The huff that deflates me is too soft to hear. It fogs at my face.
Bluestone used to be the obstacle in my life. I wished for my graduation day to come, because it meant the end. It meant freedom.
I would leave the academy, marry some faceless aristos, out of Dray’s path.
Worst case, I would be unmarried and stay at Elcott Abbey, live out the rest of my life there, but still be out of Dray’s reach—because once we entered that next phase of life, of marriage and responsibilities, it would all change.
Now, the path ahead of me is shrouded in the same fog that’s settled over VeVille.
I can’t trust anyone. Not my mother, my father, not the brother walking up the path beside me.
I trust him even less now that, after I smacked a cake down on his face hard enough that he bled, he has stuck beside me since we came through the veil.
I always thought Oliver would let me stay as the spinster sister at Elcott if it came down to it.
I see him better now.
And, as I eye him over, checking his watch, his pace matching mine up the trail, I wonder if he would send me off to live out my spinster life at Nonna’s—or worse, Grandmother Ethel’s—just so he doesn’t have the burden of my presence.
That’s more than spinsterhood.
That’s banishment.
Banishment from the society we’re raised in.
I love Nonna, but to be packed off to live with her means to live on a small allowance with the gentry. It means to live a gentry life.
It’s demotion.
And Grandmother Ethel…
I shudder to think of a life in her home.
I’m nudged out of my spiralling terror as Oliver’s shoulder bumps into mine. “No fantasies of fleeing will help you,” he says, soft.
The frown I swerve up at him isn’t kind. I snap, “What?”
His head dips, a slight gesture to the pentacle firm in my grip. My knuckles are blotching, paling, and I only now realise I’m still holding it.
The huff puffs at my face.
I stuff the pentacle into my pocket.
Oliver keeps my pace.
His steps are synced with mine up the incline of the hill, the path slushing under our steps.
Every semester, we come through the veil together. I step through first, then he follows, but he is always quick to overtake me on the path and disappear ahead, away to find another Snake, or to simply be anywhere that I’m not.
But here he is, still beside me.
I expect him to splinter off when we reach the queue forming in the mist ahead. Since it’s early, the queue hasn’t formed downhill just yet, and the incline slows us.
I fish my ivory leather gloves out from the deep pocket of my sable fur coat. Finger by finger, I slip them on. The leather shields the damp from reaching my skin, but the cashmere interiors are buttery clouds gliding over me.
The faint early gathering of students is starting to clear through the mist.
The closer we get, the more annoyed I am at Oliver’s presence, until I loosen a harsh breath and throw him a dark look. “What are you still doing here? Don’t you generally disappear around this time?”
