“I want you to know what we are up against,” he said calmly.
Silence stretched between us. “Me going insane and joining some Nightling war to…what, take over the fae world?”
I expected him to laugh at the joke but instead he gave me a serious nod.
With that, he stood and placed a hand in his pocket. “I’ll see you tomorrow for class. Your father has been harassing the guards at the gate for the last hour. I’ll let him in and arrange a place for you to stay on the West Side.”
The West Side.Where the poor, weak-magic fae lived?
“Wait, you want me tolivehere?”
“I don’t expect you to travel three hours on foot every day for schooling,” he countered.
So, I was going to that school? The Academy? My mind spun with all this new information.
“My father can come? To live here too?” I asked again to be sure I’d heard him right.
The man nodded. “I’ll see to it that he gets a job.”
This was all happening so fast. Live in The Gilded City with my father? Go to The Academy to learn magic?
“Isn’t the level of my power fitting for more of an East Side fae?” I queried, taking a chance at getting my father and I into a better part of town.
He looked down his nose at me. “Your father has no magic. I’m guessing neither of you can read, and you grew up in Isariah. Trust me. The East Side would eat you both alive.”
Well,thatwas insulting. “I can read!” I shot back.
He put one hand on his hip. “And your father? Is he good with mathematics? Shall I get him a royal accounting job and you can have a palatial manor with horses and household staff?”
I frowned. “Okay. Point taken.”
He nodded once, seemingly pleased that I’d backed down on the topic.
“So, I’m not in trouble?” I asked, looking at the hallway the queen had just gone down.
He seemed to ponder this question. “You’re on probation.”
“For being born?”
He peered at me very sternly. “For being born of the darkest fae lineage known throughout all generations,yes.”
Yikes. When he put it that way, it caused a chill to run down my spine.
“I’m not dark. The only reason I ashed that guy’s sword was because he was trying to stab my friend with it. She’s a helpless old lady. He should be ashamed,” I told him, hugging my knees to my chest.
Clarke sighed. “Thathelpless old ladytook down three guards before she was subdued. She’s in lock-up across the hall awaiting sentencing. We think she’s an Ealdor Fae, born magicless.” He turned to walk away.
“What, no!” I threw myself at the bars and glanced frantically down the hallway. “You can’t…kill her. She was protecting me. Your guards hurt me. They touched my neck until I passed out.”
He spun and looked over his shoulder at me, the slightest hint of compassion casting a shadow over his features. “You are a Bane. The guards were ordered to go in hot in case you retaliated, which youdid,” he reminded me. “Assaulting a Royal Guardsman will get her life in prison, if not death.”
He then walked away, but I shouted for him to stop. “You want me to be on your side for some war that is coming!” A rush of heat flushed my cheeks and my brows furrowed as my temper rose. “Then you show me that you are worth fighting for. Let my innocent friend go so that I can trust that the people of The Gilded City are good. Because from where I am sitting, all you have been is evil to me. Maybe I’m not the dark one. You are!”
I rattled the bars for good measure.
He turned, watching me for a long moment, so long that sweat beaded my brow and I fidgeted with a loose thread at the hem of my blouse.
“I will take your concern up with the queen,” he muttered and then walked to a guard at the very far wall, pointing to my cell.
