Bran brought me here to die.
CHAPTER SIX
The boy is back three days later. I warned Kassia that our place has been taken by someone else. She was curious, but she hated confrontation.
“We’ll find another place,” she’d soothed me, but her mouth had turned down.
I don’t know what makes me go back, but the boy is lounging in my oak when I arrive. I expect him to snarl at me for stealing his jacket, but his eyes lighten when they meet mine.
“You came back.”
“You’re in my tree again.”
He takes one hand away from the branch he’s leaning on and shakes his finger at me. “Perhaps it’s my tree now.”
He’s the first noble I’ve ever met. And he reinforces everything I’ve heard about them. They believe they’re entitled to anything they want. All they do istake.
Bitterness floods my mouth and I turn to go.
“You stole my jacket.”
I stiffen, slowly turning. “And?”
“Why?”
He can’t possibly be this stupid. Lifting my chin, I meet his eyes. “I sold it. The velvet paid to refill our aether stones. And the buttons fed us for two weeks.”
He looks aghast. “You have to worry about such things? You’re younger than I am.”
“How do you know I’m younger?”
“You’re small. Puny.”
I scowl at him. His gaze slides over my face. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
I have a feeling this is the closest this boy will ever come to an apology.
Casting a final look at him, so clean and beautiful and shiny, I turn to leave again.
“Wait.”
His voice is strong. Commanding. He’s only a few years older than me atmost, and he’s already used to giving orders. But I don’t have to take them. Not here. Not in my territory.
“Please.”
That word does it. I turn once more, finding him lounging against the tree trunk, one leg stretched out along the lowest branch. He’s moved farther down, as if he’s planning to follow me.
Stupid boy. I know the Thorn inside and out. He’ll be lost before he takes ten steps.
“Stay with me. I’ll give you this.”
He plucks a button off his jacket and holds it out in his hand, the gold taunting me.
“Won’t your parents notice if you lose a button?” For the first time, I consider how much trouble he must have been in when he returned with no jacket.
Confusion slips across his face. “No.”
His home life is so different from mine. What else is different? I drift closer to the tree, stepping over acorns littered on the grassy hill around the trunk of the oak. Triumph flashes in the boy’s eyes and my skin prickles. My instincts roar at me.
