus, and Eliza kept pace behind him in a spot he couldn’t reach without turning. She determined not to speak, not to provoke him or offer him any reason to become savage when he’d been civil thus far.

Yet a moment later, she asked, “Where are we going?”

Clamping her jaw shut, she tried and failed to glare at herself without a mirror.

“I’m hungry,” was all he said.

Truthfully, so was she. The hunger pangs had only grown worse since her trip to the market, but Eliza had spent all her money.

She couldn’t depend on Silas for a meal; he would say something about entitled royalty.

She’d taken to paying for dinner every other day at the inn and stashing bread in her pockets for the days between.

There were two rolls waiting back in her room, but if she couldn’t go more than twenty feet from Silas, what hope did she have of returning to the inn or gathering her things?

Her cheeks heated with a sudden realization. If she couldn’t go more than twenty feet from Silas, she would have to stay near him all night. Did shapeshifters grow more dangerous at night? Was that what had happened with the eagle?

While she worried, Silas led her to the university’s dining hall, and upon entering the arched room filled with long tables, Eliza felt a sharp sting of loss.

For a moment, she could pretend she was back home, and her father was throwing a feast for the members of court.

By instinct, her eyes moved to the front of the room where the royal table would have been, and she could almost picture her parents and Aria already seated, waiting for her.

But no one was waiting for her.

She’d lagged behind Silas, and, suddenly, her arm yanked forward, pulling the rest of her along with it. He halted, glancing back at her with a scowl, causing her ears to burn.

When they reached the food table, it wasn’t as Eliza expected.

In the formal feasts back home, everyone sat in their place to be served their meal.

In less formal settings, one edge of the room held anywhere from one to three refreshment tables, laden with food, and guests were free to select whatever offerings they desired.

At the university, the food table was guarded by a set of workers in aprons, who divided food onto plates in identical manner and handed them out. Silas accepted his without pause, but when a worker handed one to Eliza, she tried to hand it back.

“Oh, I’m not—” She swallowed, lost in Loegrian. “I’m not a student.”

Silas caught the back of her shirt collar, tugging her away from the confused worker. She heard him offer Pravish thanks on her behalf, which only increased the heat in her face. She could have offered her own gratitude, at least.

“I was trying to be honest,” she whispered, following him toward one of the tables.

“A noble thought,” he said, and she couldn’t tell if he was mocking or not, “but I belong to the university, and as long as we’re linked, so do you. I suppose you’re my research assistant now.” Before Eliza could sort out how she felt about that, he added, “A useless, resource-draining assistant.”

She scowled, then almost tripped on an uneven stone in the floor, so she refocused on following Silas to a group of empty seats at the table closest to the west windows.

She didn’t think it a coincidence that he sat somewhere with a view of the ocean, as if reminding her she should be sailing back home across it.