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Isa thought it was a fine thing to have rules for all of that, but the association itself was horrid. They had rules from lawn height to exterior paint and everything else in between. It would have been fine if they’d addressed it all the same for everyone, but it was a bunch of petty people on power trips.
She slid into the shadows as the gentry strode by, arm in arm. She ducked down the back alley that led to Father’s home here and rapped thrice on the back door. She uttered the magical password that let her bypass his warding. If she hadn’t been keyed to the door, the password wouldn’t have worked, and she’d have likely been knocked out.
Luckily, she was. She pushed the door open to the home, slung her cloak on a hook, and then traipsed through the artfully decorated room to her father’s study. Most of the servants had already gone home, save for his butler, who always made himself scarce when she appeared.
She took a deep breath at the entrance, reminding herself who she was. That she had no reason to fear him. She had proven herself time and time again. She would continue to do so. So long as he didn’t discover the money she’d hidden away. The hope she had to escape this life that he’d richly provided for her. Nothing for free, of course.
“Isa, do stop hovering and come in,” Father barked from the study door.
She winced at the tone of his voice. Then, she cleared her face of any expression and pushed her way inside. She was beyond wondering how he had known that she was standing there.
Isa moved swiftly across the room to where he was seated in the lush office behind a mahogany desk that overlooked massive bay windows out to the Row beyond. She bent onto one knee, offering fidelity. “Father.”
He placed his hand on the top of her crop of pure white hair. It was the one feature that he disliked on her. Her face could stop carriages. She had been a beautiful child, developing into a distressingly stunning young woman. She could have become a member of the aristocracy, flitting about at the Season, looking for a husband like every other brainless debutante. But Father had seen something else in her and employed her skills to assassin craft. She’d taken to it like breathing.
“You may rise,” he said finally. “What is the word?”
“RFA had a huge outpouring at the meeting. Almost exclusively half-Fae and humans. They’re planning a protest against the Society. No details yet, just getting people invested and wanting them to tell their friends. It was much more well attended than the last one I went to.”
“And the girl?”
Isa shook her head. “No, sir. No sign of Kerrigan. Though her friends were there.”
“Which ones?”
“Clover and Hadrian,” she said, plucking their names out of memory. “The blue-haired …”
“I know who they are,” he said dismissively. “You’re sure she wasn’t there?”
“I saw no sign of her. They kept alluding to her involvement, but if she was there, then she was well hidden.”
Even from her. And Isa knew all of Kerrigan’s moves. She’d studied them extensively in the month she tried to kill the girl. Her hands still ached for her knives at the thought. The one who had gotten away.
Father had said she couldn’t finish the job, but Isa hoped he would change his mind before this was all over.
“She’ll be there,” Father said with a nod. His eyes cast past Isa’s head to the window. The promenade of families displaying the goods before the Season began. “And when she is, we’ll be ready.”
20
The Testing
“How’d you do?” Noda asked, panting slightly as she stepped out of the water-magic test.
Kerrigan shot her a thumbs-up because speaking wasn’t in the cards yet. Three weeks had passed since the meeting with the RFA. She’d gone back each Friday night after her training with Tieran to listen to Thea’s inspirational words. And all the while, she’d gotten better and better at all of her training—physical and magical. They’d all spent hours upon hours working on building their stamina so that they could get to this moment—testing.
To move forward at the end of the first four-week boot camp, they all had to pass a series of tests. Otherwise, all of them would spend another four weeks training and not working with their dragons. They’d pushed each other even more after they found that out, improving at alarming rates.
“Same,” she said. “Water was easier than fire.”
“No way,” Kerrigan said, finally recovered. “Water was terrible.”
“You suck at water though,” Noda pointed out.
“Fair.”
Then, Roake stepped out of the air final. His face was pale, and he was shaking.
“You okay?” Kerrigan asked.
Roake glanced blankly at them. “That woman …”
“Air is the hardest,” Noda agreed, looking at Roake with pity. “Come on, Roake. Let’s grab some food before you do your last magic test.”
