Oliver’s frown snags on the book.
Out the corner of my eye, I catch it—the starkness that wipes the creases of his face smooth, and he startles, as if taken aback.
“It’s not mine.” My voice is barely a whisper. “It’s Dray’s.”
Mother’s eyes widen, but not with surprise. The surge of anger rises in her, clenched her jaw tight, and flares her nostrils with a deep inhale.
Father’s grip flexes on the book, as though he means to tighten his hand into a fist. The hard leather creaks.
The faint tremble of rage in his voice bolts my shoulders, “How did it come into your possession?”
I don’t know if I’m so tired that lying is just too much of a bother, or if I tell the truth because I see no other way out of it.
All I know is the words come from me too easily, “He lent it to me.”
The blotches on Father’s knuckles turn stark white. “Why would he do that?” His lips curl around the words, baring his clenched teeth. “Did you ask for it?”
My mouth pinches for a beat.
Mother stands there, frozen in front of me, eyes flaring like a blaze ready to consume me, like a beast ready to lunge at its prey.
Oliver tucks his chin down and looks at the floor, his lashes shutting, as though he’s just so exhausted—byme.
I loosen a tension in my chest, and the answer is released with a breathiness, “Yes.”
Father is a statue.
For a long few seconds that sludge by, he is unmoving. Then, I blink, and his hand is lowering to his side.
His grip loosens on the book.
Father looks like I’ve just told him I’m for the girls, that I’m secretly in love with Courtney or something just as shocking.
That shock running down him is threaded with dread. It’s water running over boulders in a stream.
Oliver’s murmur is faint, “Olivia—what’s the matter with you?”
I throw him a vicious look.
“Oh, gods—so what?” I snap and throw up my hands, exasperated. “Honestly, why do you even care? Why are you all so obsessed with a book?”
Mother’s rage throws her into a flurried step towards me. The robe billows around her legs.
“You dare speak to us like—”
“Like what?” I shout. “Like you’re all acting crazy over a fucking book?” I clap my hands together to punch each word. “It’s just a book!” My body rattles with the shout. “So what I want to read about being a deadblood? And if you weren’t trying to hide it from me, I wouldn’t know that there’s something in it that you obviously don’t want me to read—”
The strike comes so quick that I didn’t even see Mother’s hand swipe through the air.
It came so suddenly that I don’t even feel the burn of it on my cheek.
It turns my head to the side, my stare aimed at the fireplace, and for a long moment, silence has swallowed the foyer.
Mother struck me.
She literally slapped me, right in the foyer, in front of servants and Father and Oliver—
And no one says a thing about it.
