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I blink, and it’s my turn to be confused. “Oh, okay. So?”
Emrys Lawrence is one of the few people in this hell-scape of a town with any real power. Of course, everyone in town would say they have power, especially men like my father who sit on the council, but it was only after my sister’s disappearance that I realized just how powerless we all are. How money can buy you a lot of things, but it can’t get you answers if you don’t know where to look. It can’t take pain away. It can’t bring back the dead.
My father looks at me as if we’re speaking completely different languages, and I could swear we are. “So?” He snaps his fingers. “Roman, keep up.”
“You know, I would, but you woke me up at the fucking ass crack of dawn, I have a headache from hell, you know I hate golf, and I wasn’t even in the room for whatever Lawrence was saying because I couldn’t care less about the Order.”
“Don’t fucking swear,” he snarls without a hint of irony.
I grind my teeth, reminding myself of my personal vow not to abandon my family...even when I desperately want to.
Before Marcia died, I’d just graduated from Elsinore and thrown myself into work, finding and selling rare manuscripts around the world. While I personally prefer working with classic literature, my affinity for finding and translating runes, ancient magical scrolls and lost works of occult scholars would have allowed me to stay in the Order, without actually living in Stratford. It was, in my opinion, a perfect solution. One that would have put-off my parents for at least a decade before they started demanding I come home and take a seat on the council, and put Etta Capulet out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind.
But then my sister disappeared, and now I can’t leave. My mother doesn’t deserve to lose two kids, no matter how much I hate this town and everything it stands for.
“Emrys emailed the council this morning,” my father says, fixing me with a pained stare. “He’sconcernedabout the violence within the Order. Feels he cannot step down while things are so unstable.”
I scoff. “What a tragedy.”
Father smiles, and this time it touches his eyes. “Quite.”
We both know that the violence is only of concern to Lawrence as far as it affects his political career. One of the few things Father and I agree on is that Lawrence has overstayed his welcome.
“Emrys has decided that the next person…or the next house, rather, who draws blood of another Order member will be removed from the council and out of the running for any future seats. I don’t think I need to explain that that would also take the house out of the running for head of the council.”
“He can’t do that!” Bennet says, speaking for the first time in a quarter of an hour.
“He can with council support,” my father gripes. “And, surprisingly, he has it. This is clearly nothing more than a feeble attempt to appear to be cracking down on violence after failing to act on therealproblems in this town, however, here we are.”
I lean against my golf club and bite my tongue. I’m shocked to find that for once, my father and I might be in agreement. “This is a stunt to look like he’s doing something and avoid picking between us or the Capulets.”
My father nods, pushing his absurd hat higher on his head and brushes his dark-gray hair from his eyes. For once, he looks more old to me than vicious. “Yes, that was my read on things.”
I take a deep breath through my nose, conflicted. While I despise getting involved with the Order, I also despise hypocrisy. Lawrence has shown in the last six months that performative friendship and public words of support often mean nothing behind closed doors. “So, what do you want me to do?”
“Emrys may be inadequate in nearly every way, but for once he might have done something right—if only by accident. It shouldn’t be hard for you to provoke Tyberius Capulet into striking first and disqualifying the entire family from the council.”
I crack my neck. “Sure, but that’s if people even abide by it.”
I could easily see them agreeing to kick us out, but not the Capulets. The unblemished, light-magic wielding Capulets have always managed to work their way out of everything, despite the fact that they’re no better than we are.
“Make it public,” Dad says, a slight gleam in his eyes. “And, once they’re off the council, not only will Delphine be out of the running to replace Emrys, but he’ll step down, feeling like he succeeded in some small way, and the real work can begin to investigate your sister’s death.”
I run my hand over the back of my head. When he lays it out like that, it all sounds too easy—like by this time next week my father will be happily running the council, Councilman Lawrence will be on an Island somewhere, and the Capulets will be in hell. Except it’s never that easy.
“Are you sure you would win even if Mrs. Capulet wasn’t eligible?” Bennet asks, clearly thinking along the same lines I am.
My father looks out over the golf course, as if afraid we’ll be overheard acres away from the nearest person. “One of my friends in the dean’s office told me that Capulet pulled his daughter out of Elsinore for next semester.”
I frown, thrown by the seemingly random change of subject. “That doesn’t sound right. E—er, Capulet’s daughter is a senior.”
“She’s twenty-one. Technically she can pledge now. She doesn’t need to graduate. Once pledged, she can marry an Order member, and once she’s married they’ll have solidified the alliance with house Dane. Possibly even gained another council seat, I don’t know the details of their arrangement.”
I stare blankly at my father. I know he’s angling at something important, but I can’t grasp it. Can’t think past the horrifying prospect of Etta married to that prick Harrison Dane. I’ve known it was inevitable for over a third of my life and yet the actual prospect still makes me homicidal.
Gods, I wish my father had picked any other day to have this conversation with me. A day when I was feeling less sick, and up to arguing with him. Except, if I’m being honest, most days have been bad lately.
I’m raising the clove to my mouth when a sense of dread falls over me, and suddenly, I understand what my dad is trying to say. I would have gotten it faster if I’d been having a better morning and my brain didn’t feel like it was being steamrolled.Fucking hell.
