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I blink at her blankly. “Who?”
The others look just as baffled.
“Ophelia?” Jason frowns. “Who is that?”
Mia’s voice is rising. “Okay, now you pretend you don’t even know her? You went out with her. Accepted gifts from her. You broke her heart!”
“Mia…” I lean back, bracing my hands on the bed. “We don’t know any Ophelias in the school.”
“This can’t be!” She’s crying openly now and my own eyes feel hot for some stupid fucking reason, seeing her so unhappy. “She’s lovely. She had so much to give. She was my cousin and I loved her…”
“Is she dead?” Ashton asks gently.
“She’s in a deep enchanted sleep and nobody in living memory has woken up from one before. I… I came to avenge her.”
I’d laugh at this slip of a girl in her underwear, all curves and pale skin and tear tracks on her cheeks for declaring revenge on us, but I can’t. I’m frozen.
“When did she leave the Academy, did you say?” I ask instead.
“A few weeks ago.” Mia’s voice cracks. “A month, perhaps.”
“Aurora,” I breathe.
“That can’t be.” Jason goes white as milk. “No way.”
“That was months ago,” Emrys dismisses this with a wave of his hand.
“You forget how time flows differently in here,” I say quietly. “We often forget it. What was months here could be mere weeks on the outside.”
“Aurora?” Mia is staring at me. “That’s not her name, but… Miss Worthy did say that nobody by my cousin’s name was ever here. Why would Ophelia change her name?”
“Aurora is your cousin?” Jason starts toward Mia, then stops again, as if not sure what he’s supposed to do. “She’s an Apollinari?”
“She is,” Mia whispers. “And I’m not.”
“What are you talking about?” I say, my lips numb. “You’re a witch. Are you from another magical house?”
“I’m no witch,” she spits. “I’m human, adopted by the Apollinari.”
“But…”
“You bullied my cousin, pushed her over the edge, and now she’s lying in a comatose sleep because of you. I came to take revenge on her behalf, and that’s what I will do.”
We watch her pull her clothes on with jerky movements, her expression shuttered. What just happened? No, this can’t be. I was so damn sure, I…
“Take revenge on us?” Emrys’s voice is a growl, and scales seem to ripple over his skin. “What the hell for? We didn’t do anything.”
“So you say,” she whispers and starts toward the door.
“Mia,” I try. “There has to be a misunderstanding. We don’t even know whether your cousin is Aurora, it’s all speculation, and we don’t even know what you think went down.”
“You bullied her. You wounded her. Stop pretending otherwise.” Without a backward glance, she opens the door. Hesitates. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” she whispers, and then she’s gone, leaving the door open.
Fuck.
“Aurora left the Academy,”Jason whispers, sitting on the bed, his head in his hands. “That’s what they told us.”
“Zoey bullied her because she wanted to have you,” Ashton adds. “Still does, in fact.”
