“Fallon, no! That’s not true!” Eden called after me, but I was fast, unlocking my front door and re-latching it before she could open it.
Her fists pounded on the wood a moment later.
“Fine! Be that way. But know this, Fallon Brookshire. We don’t have a set destiny. We have choices, and you can choose to be different from Marissa Bane. We make our own destiny, dammit!” She rapped on the door a final time and then I heard her footsteps retreat.
I ran to my room, knowing my father wasn’t home, and found Yanric on my pillow.
I wanted to be alone, but I also didn’t. He was the only one who understood me right now. He was a dark fae too.
I fell onto my bed and blinked up at him, remembering how he’d attacked my mother for me.
“I thought you envied my mother and the entire Bane family? That you liked all of the powerful dark fae. Why did you help me?” I spoke out loud and he hopped off my pillow and walked right up to me.
‘Let’s get one thing clear. I am loyal to you and you alone, Fallon Bane. If you need my help, I offer it without question. If your heart breaks, my heart breaks too. If someone seeks to harm you, I will harm them no matter who they are or what title they carry. And if you go insane with darkness and become a Nightling, then I too go with you.’
I burst into sobs then, because it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me, and it made me feel so safe.
I wasn’t alone.
He nestled into the covers beside me and lowered his head on my neck as I stroked his feathers. We lay like that for an hour before both drifting off to sleep.
TWELVE
The next day I left for school early so I could avoid walking with Eden. I was feeling torn about what happened last night and what to do about it. If I wasn’t being forced to go to school at The Academy, I would drop out and run back to Isa.
Two students had died. And my birth mother was there at the time, so I couldn’t help but feel the guilt that Marissa had been there looking for me. I quickly crossed through the open gates of the school courtyard and stilled.
Students were sobbing, candles were lit, and a memorial table teeming with flowers had been erected, with the deceased students’ pictures atop it.
Dread settled into my gut, and I wanted to run home. I didn’t want to face this.
“Fallon.” Master Clarke called my name, making me jump. When I turned to look at him, I paled. The Queen of The Gilded City stood next to him with a Royal Guard on either side of her.
I bowed my head to her, unsure what the protocol was. I had never curtsied in my life; if I tried, I might look stupid.
“A private word?” he asked.
I nodded and crossed the courtyard, apprehension blooming in my gut.
Yanric was perched on my shoulder, but I needed to make sure he wasn’t going to do anything stupid. He was protective of me, which I appreciated, but the queen was not someone I could afford to make mistakes with.
‘Fly away and wait for me in a nearby tree,’I ordered as we approached the door to Clarke’s office.
‘She could kill you!’he snapped.
‘She will if she thinks I’m going dark. I need to seem normal, and I can’t do that with a familiar on my shoulder. GO!’
His wings flapped and then he took off, soaring through the air and landing on a nearby branch. I knew that if things got bleak, he could turn to shadow and fly through a wall looking for me. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I didn’t want to tell Yanric about the conversation I’d heard between Master Clarke and the queen. That she wouldn’t kill me. Worse, she’d build a cage to hold me my entire life.
Queen Solana watched him go with a suspicious gaze and I followed Clarke into his office, the queen and her two guards trailing behind me.
We stepped into the plain decoy office and my nerves ratcheted up a notch when he bypassed it and walked through the open bookcase and down the stairs to his true office. The place where you could scream, and no one would hear you.
When we reached the base of the stairs, I recoiled at the sight of Ariyon standing before a chair in the middle of the room. It was like an interrogation setup, one from the scary stories Sorrel liked to read to us around the campfire.
Ariyon looked nervous, glancing to his aunt, with his mouth set in a firm line, like maybe he didn’t want to be here. After what he said to me last night, I didn’t want him here, either.
“Take a seat, Fallon, and don’t be nervous, this is just some questioning,” Master Clarke said but he appeared anything but calm. He snuck anxious glances at Queen Solana, who stood with her back rigid as she watched me.
