“Never mind,” Reid mutters. “Last thing I need is to get in the middle of it.”
I take another puff from my pipe. It tastes like ass, but its effects are worth pushing through the flavor. I offer it back to Reid, but he waves it away.
“What’s so bad that you managed to scrounge up some red?” he asks.
“You know my mother.”
Maternal frustrations were one of the things Reid and I bonded over as kids, with mine bouncing between overbearing affection and beatings while his forgot he existed. Which is probably worse. At least mine still loved me when I wasn’t disappointing her, and the hitting stopped once I got bigger. Now she’s just a pain in the ass sometimes.
Reid sighs. “Let me guess—playing the victim? Guilt tripping?”
“Both. Every time I leave for class, she’s reminding me to come to the shop right after to make a delivery or lift something for her. I barely have time to practice incanting, though at this point I don’t know why I even bother.”
I gesture to the various foci lying abandoned nearby: a hodgepodge of stones, surrounded by scattered papers covered with circular focals.
“What happened to not incanting in Haven?” Reid teases.
Growing up, I always gave him a hard time about that. He wanted to practice all the time, while I just wanted to get through my days without risking incarceration.
“I’ll worry about that once I actually incant something. They can’t punish me for tracing lines around pretty rocks while spouting nonsense.” I tilt my head as I consider a particularly robust cloud, seeing if any shapes form. It could be a pig’s snout.
“Let me help,” Reid says, as expected. “There’s gotta be something you’re doing wrong. I can help figure it out.”
This is why I haven’t put much effort into crossing his path lately. I know in my gut that there’s nothing to figure out—it’s just one more thing I’ve failed at, and I’m running out of time to improve. Having Reid confirm that would only make it harder to pretend I have a future outside of helping my mother at the shop.
“Not now.”
After a few more hits of long leaf, I close my eyes, letting myself float away to peaceful oblivion.
* * *
I silently curse my mother as I pull open the door to the lecture hall, cutting off Professor Tillman mid-sentence. Late again, all because she made me wait around for a delivery that never showed.
A hundred sets of eyes focus on me. I quickly squeeze onto the nearest bench next to a red-haired girl who barely scoots over to make room.
Tillman’s gaze narrows at me before he continues.
“As I was saying, until recently, the Border Wars were a constant threat against our nation. The sun rose in the east, set in the west, and the fae pushed against our borders, claiming our land as their own. The common man believed the wars occurred simply between us and the fae, but it’s important to realize they are not a singular enemy.”
As he turns his back to us and draws a map on the chalkboard, the redhead eyes me intently, her lips curling into a smile as she bites the end of her pen.
Wonderful.I force a smile, then fix my gaze on Tillman’s map as if I actually care about it.
At best, it’s a wobbly oval divided into four sections. The smallest is on the left side, stretching narrowly from the top to the bottom.
“If you’ve ever looked at a map before in your life, you’ll recognize this as Landore, our home.”
Tillman taps the smallest area with his chalk. He moves to the other sections of the oval—one covers the top center, another the bottom center, with the third mirroring Landore on the other side, though much wider.
“The faelands comprise three different realms. Thanks to our prisoners of war, we know the northern realm as Aedys, the southern as Ystyr, and the eastern as Llynos.” He writes the names on the board as he says them, the chalk squeaking with every stroke. “The Border Wars were fought against Aedys and Ystyr, and this discovery was a turning point in the war—it allowed us to tailor our strategies to each battle’s opponents.”
Fascinating stuff. Truly. I’m sure it’ll affect my life someday.
Warmth presses into the side of my thigh, the red-haired pen-eater having pinned her leg against mine, her eyes locked on me. If I scoot any farther away, I’ll fall flat on my ass off the side of the bench.
I really don’t need this right now.Attention like this used to be the one thing that made me feel good about myself. And dragging me into their beds—who wouldn’t enjoy that? But I’m getting tired of just being a fun piece of meat. There’s more to me, and I wish people would see that.
Experience has taught me that rebuffing her advances will risk causing a scene—it’s better to give her what she wants, then run as soon as I get the chance. So I put my hand on her leg and give a quick squeeze. Her eyes widen, and I shoot her a smile, praying it’ll be enough to keep her hopefully daydreaming till the end of class. Then I lean forward on the desk, prop my chin against my hand and stare at Professor Tillman like he is the most interesting man alive.
