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21
JASON
“You really suck at languages, don’t you?” Ophelia says. “Why am I even bothering with you?”
She’s teaching me French—or was, until she got fed up with my inability to focus, but since she asked us not to attend classes and offered to tutor us instead…
“You want to help us,” I say, my heart pounding in gratitude. “Help us catch up.”
“And don’t you forget that. All right, enough with trying to write. My God, your handwriting is even worse than your concentration. I never thought it possible. Do you have a mental problem of some sort?”
I frown down at my notebook. “I… have some attention deficit.”
“No, really? Shocker.”
Her words jab into me like wasp stings, but she’s doing it because she wants me to get better. “I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.”
“Yeah. Won’t make much of a difference.” She yawns. “We’re only killing time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t bother your pretty wolf head with it, pet. Just… keep scrawling those words. Practice your verbs. Whatever.”
“I don’t get this literature shit,” Emrys growls, fingers clenching around his pen. “Why does it matter? Who the hell cares about Shakespeare?”
“Well said, my demon pet,” Ophelia purrs. “But I’m in no mood for tantrums. Keep copying the play in your notebook. When I’m Queen, I will take those stupid plays out of the curriculum, I vow it.”
“You’ll take Shakespeare out of the literature curriculum?” Ashton pushes away the history book he’s been reading. “He’s one of the pinnacles of English-speaking literature.”
“Shut up, Ashton,” she mutters.
“Yes, Ophelia.”
“I need you but you’re all getting on my last nerve. I didn’t sign up to be a babysitter. If only my stupid cousin hadn’t screwed everything up…”
“Your cousin?” I ask.
“Never you mind.” She waves a hand at me. “Let me see you writing those illegible scribbles, Jason. Come on. Get to work.”
I scowl down at the page. Something feels… off, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s been going on all day. Every day. It’s like being caught in a vicious circle in hell, restarting the loop before you even realize you’d finished, not even knowing why you’re here.
“And you, fae princeling? Why so quiet?” Ophelia picks an apple from the tray on the table and bites into it. “Where are all those condescending, pompous words you like to fling around? Did I break you?”
Her words keep washing over me like shallow waves, tepid and empty. I turn to watch as Sindri draws in his art pad, not even lifting his eyes from it. There are fresh patches of blood on his white shirt, as if some wounds never healed or reopened.
Something in my chest twinges, like a plucked chord. I should check on him. Lift his shirt to check on the wounds. Ask him why he doesn’t talk.
“What are you drawing?” Ophelia gets up from her chair and walks over to Sindri. Gives his drawing a cursory glance. “I’m flattered you like drawing me. But I’d rather you did something else.” Grabbing the pad from his hands, she throws it to the floor. “Read or whatever. I don’t care.”
His gaze, dark and yet bright, swings to her for the first time all day. For a moment I think I see a wild and dangerous spark there, but he says nothing. His hands open on the table, lying flat, palms down.
“You think you’re something more, don’t you?” she taunts him. “The mighty fae, guardians of the old magic. You and the wolves, always bragging that your elemental magic is stronger, that it never faded, that you never gave it up. Well, it’s been using you more than you’ve been using it. Air and earth. Making plants grow and animals breathe. Look at you now. You belong to me. All you have, all you are, it belongs to me.”
Because she is our Queen. All we own belongs to her. It makes perfect sense.
And even as Emrys snarls and seems to be straining against some invisible hand, as Ashton grips the edge of the table until his knuckles turn white, as the chord in my chest twangs again and I try to get up but find my knees locked in place… Sindri nods.
We belong to her, and she’ll do what is best for us.
