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19
Goddamn it.
As soon as Baxter’s back is turned, the gremlin mutters happily, “Faker.”
“How am I fake?”
“We know you’re a liar. Weknowyour ankle isn’t really broken. You just want sympathy for the girls.” He grins at me. “It’s not working.”
I scowl. Rory is sitting right beside him. He knows the truth, he knows I’m not lying or faking or whatever, but he’s keeping silent and doing nothing to dissuade this stupid rumor.
The rest of breakfast fades away. All I can think about is Headmistress Baxter sneering down at me. I don’twantto be a saint, sacrificing myself like this. I want to fight back but I’m caught between a rock and a hard place — or a discriminatory system of authority and the need to remain at Lochkelvin. I can only take and take and take the punishments and the lies.
“I’ll help you,” Danny says as soon as breakfast is over, taking my hand and guiding me upright. I feel myself latch onto him.
We pass Finlay, who’s deep in conversation with Luke. It’s rare to see Finlay at breakfast — he normally skips it, crawling out of bed just before the first class of the day. My heart lightens when I realize he must have missed Luke so much he’s sacrificed an extra hour of sleep just to see his friend. Finlay’s hair is wild and sticking up at ridiculous angles. But when he notices me staring at him, he gives me a small grin that melts me.
Luke tilts his head at me in interest, saying nothing. I can’t figure him out at all.He’s a prince. We’re over a month and a half into this term and it’s still the only thing I know about Luke.
“Lookin’ good, sassenach,” Finlay says with a smile that isn’t malicious. “Mind ye cannae touch the cracks in the stones. Auld tradition here. Seven years bad luck and all that.”
Danny rolls his eyes. “Don’t listen to him, he’s talking crap.”
I could detect the underlying humor in Finlay’s tone, but I don’t tell that to Danny. Instead, I lean on him, hobbling over the stone floor and even skipping most of the cracks.
But what happens next seems to be the result of bad luck, anyway.
“Wait.”
As I hop away from the dining hall on my crutches, it’s one of the voices I least expect. Rory stands at the side of the door, leaning against the wall and watching me shamble across the school entrance like the perpetual disaster I am. His hair gleams in the morning light, the brightness lightening his storm-gray eyes.
“What doyouwant?” Danny asks for me, a slight growl to his voice that takes me by surprise.
Rory just rolls his eyes, folding his arms across his blazer like this is far beneath him. “Piss off, Danny-boy, you white-knighting bastard.” It’s such a lazy drawl, like Danny isn’t even worth the inflection of his voice.
I meet Rory’s gaze with a raised eyebrow.
“I want to talk to you. Without your new tagalong.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you, so…” I shrug, and Danny begins guiding me upstairs.
“Wait.”
Against my better judgment, I wait. I’m positioned at the bottom step, gazing up at the vast mountainous staircase in front of me, wondering when I’ll be able to climb it by myself with legs that actually work.
Rory slides his gray gaze to Danny, but I tell him in a clear voice, “Danny stays.”
There’s something about the twist of Rory’s mouth that makes me think he doesn’t like being ordered around. And Danny — he doesn’t like Danny. But he finally shrugs, pushing himself off the wall to stand in front of me.
I swallow. He has no concept of personal space. He walks closer and closer to me, like this is enough to intimidate me. I stare back at him, meeting his sharp eyes without flinching.
But he doesn’t stop closing the gap. I end up hopping backward on my crutches, staring up at Rory. He looks at me like he knows exactly what I want.
When Danny cautions in a terse voice, “I think that’s close enough,” Rory’s hand flies out and grips Danny’s wrist so tightly it makes him cry out in pain.
Danny grows quiet after that.
There’s a twisted kind of smile on Rory’s face, in the curl of his lip. I glance between him and Danny as Rory continues to back me against the wall.
