“Yeah, I read those sparkly vampire books,” he interrupted and I cursed my lack of attention toward my barriers around my mind. He knew exactly what film I was talking about.
“You actually read—”
“Of course,” he interrupted again in an even lower voice. His hand had returned to my back and was guiding me into the English block as I heard the main crowd thundering through the entrances. “I thought I could find some good material to insult Kaspar Varn with.”
“Any success?”
“Some. But really I just wish the Varns were as well-behaved as vampires in those books. Then life,” he said, dropping his bag onto our usual desk in Mr. Sylaeia’s room, “would be lovely.”
Instead of sitting opposite me, as he usually did in homeroom, he came and sat down in the chair next to me, which would usually be Tammy’s. I wasn’t sure why, but it made me feel better about the impending arrival of the rest of the group.
Just as Edmund and his colleague had settled into place against the empty desk that clung to the wall, Mr. Sylaeia strode in, laptop bag over his shoulder, grinning from ear to ear.
“Morning,” he said brightly. “Extermino?” he chirped breezily in the direction of the Athan, as though simply inquiring about the weather. He didn’t seem at all surprised or ruffled by their presence, despite the fact I was pretty sure his mind would have been enduring severe harassment from the minute he stepped onto the block.
I saw Edmund frown, but the prince beat him to it. “How do you know about that?”
“My mother. Chief gossiper of London. She heard rumors so rung me up in the middle of the night to beg me to come to London ‘for my safety.’ ” He made a set of air quotes with his fingers as he finished his sentence off. “That translates as parading a set of women in front of me so I can pick a wife before my half-Sagean blood makes me look the grand old age of thirty when I’m only thirty-six. The horror!” he finished, rolling his eyes and finding whatever he had been looking for in the bag throughout his rant. He came over with several sheets of paper covered in cursive handwriting. One set was written in blue ink, the other black—I recognized the latter as an essay of mine. He let them float down onto the desk. “Better. Much better. Both of you. Perhaps I should arrange detention for you two again,” he chuckled. “Your hair looks nice, Autumn,” he added and I felt myself flare red, weakly smiling and pretending to read over his comments on my essay.
Returning to his desk, he grabbed his tie from his bag and began winding it around his neck, tying a loose knot with it. He looked such a contrast with the other adult Sage in the room, whose shirts were starched and crisp, fastened with gleaming cuff links and buttons, and completely and utterly not loose. “And by the way, don’t try the tea in the staff room. The milk isn’t soy,” he advised the Athan as the first students arrived through the door. After that, his grin disappeared and he acted as though they weren’t there, for which I was thankful.
There were clearly two questions on the lips of every single person who entered the room, but it wasn’t until Gwen thundered in, flopped down into a chair opposite the prince, and pointed at the two newest additions to the homeroom group, that anyone was brave enough to voice their curiosity.
“Who are they?” she demanded.
“My stalkers,” the prince replied in a disinterested voice, hiding behind his essay.
“I know who they are,” Christy proudly declared, pulling up a fourth chair at the table as Tammy and Tee added a fifth and sixth. Everybody else sat up, intent. “They’re the royal bodyguard. They’re with your lot in all the pictures.” With that, she pulled out the latest edition of Quaintrelle, opened it up to a middle page, and pointed to the prince’s older brother and heir to the throne, who appeared to be lounging in the stern of a yacht, surrounded by bikini-clad women but utterly absorbed by a book. Sure enough, dotted among the hordes of attractive women were the Athan.
The prince briefly leaned across me to appraise the picture before returning to his essay, rolling his eyes. With a triumphant flick of her ponytail Christy began reading the accompanying text.
Gwen, on the other hand, caught my eye and waggled her index finger in the direction of Edmund and, more precisely, his loosely curled hair, which was pushed back off his forehead. Bringing her hand up to cover one side of her mouth so nobody could read the words off her lips, she whispered—not so quietly—to me, “He’s really fit!”
I leaned forward to rest my elbows on the desk, lacing my fingers together. “He’s also five hundred years old.”
The other Athan snorted with laughter and then promptly tried to cover it up by clearing his throat. Gwen’s mouth opened and closed a few times like a goldfish, before settling on a disappointed pout. Poor Edmund kept staring dead-ahead, his face utterly expressionless.
“You owe me fifty dollars, Richard,” the prince said, addressing the second man in the same bored voice, but when I leaned back in my seat I could see he was smirking behind the pages.
He actually bet on someone hitting on Edmund? I couldn’t help but grin too at that thought.
Perhaps I was grinning too much, because when I looked up, Christy, Gwen, and Tammy were all looking at me with wide, curious eyes and Gwen’s wagging finger was now directed at the space between the prince and me.
“So,” Christy mouthed. “You two?” Her eyebrows raised and she flicked her ponytail again.
I just frowned at them all and shook my head.
Tammy feigned being insulted and then tried again. “Why are they here?” she mouthed, jolting her head toward Edmund and Richard. I shook my head again. I wasn’t going to give them the answer to that. It would only cause panic.
Gwen, utterly thrilled by this turn of events and its entertainment potential, started making very crude gestures with her hands, exactly like those she had used on Tammy on the first day of school. Christy, sympathetic or sensible, I didn’t know which, rolled up her magazine and swatted at Gwen’s hands. Gwen, disgruntled, snatched the magazine and threw it back at Christy. It landed open in front of her.
Before I could see what the picture was of, the prince had snatched it up, smoothing it back down in front of us. I had to suppress a gasp when I read the headline. It was about Violet Lee and the vamperic Autumnal Equinox ball.
He was scanning the left page, so I scanned the right. I knew exactly what he was looking for and couldn’t breathe until I had finished all three columns. There was an abundance of information about her dress, whom she had danced with, insider “impressions” of her character, but nothing about the Crimson family or what had been inflicted upon her. The gag orders were working just as well for the Varns as they were for the Athenea.
“Ugh! Why are you reading that?” Valerie Danvers asked from the next table, with a wrinkled nose. She looked straight at the prince—she had settled on ignoring my existence since our little “incident.” “Sage like you don’t care about humans like Violet Lee. You just let humans die, like she does,” she sneered, jabbing her finger toward me—I spoke too soon. I exist again.
A lump formed in my throat as everybody turned in their seats toward her, and the prince slowly slid the magazine back across the desk.
“Apologies, Valerie, I didn’t realize you were the paragon of compassion and care,” Fallon said loudly, so the whole class could hear. People laughed cruelly. Mr. Sylaeia, who had half opened the door in preparation for sending her out, closed it again.
“Whatever,” she snapped, picking up an actual book and covering her face with it to read. I glanced back at the prince, who hadn’t moved his penetrating gaze away from her.
When Mr. Sylaeia turned his back, he leaned across the gap between the tables. “Insult her again and I’ll forget that I care about humans,” he threatened in a low voice. Valerie looked like she wanted to spit in his face but huffed and hid behind her book.
When everyone had recovered, Christy returned to Quaintrelle and also seemed to be in a mood to discuss dimensional
politics—a lot of Kable’s girls had found a sudden calling to the subject recently. After a while, the topic inevitably moved back to Violet Lee.
“I don’t know why she needs all this pity,” Christy said, fingering the outline of a sketched version of Violet’s dress. “I get that if you didn’t know about dark beings, seeing thirty men get killed would be a shock, but the rest of us humans got over it. They were slayers, so who cares? Bit selfish doing a damsel in distress, if you ask me. Just turn already.”
I averted my gaze away from the table. Up until the previous day, I would have largely agreed with Christy’s summary. It was being dragged out and people were tiring of it. The horrible thing was it was probably better for people to feel apathy toward the Varns’ hostage rather than any united human front of support. That was the last thing we needed.
But now . . . now that I knew I had been sharing in Violet Lee’s shame through the medium of my dreams, I just couldn’t bring myself to reply. She didn’t need any more pitying; she was a pitiful enough creature already.
I felt a light pressure on my elbow beneath the edge of the desk. I didn’t need to look to know who it was, and let his hand rest there for the remainder of homeroom. When the bell rang, I experienced the same sensation of disappointment I had felt leaving Burrator.
As the prince packed up his things, I was surprised to see Richard, not Edmund, stir and prepare to leave with him. The prince didn’t question it and I didn’t think it would be appropriate for me to, either, in front of the others.
As I was unpacking my things for GCSE English—in other words, Mr. Sylaeia’s book on misogyny to finish up, because I was far ahead of the rest of the class—the prince crossed behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. He pulled a much wider, much more pronounced version of his mischievous smile, which made dimples appear on his cheeks. He said something in Sagean to me, winked, and then strolled out of the room.
Christy twisted in her seat to watch him go, blowing air through pursed lips to produce a low, appreciative whistle in his wake. I watched him go, too, and would have kept staring at the open door if a face hadn’t suddenly appeared level with mine. There was the slam of a bag on the table in the now-free space, but I didn’t dare look.
“You slept with him, didn’t you?” Gwen growled, half getting up on the table by placing a knee on the desk.
I hastily slid back in my chair. “What? No!”
She slammed her palm against the wood; if my hands had not been clenching the chair very tightly, her long, glossy hair would probably have been cinders—sparks were tripping on my fingers.
“Damn! I wanted to know how big his dick is.” She got down and slumped into her chair, folding her arms. “Tell me when you find out. I think you’ve got a way better chance of sucking on it than we do.”
“Quit it, Gwen. Autumn’s not stupid enough to do that,” Tammy said, coming to my rescue. I extended one side of my mouth in a shy smile of gratitude.
“But c’mon, Autumn, put us out of our misery!” Christy demanded. “What were you doing getting out of the same car as Prince Fallon, then? With someone who looked like Prince Alfred driving?” She added emphasis both times she said the princes’ names.
I looked to Edmund for permission. His face was no longer composed and I could see his lips fighting the urge to smile—I don’t know how he was maintaining control listening to this kind of conversation. Catching my eye, he gave a small nod.
“He is living with the duke and duchess of Victoria because they have property here. As I’m the premier nobleperson in the country, it was my duty to welcome them. So they invited me to stay for the weekend.”
Gwen jumped up in her chair and screamed, then swore, turning the heads of the whole class so they were listening. Mr. Sylaeia made no move to regain order. I think it was his way of telling me he had been right. “You stayed with him? All weekend?”
“Yes.”
“You had him all to yourself. I am so, so jel!” She sighed, dropping back into her chair. “He is just so gorgeous, and rich, and—”
“The most famous person on the planet—”
“And intelligent—”
“I can’t believe we spend fifteen minutes of every day with him!”
“And gentlemanly—”
“He surfed in Australia!”
“And rich, and famous—”
“And he had that hottie, Amanda, on his arm for years—”
“And I bet his dick is like nine inches—”
“If you have all finished listing His Highness’s attributes, I think the duchess would like to bask in her admirable dignity,” Edmund interrupted, silencing the room with his steely tones. A few people gasped. Others shrank back down into their seats. Gwen and Christy bit their lips to suppress their giggles, whereas Tammy paled. Even Mr. Sylaeia raised his eyebrows at me when I glanced his way. Unperturbed, however, he picked up his pen and bounced on his heels as he always did when something especially boring was coming our way.
“Good call,” he praised, nodding in Edmund’s direction. “If you ever get sick of kicking anti-Athenean backside, consider a career as a teacher.”
The whole class laughed. Even Edmund cracked a very small smile.
Once the last chuckle had died down, the lesson properly began and I opened my book, finding my page in the very last chapter. I was hoping to return it that day, and so scanned the text quickly, making sparse notes on anything that might help my A-level. I had read two pages when there was a tap on my arm.
It was Tammy. “What did he say to you in Sagean before he left?” she whispered.
“Oh,” I breathed, looking back down at my page to hide my smile. “He said, ‘maple syrup.’ ”
Before she could question the meaning of that, the fire bell rang. Above its continuous, shrill cry, a few students whooped and cheered. Mr. Sylaeia frowned, flipping his teacher planner open. His expression darkened before he began barking instructions.
I had no need to listen to them as I found Edmund at my side, stiff and hoisting me up. I went to grab my books and bag, but he instructed me to leave everything. One look at his face told me to obey.
This was no drill.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
Autumn
“Edmund! Edmund, where are you going?” I dug my heels in and attempted to halt him, but it was useless. He had a firm grip on me and I just tripped over my own feet. “Edmund, I have to check in!”
The bell was still ringing, it was all I could hear, and the quad had become eerily empty. The rest of the class had disappeared around the block and onto the tennis courts, which was the rendezvous point where everybody had to be accounted for.
“No, you do not. I have a bad feeling about this. We’re leaving.”
I had other ideas. By hooking my foot around a nearby picnic bench, I was able to wrench free of his grip, very nearly ending up on the ground in the process. He only just caught me, but I quickly broke contact again.
“If I don’t check in they will send out a search party and somebody might get hurt!”
He glared. “When I said ‘gracious lady,’ I wasn’t suggesting that you were canonized! Less saint, more moving, if you will.”
I started moving, but in the opposite direction from him, heading for the earthy red banks to cut through to the tennis courts.
“My lady, you can’t walk away!”
I stuck a hand out and waved him off, continuing. “Yes, I can. My surname isn’t House of Athenea.” As I climbed the worn, makeshift steps, carved out by multiple feet over many years, I heard footsteps behind me.
“They told me you had grown to be milder in your absence and I was beginning to believe it. But you are just as stubborn as I remember you. A true Al-Summers.”
His voice chased my back and I folded my arms across my chest
, marching along the path until I decided how to reply. “I don’t remember you.” I didn’t entirely consciously choose to say that, and didn’t mean it to come out so bluntly.
He never replied, and we were soon slipping through a side gate into the enclosed paddock, fenced in on all four sides. There was complete chaos. People were struggling to find their homeroom groups, and judging by the way Tammy, Tee, Gwen, and Christy were all standing together, weren’t making much effort to do so, either.
The prince was easy to spot beside Richard’s bulk. “Dragged Edmund to check in, too, eh?”
I nodded. “What’s going on?”
“Everybody is saying someone hit one of the glass alarms. I don’t sense any fire, and fire is my best element, so I guess they’re right.” He shrugged, wandering to the front of the line as Mr. Sylaeia demanded we get in alphabetical order. I stepped in front of him. Edmund and Richard, despite the statement about the lack of fire, still looked very uneasy.
Mr. Sylaeia scooted down the line and ticked everybody’s name off, handing the register to the secretary, who was moving from one homeroom teacher to another. At the far end, beside the dismantled basketball post, the headmaster was struggling with a megaphone, until it eventually screeched into life.
I stopped listening as soon as I realized he was going to lecture us on how setting the alarms off was unacceptable and dangerous. It had happened more times than I cared to count the previous year, so his choice words clearly had no impact. The rest of the school seemed to have the same thought, as a dull murmur rose to a crescendo right over the top of him as people speculated as to who the culprit could be.
A breeze was beginning to pick up, stirring my hair from behind my ears. But it wasn’t coming from the direction of the river or the sea. It was moving across the gently sloping fields, and somehow penetrating the trees that stood on the banks surrounding us.
I unfolded my arms slowly. “If there is no fire, then what is that?” I muttered.
The prince looked up. “Lords of Earth,” he breathed.