“Fine.” I slid my fingers off the keys. “Be my guest.”
“Don’t be silly. You know we’re perfect together.” Heather raised her bow. “Do it again.”
This is stupid. I shouldn’t feel bad for Faye.I was getting exactly what I wanted – she’d have to leave soon. She would no longer be in danger, or a threat to my plan. I’d win the Manderley Prize, and everything would be okay.
But I didn’t feel okay. I felt like a complete shit.
When we emerged from class, the dining room table was already set with platters of cold sandwiches. Faye was nowhere to be seen. Heather wrinkled her nose as she picked up the bread. “Canned tuna? What is this shit?”
While the others bickered and gossiped about Faye, I pushed my food around on my plate.This is stupid. I can’t leave things like this. I can’t have her believe I destroyed her violin.
It shouldn’t matter, but it did.
I shoved my plate aside and stood up. “I’m not hungry.”
Heather searched my face, her eyes widening with annoyance. “Dorien—”
But I was already bounding up the stairs. Before I knew it, I stood on the narrow attic landing, my back stooped and the one dim lightbulb swinging against my cheek. I shuttered myself against the wave of memories – of Clare’s excited face in the dark when I came to visit her, of all the things she said in the dim morning hours that I ignored, too lost in my own bullshit—
I knocked on Faye’s door.
Nothing. No sound. Not even the string of profanity I deserved. I knocked again, and was just about to call out when the door swung open.
My breath caught in my throat. Faye opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She looked… well, she was fucking gorgeous. But today it was a beauty borne of fragility – of red-rimmed eyes and tousled hair and a pillow crease along her cheek – not the strength that carried her. She clutched a battered old book in her hands. The fire in her eyes had gone out, and her chin quivered when she raised her face to meet me.
Her eyes, her face… it broke me.
“You happy?” she hissed, grabbing the door and slamming it behind her.
I stood in the hall, frozen and mute.
Fuck.Fuck.
That haunted look in her eyes. I’d done that. I’dbrokenher.
It was my job. I couldn’t defy Madame Usher. Not without putting my entire future –hisfuture – at risk.
Unless…
I slumped on the top step, my head in my hands, my mind whirring with possibilities. This blackmail thing could work two ways. There was some reason Madame Usher wanted Faye to leave Manderley. It didn’t make any sense, because she didn’t have to offer Faye a spot in the first place. But Faye was here, and Madame wanted her gone, but she refused to get her hands dirty. That was where Broken Muse came in – Madame had all three of us over a barrel, and she relished it.
She traded in secrets. But she had secrets of her own. If I could find out why she wanted me to destroy Faye so badly, then I might have a chance to set all of us free of her web.
Chapter Thirty
Faye
I hate you, Dorien Valencourt.
You’re next.
Chapter Thirty-One
Dorien
“Wanna jam some Bach?” Titus leaned over my desk, his cornrows falling over his ears. His deep voice echoed across the library.
I slammed my laptop screen shut and glared at my friend. “Can’t. I’ve got to finish that essay on Baroque compositional structures. Go bother Ivan. He looks like he could use a break from perfection.”
