It would have been freeing if I still had anywhere else to go. But since I’d been avoiding my family on the Second, I’d pretty much remained at the top, training my days away until Dante had to practically force me to sleep.
But I’d promised my mother I would be there for my birthday, so I had no choice but to stroll up to the front porch of my family’s new home. I extended a fist, wondering whether or not I should knock or just walk right in.
Before I could decide, the door swung open.
“Were you about to knock?” Maurice asked, raising a brow. “On your own front door?”
“Good to see you too.” I pushed past him into the house.
“You probably should’ve knocked, given how much of a stranger you’ve been this last month.”
I tried to ignore the sting of his remark as I peered around at the crowd already enjoying my mother’s party. “Is Warren here?”
“Oh, now you’re looking for him after avoiding him for weeks?” Maurice bumped my shoulder with his own as he pushed past me toward the snacks laid out on a nearby table. He grabbed a fistful of chips and stuffed them into his mouth.
“Did he tell you what happened?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“No. But I can tell when things are weird between you.”
“Yeah, well, I think it’s time we sorted it out.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He pointed toward the door to the living room, and I nodded a thanks before pushing through into the densely crowded space. For a moment, I paused in the threshold, stunned by the amount of people who’d attended a party in my honor.
My mother had invited an eclectic mix of people from my life. There was an assortment of our old friends from the Third Ring. Bakers who raised a glass as I passed, seamstresses gathered in a corner who all worked with my mother and had taken turns watching my brothers and I when we were younger. Handymen who were always available to fix the pipes or reset a cabinet drawer. There were also people I recognized from my new life in the upper echelons. Cyrus’s mother and father mingled with a few other couples in the corner. Bria smiled serenely from where she stood beside Luca, who was locked in conversation with none other than Milo.
Warren was at the back of the hall, laughing at whatever the man he was speaking to was telling him. I didn’t recognize the guy, but he seemed to be of an age with my brother. In that moment, Warren reminded me of Cyrus from when I’d long ago stood on the other side of a street and watched Cyrus entertain guests at his own party, throwing his head back and smiling in a way that somehow managed to show all of his teeth at once, as Warren was doing now.
Something clenched around my heart, but I pushed it aside and approached my brother.
“Adrian,” he said in delighted greeting when I arrived at his side. His eyes sparkled but remained cautious. “Happy birthday, little sister.”
He reached out a hand; a test. I accepted it, and his grin broadened.
“Congratulations on the Trials, Adrian,” the man he’d been speaking with said abruptly, and I nodded a polite thanks before turning back to Warren.
“Where’s mom?”
“Somewhere around here,” Warren glanced about the party, “trying to get some inter-class mingling going.”
I looked around too, but instead of finding our mother, I noticed something else that had escaped me when I’d walked in. Sure, various people from various rings were here, but they were all clumped together in little miniature versions of their individual classes.
“This whole thing’s got a bit of a first co-ed party vibe going, doesn’t it?” the unidentified man asked, and Warren snorted into his drink.
“Yeah,” I replied slowly, still looking for my mother. “It does.”
Finally, I spotted her at the back of the party, attempting in vain to introduce a snooty looking couple to one of her oldest seamstress friends. I could tell, even from a distance, that it wasn’t going well, not with the way the couples’ lips seemed to be curled up in a permanent sneer. I took a few strides toward her, but someone stepped into my path.
“Adrian.”
I halted, dumbfounded.
“June,” I replied in near disbelief. How, of all the people in the Third Ring, hadJuniperbeen granted an invitation to my birthday party?
“I wanted to say congratulations,” she started, then the words began tumbling out of her faster than I could keep up with. “It’s so crazy, isn’t it? I mean, when this whole thing began, you were right in front of me in line waiting to take your oath and now this? Who would’ve thought that someone from our ring would have gone so far? And you of all people? I mean, not that I didn’t think you could. Well, that’s not true. I didn’t, but not because of you, specifically. Just because of the whole, no one has in a thousand years, thing. Sort of hard to get around that, really. Then again, you’ve only passed four so far, so maybe—”
“Adrian,” someone interrupted. I looked up, grateful, to find Milo already reaching for my arm. He cast Juniper an apologeticsmile. “Your mother was asking for you. Something about refilling the punch?”
