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I didn’t care. Whatever they thought about me, the truth was probably much worse. I was a janitor, had no idea how to use my magic, and had no idea what to do with my life.
I was taking a little platter of slivered smoked meats and crackers off a tray when the blond girl interrupted my perfectly nice time.
“You clean up adequately, but you need more concealer to hide your under-eye circles. Have you not been sleeping well lately? Perhaps you have a guilty conscience.”
I turned to stare at her with my weird meat and crackers cupped protectively in my hands. Is that what I had? “No, it’s because I have a night janitorial shift at Gray College. Do you date a lot?”
Her blond brows rose, and I could see that she hadn’t planned on things taking a sudden dating curve. “I do not date multiple men at a time in order to break hearts unselectively.”
“I don’t date,” I clarified for her. “I’m wondering if I should get super serious with a guy that I haven’t ever dated, but what is dating other than the slow, painful process of uncovering all the carefully placed lies that keep you from realizing his rotten nature? You may as well jump right into marriage, right?”
Her lip curled. “Some may not care that your mother was a dark magic user because you’re Bellham’s daughter, but most of us will always remember who and what you really are.” Her eyes glowed golden, and the next thing I knew, she’d pulled out a magical circle that you used to have a nice little magical battle. Was she seriously going to throw destructive magic at me in a room this gorgeous? I’d been training with Percy to deal with aggressive demons, not self-important gargoyle girls.
I could have killed her, and for flirting with Percy, I really wanted to, but instead, I punched her face, my fist shifting to stone at the last second, so it really did some damage. It actually knocked her out cold, all spread-eagled on my dad’s ballroom floor in the slowly fading magic circle of defense she’d cast. Pity she hadn’t been defending against simple brute force.
I shook out my hand as it slowly turned back into flesh, and I noticed all the people standing in a circle staring at me.
I edged away from the girl, whose name I didn’t even know, but then Percy was there, and I forgot about everything else. I just stood there staring at him while he stared back, caught up in a moment when my whole body came to life, and my skin prickled with aching to close the distance. We stood like that, trapped in senseless attraction until my dad stepped between us and broke the spell.
I immediately turned to go, but my dad’s hand on my shoulder stopped me.
“What did you do to her?”
“Nothing very interesting,” I said, raising my chin to look down at him, which didn’t remotely work because he was a foot taller. “When someone insults my mother, apparently, I object quite firmly.”
He raised a brow. “She insulted your mother?” His voice was so quiet, but his eyes burned with rage that made my anger towards Percy look like a match compared to a volcano. “Take her away,” he told two men that picked her up and carried her away like an unwanted bag of trash. I felt a pang of guilt. No one deserved to be thrown out like trash.
“I don’t think she meant it that way, but she summoned a magic circle, and I thought that magic would damage the architecture, which would be a pity, so I just knocked her unconscious instead of ripping her apart with spells.”
He looked up at the window high above that let out on the roof. “It is good architecture.”
“Also the painting. It would be a pity to damage such excellent art.”
“Art is to be preserved.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have hit her so hard, but I didn’t mean to hit her with stone.”
“It does take time to finesse these precise reactions. Well done.” He held out his arm, and I took it, letting him lead me away from the people who were looking at me differently now. I glanced back to find Percy, unable to stop myself, but he was already gone.
My heart burned with anger, panic, and aching, but I only sighed and tried to survive the party. My dad didn’t ever say that I was his heir, so I never got the chance to contradict him, instead he introduced me as Gabriela Doe, a student at Gray College, and that was it. It was obvious that I was his daughter with the red hair and the fact that I’d visibly demonstrated my ability to shift, but no one said anything about money or inheritance, or the fact that I was his daughter.
He introduced me to people in his subtly charming way, and there were some genuinely interesting people there, from medical researchers to historians, as well as philosophers, artists, and politicians, but nothing could distract me from the niggling craving I had to find Percy and make him see me until the anger had burned out and there was nothing but silent stone.
Chapter
Seventeen
We left for the city at five fifteen, sitting awkwardly together in the back of his cushy sedan, Miss Tertrue driving.
“Why is your lawyer driving your car?”
“She’s an excellent driver.”
“Yes, but lawyers are lawyers, not drivers.”
“She’s an excellent driver. May I ask you a question? Why did you defend the murderer in the alley?”
I frowned at him, completely confused until I remembered the vampire woman whose knife was still in my room. I shrugged. “Do they have proof that she’s a murderer? What kind of guy punches out a woman?”
