“What’s wrong?”
“More bad news I’m afraid,” the elder prince replied, rubbing the side of his head with his palm. Prince Fallon’s lips parted, and my stomach clenched as the weight dropped back onto me for the second time in minutes. “Extermino again.”
My breathing halted, as all the sense of safety that I had gradually begun to rebuild after their attack in the summer and the Atheneas’ arrival evaporated.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Autumn
“No. No way. Absolutely not.” The prince’s voice rang down the hallway as I headed toward the morning room, where a very early breakfast was waiting. Six forty-five. I haven’t been up this early in months. I could hardly walk in a straight line I was so tired, and I hadn’t bothered to straighten my hair as I didn’t have the energy to summon my magic. In short, I needed coffee, badly.
“You can’t make me! I’m not a child anymore, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Strictly speaking, you are a minor until January,” an unfamiliar voice—male, with a Canadian accent—said. I froze midstep. I wasn’t in any hurry to meet anybody outside of the family and Lady Elizabeth, and the incredulous tone of the other person told me he was no servant.
“Don’t be pedantic.”
“Better punctilious than dead, don’t you think?”
“Don’t be melodramatic.”
“Fallon: your father, your uncle and aunt, my father, and I all think this is necessary for your safety. Does that not mean something to you?”
“No! I came here to avoid all of this!”
I closed my eyes with a resigned, noiseless sigh before edging down the corridor toward the door, peering through the crack because it was ajar. Prince Fallon stood with his back to me, and I was alarmed to see he was still dressed in a loose T-shirt and sweatpants when we had to leave in less than half an hour to get to school on time.
All of a sudden, I felt the rush of multiple consciousnesses slam against my own and begin to wrestle—violently and unrelentingly—with my barriers, until I felt the cooling embrace of Fallon’s consciousness. With that, the intruders pulled back slowly, like retreating waves, dragging a disturbing amount of my energy with them.
I was left in no doubt as to the identity of the people attendant on the prince.
“Autumn,” he called aloud. Gingerly, I stepped into the room. There was no point hiding the fact I had been just the other side of the door.
Hovering behind the prince, I kept as close as I could to the table laden with food and a large jug of coffee. Three men were dotted along the far wall, leaning against the ledge that ran the length of the window, dominating the room. A fourth stood perfectly upright among tall vases of flowers, dwarfed by his height. As I emerged on the other side of the prince, he unstuck and came forward, bowing with the other three.
“My lady,” he greeted me warmly, and to my utter surprise took my left hand in his own and kissed the finger where a ring would be placed. “How beautiful you have grown to be.” As he straightened, I blushed, less at his compliment and more at the fact he obviously knew me while I did not know him.
But I did know what he was; what they all were. The Athan Cu’die. The royal bodyguard.
They are everything the Athenea need them to be. They are as happy in the foreground as they are in the background; they will deal with the pomp and circumstance and they will act as normally as any other member of the staff. All guards and military personnel, from a messenger to the lord high admiral, are directly answerable to them and their leader, Adalwin. Most are born into the role; they train as children alongside their royal highnesses, because it fosters feudal loyalty. They would die for their charges, if called upon to do so.
The prince spared me the embarrassment of trying to reply by rounding on me. “Autumn, you’ll agree with me. Having bodyguards is stupid, isn’t it?”
I inwardly cringed, but I was not about to argue with the Athan Cu’die. “I think,” I began, choosing my next words carefully, aware of how the prince’s eyes were doing a very good imitation of puppy’s, “that Your Highness’s safety should be put above everything else.”
Big deal, Grandmother.
The prince narrowed his eyes, mouthing the word traitor in my direction. But I had meant what I said. The reports of Extermino in the neighboring county of Somerset had totally eclipsed the news about Violet Lee, which was old news in any case, thanks to the vamperic king and his council’s secrecy. And for that reason, I was determined to focus on the more pressing danger, rather than my own dismay at the discovery surrounding my dreams.
The man who had kissed my hand smirked. “Don’t be so modest, duchess. We are here for you, too.”
“F-for me?”
“Yes. Which means, Fallon, if you refuse our protection, you also compromise the safety of our gracious lady of England.” He turned and examined one of the flowers for a moment, glancing back with mischievous eyes and a lopsided, angular grin. “I think that rather settles the matter, hmm?”
The prince made no argument as the four Athan left, instead glowering at them with the same communicative expression he had used to chastise his aunt when I had first arrived. The light was too glaring to be able to properly tell, but his eyes seemed to have become very suddenly pale, too.
Oh, it will be a big deal when you have dealings with the Athenea. Because when that happens, the Athan will become your shadow.
With a heavy sigh he joined me beside the table, frowning. I wrapped my arms around my waist protectively, knowing I had as good as forced the Athan on him.
“Help yourself,” he said as he reached for the sugar, gesturing to the table, which was smothered in every sort of breakfast food imaginable, and all vegan. I went straight for the coffee, drinking it black from a tiny teacup.
“You didn’t recognize him, did you?” he asked as he poured his own sugary cup of coffee. He didn’t look up to see me shaking my head. “That was Adalwin’s son, Edmund.”
I placed the cup down on the table again, because it clinked against the saucer as my hands shook slightly. I did know who he was. “Are you being serious?”
“Yup.” He popped the p and downed his drink. “Apparently I’m the most high-risk royal outside of Athenea’s walls right now, so I get the best. Lucky me,” he added, and though his tone was light, the slight shake of his head at the end told me he was far more bothered about this than he was letting on; as was I. “They have been hanging around in the background for weeks . . . it was too dangerous for me to be alone, but it’s just horrible when they are actually with you, like a shadow, all day, all night.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, staring at his socks. My hair fell right around my face—it was practically uncontrollable when it was curly, unless I tucked it behind my ears, which is what I did.
“Don’t be. Edmund was in Australia with me and knows how to twist my arm.” His feet moved and I looked up, seeing him reach for an orange. “Excuse the teeth.” With that, he bit down into the flesh of the fruit, tearing a strip of peel away and finishing the job with his hands. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I’m not really hungry.”
“You know,” he said between bites of an orange segment, his eyes fixed on where my hair was tucked, “you are a very good liar, but I can hear your stomach growling.”
I cringed as it did exactly that. He swallowed another piece of orange, reaching out to pick up an apple and offer it to me. I shook my head. I wasn’t hungry.
“Okay then . . . pain au chocolat? All girls love chocolate!”
I shrugged halfheartedly.
“Come on; fill up on vegan food while you can. Blueberry muffin? No? Toast then?”
I grimaced but gave him a small nod. He must have seen me glancing at the Marmite, because he picked it up, examined the back,
where the ingredients were listed, scrunched up his nose, and gave a bemused shake of his head, muttering something about Australian Vegemite as he slathered it on far too thickly for me. When he was done, he picked up the triangle of bread and offered to feed it to me; in a stupor, I let him, clamping it between my teeth. A light wash of pink appeared on his cheeks, a backdrop to his russet scars.
“That . . . that really suits you, the blushing,” he said, tentatively reaching out to my cheeks. Instead, his hand froze and he grimaced, then wheeled around on his heel and ran out of the room before I could even thank him for the toast.
The garage doors were fully raised when I rounded the building, the only change in my appearance the addition of the school’s V-neck jumper and my school bag. My weekend bag I had cast home. The prince, on the other hand, looked utterly different: he had changed out of his sweatpants into a pair of dark red jeans—the same color as his scars—that bunched around the tops of his military-style black boots. With that he had paired his usual V-neck, off-white this time. He was ahead of me all the way from the front entrance, and it was only when he reached the tarmac of the driveway that I realized I was staring. Thankfully, he was occupied by a group of men and women dressed entirely in form-fitting clothes, complete with belts of multiple knives and guns, which made the dagger I had tucked into a holster beneath my skirt feel very inadequate. He didn’t seem bothered by the weaponry, pulling one of the men and then a woman into guy hugs—the kind that involved the colliding of chests and pummeling of the back.
Edmund was clearly in charge, and when he glanced at his watch, the three men from the morning room divided into a pair and a lone man, sliding into two sleek, spiffy-looking four-door sports cars, entirely blacked-out and identical apart from the license plates. Edmund also got into the second car, forming another pair.
Prince Alfie and Lady Elizabeth, heading somewhere “secluded” near Dartmouth, had offered us a lift to school, and were already sitting in the front seats of Alfie’s poor excuse for an off-roader: a convertible jeep imitation with lowered suspension. Even with all the doors and windows closed, I could hear Lady Elizabeth calling it a “hairdresser’s car” and her boyfriend resolutely defending “Jemima.”
When we got in the back, Prince Alfie didn’t start up the engine right away, instead studying the bodyguard’s cars to the left and right of us and the group of what I could only assume were “backup” still standing on the drive.
He inhaled and the air hissed through his gritted teeth. “Wow. Security’s resources department must really love us right now,” he said in a kind of awed sigh.
Prince Fallon finished buckling in and rested his forehead on the back of his cousin’s headrest. “This is such overkill. The biggest danger at Kable is a bunch of girls hitting on Edmund.”
I forced a smile with the others, but I didn’t agree with him. I would never, ever say it aloud, but I was glad the Athan would be with us. I could count the number of dark beings living in the southwest on two hands; the Extermino simply had no reason to be here, other than that they had got wind of the princes’ presence.
The roar of the engines in the cramped garage was deafening, and I was glad when we sped out behind Edmund’s car and in front of the other. When I turned in my seat and looked over the roof of the other car to take a last look at Burrator—the name of their estate—I realized the backup group had vanished. That didn’t surprise me.
Studying the scene in the exact reverse of the way I had first viewed it, the white mansion retreating farther and farther away as we moved down the corridor of trees, I felt a sense of homesickness I could only associate with the times I had been forced to leave the majestic spires of St. Sapphire’s to visit my parents. It was a happy place. A place full of magic and energy, which my lethargic mind drank up. Yet it was bittersweet, because I was uncomfortable with the possibility that I could be confusing bricks and mortar with a warm affection for the people who dwelled inside. And that was treasonous to the memory of my grandmother. Because they did know. And feeling affection for people who purposefully kept me in the dark was confusing.
The prince was watching me, and when I caught his eyes, the one side of his lips upturned. “There’s always next weekend.”
I smiled weakly. There was no way I could miss more shifts down at the café, but I was too embarrassed to say that in front of the other two and I wasn’t ready to open my mind up to him again. Yet he lingered around my barriers and I think he understood, because his smile faltered and he went back to looking out of his window with a glum expression.
Either way, I imprinted the dollhouse mansion on my mind, wishing to remember the place where I had discovered my grandmother’s powerful legacy to me: the power to see the future. And whether I liked it or not, it was a part of her shadow no pretty meadow or prince could rid me of.
The journey to Kable seemed longer than it had on the way up, despite the fact that Dartmouth was closer to school than Brixham. Perhaps that was because I was slightly dreading our arrival at school, since I had no idea what to expect. A convertible, four Sage, and a flashy escort—not to mention the other Athan, who would occasionally appear and sprint along beside us—was hardly inconspicuous. At least it looked imposing.
I was surprised, when we broke from the drizzle of the moor, to find the roof folding back. The roads were empty so early in the morning, but I waited for Edmund or one of the others to tell Prince Alfie to close it. It remained open, and I could see why Lady Elizabeth had brought a scarf to wrap around her hair.
When we crossed the roundabout that marked the boundaries of the upper part of town, I tried to flatten my hair a little, but it sprang right back up into its usual full-bodied style. I was nervous about my appearance. I had never worn my hair natural and curly to school, apart from my first day, when I had hastily thrown it into a ponytail. The same went for makeup. I felt naked without it.
Edmund clearly knew where he was going, because he indicated into Milton Lane. As Prince Alfie followed, I saw him briefly glance to the left, to where Townstal started. All three cars slowed down considerably as they crossed over the speed bumps, and Prince Fallon looked ready to slide down off his seat into a puddle on the floor as students walking along the pavement gawked. The part of my stomach right below the waistband of my skirt clenched painfully as the school came into view. Two double-decker buses were idling while students disembarked at the stop, and a third was turning into the other end of the road. There were cars and mini-buses pulling in, and the sidewalks were covered in navy-blue-and-white uniforms. We couldn’t have arrived at a worse time.
The second escort car hovered and didn’t follow us as we swung into the parking lot. I figured they had to wait there to rejoin with Prince Alfie and Lisbeth. Edmund, on the other hand, was backing into one of the few remaining spaces, and Prince Alfie took us right to the turning circle in front of the paved entrance.
Prince Fallon shifted to look at me and I could see that his expression had completely changed. No longer was he visibly embarrassed. That had been replaced with a smug smirk that wasn’t matched by any twinkle in his eyes. I was beginning to feel guilty for not backing him up in the morning room. This was clearly paining him.
Crossing the parking lot was what looked like more than half the school moving en masse toward us, and the prince very quickly hopped over the low side of the car without bothering to open the door, flitting in less than a second to my side. He didn’t open my door, either, but reached in and grabbed my hand, pulling me up and supporting me as I placed my foot on the side and hopped down. I used my free hand to keep my skirt from flaring up. I grabbed my bag, but Lady Elizabeth stopped me before I could move any further.
“It’s been really lovely meeting you. I’m going back home on Tuesday, but I’ll be back in a couple of weeks, so come up to Burrator, okay? I need some girl company, and I also need to get you calling me Lisbeth.” She winked at me and I smiled a little, sheepishly glancing down to the tarm
ac. “And you look beautiful, Autumn. Don’t fret.”
I wondered if she had seen me fussing over my appearance, but didn’t have time to ask, as the prince tugged on my arm. The students were splitting like ants around the small roundabout and spilling very quickly toward the multiple entrances created by the school blocks. Edmund and his counterpart, the former having thrown his driving gloves into the car and buttoned up his Athenean coat of arms–emblazoned jacket, were strolling toward us, seemingly paying no attention to the sprawl threatening to engulf them. I knew better.
“Have fun at school, kiddos!” Prince Alfie shouted over the sound of the engine, in the voice he reserved for banter with his cousin.
“Everybody is looking,” I muttered faintly as the car started to pull away.
“They will do that. Act like nothing is happening,” the prince said, placing a hand on the small of my back and quickly guiding me into the entrance. Even the teachers, who appeared as one group from the staff room, were staring. I could see Mr. Sylaeia smirking amid them.
“I don’t think they are going to buy that one. I just got out of a car with you,” I hissed, having to lean even closer to him to ensure he heard over the chorus of footsteps, gossiping, and even wolf-whistles.
“The men in black don’t help, either,” he added, tossing his gaze over his shoulder for a brief moment.
We had emerged from the tunneled entrance into the covered area surrounding the quad, and I dived to the right of a pillar while he was forced to the left, breaking his contact with me. He didn’t replace his hand.
In the quad, the students who had arrived early were mainly lounging on the benches, but perked up when we climbed the steps into the tarmac square, gawking at the two Athan flanking our shadows.
“You know, I once watched a film where everybody stares—”