Her face hardens. “What did he do?”
“Nothing, really.”
She scoffs, then shakes her head.
Tired of my lies, like I’m tired of her vibe.
I throw a look around the canteen, as though I’ll spot the bane of my existence among the faces—but he isn’t here.
Neither is my brother.
Landon is at the usual table of Snakes, lounging in his chair so far back that the front legs lift off the wooden floorboards. His hands are folded at the nape of his neck and though his gaze flickers to the back of James’s head every other heartbeat, he keeps his grins for whatever Asta is animating with her flailing hands and her hard beetroot face, in the middle of a tangent I am guessing is about me or the engagement drama.
“It’s nothing,” I echo and bite into the banana. I need one good food in me after all that fried rubbish. “Just the usual. Dray being Dray.”
The mush is a bit too ripe for my liking. I could go pick out another, but the queue for the buffet is now too long, reaching all the way up the wall to the double doors, and with one glance at it, I decide, fuck that.
Courtney draws in my gaze.
She leans closer over her runny porridge. “Why can’t you just tell your father?”
Something twists inside of me.
The weariness of it sags my shoulders beneath my cardigan.
I’m so tired of explaining it to her.
She just doesn’t get it, because her little section of this world is nothing like mine.
Maybe, if she came from an era hundreds of years ago, she wouldn’t badger me with the same questions. She would just know that there are certain parts of our society that rely on the old ways to maintain alliances, to protect ancient bloodlines, to maintain the power amongst the aristos.
I’m a contract.
I’m a broodmare.
That is my reason for breathing. The future designed for me.
I drop the banana peel to the tray with a sigh.
“If you won’t go to your father, at least tell a master. Surely someone will do something.”
I force a tight smile, but it probably looks more like a grimace. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
She falls back into her seat, then looks me over. So much disdain in that one look.
But she knows so little.
I glance up at the faculty table.
Eric is there, hunched over the side of his chair, in deep conversation with Master Milton.
He doesn’t even look my way.
Guess we both lost out grips on our backups.
Now, I need another scheme.
But I can hardly think this morning, can hardly focus on more than my full belly and fatigue, and the laughter that booms from Landon.
