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Chapter One
My heart beat quickly in my chest and my stomach did a happy little flutter, as the car slid between the great stone pillars of the Callahan Estate. With a nod from the gatekeeper, we started up the gravel drive.
I craned forward in my seat as though that was going to get us to the front door faster.
“Harlow,” Dad chastised. “Some decorum, please.”
“She’s excited,” Mum said fondly.
“She needs to learn what behaviour is appropriate and what is not. She can be excited, but she need not show it so...enthusiastically.”
“She’s twelve, Rex.”
“Exactly,” Dad said. “Not that long ago, she’d have been considered a woman already.”
“Not anymore,” Mum said pointedly, and I wasn’t sure what the look they gave each other meant.
Dad nodded. “I’m aware.”
“We agreed,” Mum said quietly, as though I wasn’t sitting right there and could hear every word, “that we’d just let it happen.”
“Let what happen?” I asked.
Dad looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Is Apollo ready for school?”
I felt like there was more to the question. Like there was a question under the question that I didn’t understand. The expectant look Dad gave me just made me more sure, so I just shrugged, mumbled something incoherent, and went back to staring at Callahan Hall as it grew larger in the window.
When the car pulled up at the front door, the butler was waiting for us with Mrs Mack the housekeeper, a few of the maids, and Apollo’s mum, Frenella.
“Frenella, it’s been an age,” Mum said to her.
“Far too long, Sissy. You made good time,” she said as she and Mum embraced.
The staff went about unpacking our bags for us and Frenella led us inside.
“Have you got everything ready for school, Harlow?” Frenella asked me.
I nodded. “I think so. Mrs Thomas checked the list five times! And she said that someone would have to iron everything again when we got there.”
“We sent it all straight on,” Mum said. “Make sure everything’s all ready for her first day.”
“We did the same. We’re paying enough for his room, it may as well be ready.”
“Archer in his office?” Dad asked.
“He was,” came the deeper tones of Archer Callahan as he glided across the parquetry towards us. “Good timing, Vanguard. Kieran’s still here.”
“Excellent. He and I have business,” Dad answered, and he disappeared with Archer into his office.
Whenever Dad was at the Callahan Estate, they were always in Archer’s office. I never knew what they did in there but, the one time Apollo and I had tried to find out, we’d been kicked out with some very stern words. It felt like, the older I got, the less time I got to spend with my parents. I was either at the Callahan Estate without them, or we were all there and I still didn’t get to see much of them.
“Harlow!” Apollo called from the top of the stairs and my bad mood was instantly forgotten.
I looked up and saw him racing down.
“It’s only been a month,” I told him.
He pulled up to stop in front of me. “It’s been forever!”
