How could I possibly be this stupid?
He’d given me months to get used to his utter indifference towards me last year. Not to mention my having to watch half the witches in school in his lap at one time or another.
My eyes fell to Wraith, who pressed herself into my chest and arms, her claws clinging to my jacket, a dark red, vorisk leather thing Alaric picked out for me and insisted I buy or he would buy it for me. As usual, I ended up loving it, just as I did with all of Alaric’s “suggestions.” He had opinions about my wardrobe that sometimes made me laugh, sometimes made me roll my eyes, but that I usually ended up agreeing with in the end, as annoying as it could be. The emerald green, camisole-like top I wore underthe jacket was also an Alaric suggestion, and now one of my favorites.
As the cat melted against me inside the jacket, her purr rumbling against my chest, Draken, Luc, and Miranda talked about their class schedules, and the carriage began to accelerate faster on its way out of the city.
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes.
He didn’t matter, I told myself.
Whatever and whoever he really was, it didn’t really matter in the end.
5
Caelum: Six Years Old
Sixteen Years Ago
Bones Estate, “The Black Tower,” Exmoor
He ran through the fronds of grass and wildflowers, a grin plastered on his face.
His heart filled with joy as his legs flashed through the flower, wind, and green-smelling field. He had time, he told himself. He chanted it in the back of his head.
I have time. I have time. I have time.
His father had gone to work in London that day.
He’d taken the carriage, which meant he would be gone for hours.
When he left for shorter times, he took the giant, gilded, snake and bones mirror in the main foyer. The mirror fascinated Caelum. He couldn’t walk through it. His father magicked it so that he couldn’t, so that no one could but a select few, but Caelum would press his hand to the glass, stroke the detailedsnake heads where they coiled around the edges, hiding among the gilded roses and thorns and bones.
His father hadn’t taken the mirror today.
Instead, his mother followed him out the front door to the carriage, murmuring under her breath about shopping and gowns and a lunch date with friends in Covent Garden. Caelum could scarcely believe his luck when he realized both of them would be gone. Longer openings were so few. They came so rarely. There was only one obstacle left in his way, and luckily, the mage in question had been sitting on a settee in the sunroom when Caelum found him.
He’d already been sitting down.
He’d already been in a position where he could have fallen asleep.
He reallycouldhave fallen asleep in the warm sun, immersed in the thick smells of lavender and roses and honeysuckle and other flowers of his mother’s that wafted into the high-ceilinged glass room.
It made everything so easy.
“What, you little fuck?” The bearded mage had scowled at him, his black eyes hard and predatory in an angular, hawk-like face. “What do you want? Aren’t you supposed to be studying?”
Caelum nearly lost his nerve. He fought back and forth in his mind.
He couldn’t give it up, though. His heart hurt at the thought.
No. No. He couldn’t. He had to have this. Hehadto.
His father wasn’t always gone as long as he said.
His father so rarely left him alone.
“What?” Rolf slammed a hand down on the glass table, trembling a vase filled with roses and baby’s breath. “Your father’ll hide you down to the bone if you screw around while he’s gone. Worse, he’ll blame me. Get to it, whatever he has youon, or this’ll be another kind of teaching moment. One you’ll like a lot less, runt.”
