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Not selfishly hoping they’ll come back to me, stay with me. That would be nuts.
Don’t do this to yourself, Mia. Why set yourself up for more heartbreak when you’re already hurting?
I wish I listened to my mind sometimes, the rational part of me. But as it turns out, heart trumps mind every single time…
We watch them go, Sindri and I. He seems unaffected, the frown already melting away from his features, his hands clasped behind his back, every inch the young fae aristocrat that he is. I wish I could be like him, not caring so much, not standing there with a flush on my cheeks and tears in my eyes, trying not to break down as I watch the cousin I’ve loved and the boys I’ve fallen for walk away from me, vanishing in the haze of the smoke from the bonfires and the gathering dark.
“God,” I whisper, finally making myself turn away.
“She’s a bitch,” Sindri says conversationally, startling a snort of laughter out of me. “Apologies. I know she’s your cousin and that you care for her.”
“Yes.”
“But she’s not even your real cousin, is she? You were adopted.”
“So what?” I say. “I grew up with her. Don’t such ties count as much as blood ties?”
“Do they?” Now he looks pensive, a crease between his dark brows. “I mean, I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t aware families had such ties until I came to this Academy.”
“Such ties? You mean affection?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. That.”
“How can you not know…?” I stare at his beautiful profile, wishing I knew more about him. Half Seelie, half Unseelie, a bastard son, according to Ophelia, searching for his mother who appears to be dead.
A prince of Faerie.
Why is there such a darkness in him? I understand that being torn between the courts must have marked him, and that losing his mother at a young age must have been hard, but he’s had it all otherwise. Wealth. Power. He has the looks and the smarts. The possibility of education and knowledge.
What’s eating at you, Sindri?I think, but before I open my mouth to actually pose the question, he stiffens slightly.
Someone is approaching, and the change in Sindri strikes me for the first time. He relaxes with me, I realize, surprised, lets his guard down—well, lower than with most people.
I fight to hide a smile. All the warm fuzzies here.
The person approaching is a fae girl, one I’ve seen around Sindri before, with light blue hair loose on her shoulders. She climbs up the hillock, her green dress molding to her slender figure, the fabric uneven as if made of moss and grass and green moth wings.
“Enkeleth,” she says as she reaches us, nodding at Sindri.
“Anala,” Sindri says. “Everything all right? Ashton D’Aube hasn’t left the Academy, has he?”
“No. I’ve kept an eye on him. He’s here.”
“Here?” I frown at her even as I realize that Sindri gave her the task of watching Ashton. “What, you mean at the party?”
She points at one of the hillocks and in the darkness that’s broken by the dancing flames, I make out a dark-haired boy sitting on the ground, staring at the fires.
“That’s him?” I’m already starting down the hill to go talk to him. “Sin—”
“And the other thing I asked you to find out?” he says.
“I’m sorry,Enkeleth,” the fae girl says. “I still don’t know who put the tattoo on her back.”
That stops me in my tracks. I turn back around. “You asked her to find the tattoo caster?”
“Of course.” His gaze is unreadable. Does it bother him that he’s with a girl who has a tattoo marking her as a slut on her back? Or is he doing it for me? “Keep looking,” he tells Anala. “We have to find her.”
Anala glances at me, her eyes like freshly cut leaves, her hair like blue waves. She’s beautiful in that breathtaking, sharp fae way, and a sting of jealousy pierces my thoughts when I suddenly wonder if Sindri has slept with her, or even looked at her with lust.
