Page 23

Chapter Twenty

B riony

The mysterious head of the academy most definitely is a masochist because the day after the ball is not a day off as would be entirely reasonable. Nope, it’s back to lessons and first up, physical training.

“This is seriously sick,” Fly yawns as the Gruesome Twosome announce with obvious glee that it’s circuit again today.

Most people seem to be in agreement with Fly. Several of the shadow weavers are wearing shades today despite having access to that anti-hangover draught Dray gave me. Nearly everyone else is either looking pale, green or like they haven’t slept in a week.

I’m taking it Fly may be one of the latter.

He didn’t answer when I knocked for him this morning and I figured he either didn’t make it back to his own bed last night or else he had company.

Either way, he only just made it to the start of class in time and is looking a lot more … crumpled than usual.

Clare did make it to breakfast, not that she actually managed to eat anything.

I think I might be the only student in the academy who isn’t nursing a hangover.

It makes me feel pretty smug, especially when I spy Odessa dry-retching into her fist and being accompanied by the tall toothless girl.

The Smyte twins are also not looking as glamorous as usual – both are massaging their temples – although Henrietta still manages to find the energy to scowl across at me.

I consider giving a cheery wave but I probably shouldn’t provoke her. I’ve had enough encounters with lightning to last me a lifetime.

There must be gods out there somewhere after all.

It certainly feels like some kind of revenge.

Last time we underwent a session of circuits with the two Titan twins, I was the one dying in agony and suffering massively.

Today, it’s everyone else. There is a lot of moaning and groaning and several cases of vomiting.

Most people are covered in a sheen of sickly sweat and the odor isn’t exactly pleasant.

Still, I milk it for all it’s worth, pleased I can actually do more sit-ups, press-ups and burpees than most of the other students.

Except for the Princes of course. I think they could each lose a limb and several pints of blood and would still make every single exercise known to man look like a piece of cake.

Between different rounds I manage to quiz Fly.

“So how was your evening?” I say, with a knowing look that is totally borrowed from his play book. Is it evil that it’s fun to tease him about this for once ?

“Lovely, thank you,” he says, trying to pat down the unruly curls on the crown of his head.

“Lovely,” I say, “is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“So nothing you want to tell me about? No details you want to share?”

He peers at me through narrowed eyes. “You never want to share details with me!”

“But I always do in the end,” I point out. “Also, something tells me you’re dying to spill the beans.”

He smiles. “As I said, I had a very pleasant evening with the redhead from group three.”

“So I saw. And what did that pleasant evening involve?!” I witnessed them sucking each other’s faces off but I assume there is more.

But I’m forced to wait for my answer because twin one blows his whistle and we have to start star-jumping.

“We enjoyed each other’s company,” he says, bouncing on the spot.

“I saw that in the hall and then you disappeared.”

“He took me back to his room.”

I squeal which draws a warning growl from twin two. I don’t speak again until we’re rotating to the next set of exercises.

“So what happened back in his room?”

“We talked, we drank, we listened to some music … we…enjoyed each other’s bodies,” he says in a lowered voice. “And then it was morning.”

“So are you a thing now?” I say with a little less enthusiasm. It’s hypocritical and unfair of me, but I don’t love the idea of Fly getting a boyfriend. I’ve seen how that goes. Bye bye to all the friends. “Are you going to see each other again?”

“Stars, no,” Fly says in obvious outrage. “That was a strictly onetime-only thing. I am not ready to be tied down.”

I place my hands on my hips and stare at him. “And yet I should be tied down to the Princes?”

“You're different, Cupcake,” he says, bopping me on the nose, “you can’t handle sleeping around.”

“Who says I can’t?”

“I’m getting to understand how that little brain of yours works. Even though bond brothers share their mates, I bet you’ve still been stewing over sleeping with more than one of the Princes.”

Mate?

That word again.

“What do you mean–” I start to ask, but the whistle blows again.

If I hope to quiz Fly and Clare about it at lunch time, I’m sorely disappointed. Both skip lunch and use the break to catch up on some sleep. In fact, the commoner’s canteen is three-quarters empty and I sit on my own in a corner, enjoying a very large helping of lunch.

Despite how ill she was looking this morning, Odessa and her posse make it to lunch too. They sit in the center of the canteen being unnecessarily loud, clearly trying to attract everyone’s attention.

I try my best to drown them out – I don’t want to listen to Odessa’s annoying drawl – but it’s almost impossible to.

“Kratos says he’s going to buy me a totally new wardrobe.”

“Really?” one of her adoring fans says, staring at her like she is the sun and moon combined.

“He’s already been more than generous.” She flutters her fingers in front of the circle of onlookers’ faces, three rings sparkling under the lights.

“Is that a–”

“Diamond?” Odessa asks. “Yes.”

I guess my eyes have strayed that way, because she glances over at me and for the briefest of seconds our eyes lock, before I snap my gaze back down to my food.

“I think they must be really into me.” She raises her voice even louder. “Unlike some people. I mean, have you noticed how some thralls don’t have any gifts at all? How they’re still wearing the same scummy clothes they arrived in?”

I assume she’s referring to me, even if that statement isn’t strictly true. After all, all my original clothes were destroyed.

I ignore her, pretending to be thoroughly fascinated by my boiled potatoes and pretending not to hear. I know her type. She thrives on attention. And denying it her, will be like cutting off her oxygen.

“They must not care about her much. Wouldn’t they want her wearing something more … respectable?”

“She had a nice dress at the ball,” some brave soul pipes up. “Did you see it? She looked really pretty then.”

“That!” Odessa cackles, the sound brittle.

“The color didn’t suit her at all. Washed her out.

I thought she looked positively sickly.” No one is brave enough to contradict Odessa a second time.

“I heard her friend patched that dress together from rags and off cuts – if you got up close, you’d have seen the appalling stitching and the crooked hemline.

It was a complete mess. I would have been embarrassed to have been seen in it. ”

That’s it! I can take all the insults about me personally on the chin. It’s nothing I haven’t heard from Muriel a thousand million times before. Those types of comments no longer cut so deep.

But criticizing my friend? Implying that his work is bad when it was anything but? I won’t let that stand, especially as that kind of comment will be the gospel truth within hours and no one will actually remember how stunning my dress was.

I throw my cutlery down on my plate, pick it up and pace towards the table.

Odessa is no longer looking my way, so she doesn’t see me coming, but several of her friends do, their eyes drawing wide in astonishment as I approach their table.

I smash my plate down right beside Odessa, making her leap in her seat, and lean down to glare in her eyes.

“The hemline was straighter than a ruler, the stitching immaculate and the color perfect. The Princes couldn’t keep their hands off me and your protectors spent more time looking at me than they did at you.”

At first, she’s simply astounded, gaping at me with her mouth open in a not very Odessa-like manner (she’s usually all coy smiles and fluttered eyelashes), but soon enough her face is turning ugly.

“Excuse me, but I don’t remember asking you to join us and we definitely aren’t interested in hearing what you have to say.”

I remember the night Beaufort came home with his knuckles grazed and his lip split and told me he’d sorted the Odessa problem for me.

I was concerned he’d hurt her. Now, hearing the way she’s speaking right to my face, seeing the disdain in her eyes, I know he didn’t hurt her.

He also, most definitely, did not fix the Odessa problem.

She may not have attempted to murder me again recently, but the look in her eyes tells me she’d still like to see me dead – she just hasn’t had a chance recently .

I wish I’d had that realization three seconds earlier. Maybe then I’d have seen what was going to happen next. Odessa lifts her right hand and jabs her knife hard into mine. I cry out as the blade slices straight through my skin.

The others around the table gasp in horror, several leaping up from the table. The toothless friend grins in admiration.

Odessa ignores them all, pressing the knife more firmly into my hand and leaning in closer to me.

“Don’t ever dare speak to me again, scum,” she spits.

The pain in my hand brings tears to my eyes and blood seeps from the wound, sliding down my hand and onto the table.

I’m done with this bitch though. If I’m going to endure all this bullshit with the Princes, it may as well be for something – something like knowing I can come back at this bitch without suffering the consequences.

I swing my other arm forward and punch her right in the throat.

Once again, she’s more than a little astonished; choking and grappling at her throat as tears glide down her face, taking most of her makeup with them. Is that my imagination or is Odessa’s smooth skin not as flawless as it seems under that layer of foundation?

Yanking the knife from my hand which, I won’t pretend, hurts like hell, I toss it on the table.

“Don’t you ever dare speak shit about my friend again.”

Back in my room five minutes later, the stone in my lap as I tie a bandage around my hand, all the adrenaline slips away, and I start shaking so hard, I’m forced to curl up in a ball and hug my knees.

What the hell was I thinking? She could have launched that knife at my throat not my hand and the Princes, for all their promises of protection, wouldn’t have been able to do a thing to stop it, all the way over in their snooty dining room.

I’m being unfair. If I wore the damn collar, I would be safe – according to them anyway. Then again, Odessa’s own collar didn’t seem to stop me from punching her in the throat. Which, now I think about it, is strange, isn’t it?

I roll onto my back on the floor, my body still trembling and hold both my hands in front of my face – the bandaged one and the one I punched her with. The punching hand is uninjured.

How was I able to hit her?