It was a loaded question; she was interrogating me and had just caused me pain. She’d admitted previously that she would jail me for life if I went dark. But did I wish her harm? No. Not unless she hurt me first.
“No.”
She looked supremely flustered at that. “Well, what do you want, Fallon?!” she huffed.
I met her gaze, unable to stop my tongue from baring my deepest truth. “To be loved. To be kissed by a boy. To be normal. To go to the school dance with my hair down, in a short dress, with no gloves, and dance all night without fear of being touched and caused pain.”
Her entire face went slack, and I was so mortified at what I had just said out loud that I couldn’t bear to look at Ariyon.
“Well, if either of you can’t think of anything else to ask her, then I think we are done here?” she said suddenly, clearly unsure what to do with what I had just laid on her.
The queen looked to Ariyon and Master Clarke. Clarke waved her off and Ariyon shook his head, but I still didn’t dare to look at him.
The queen leaned over my arm, bringing her mouth close to it but not touching her lips, and inhaled. The buttery yellow mark climbed up off my arm into a vapor sucked into her mouth and I felt like myself again.
With that the queen turned to Master Clarke. “They all seem innocent in the beginning. Be vigilant. As her magic grows, so will the darkness within her.”
Then she left, her two guards trailing behind her.
In that very moment, I wanted to die, I was so mortified I’d just admitted what a loser I was in front of Ariyon and Master Clarke.
‘I want to be loved? Did I really just say that?’
“Feeling okay, Fallon? Think we can dismiss Prince Ariyon?” Master Clarke asked, and I wanted to hug him for giving me an out.
“I’m fine.” I nodded, clearing my throat.
Ariyon stood, pulling his hands away from my chest and taking his healing from me. Then he peered down at me, but I didn’t have the guts to look back up at him.
Without a word, he left, and only Master Clarke remained. He dragged a chair over from the desk and sat before me.
“Tell me what happened last night. I heard you used the undying fire.”
I sighed, and then told him everything. Including how Master Knight had all but forced me to use my power in her elective class.
Reaching up, he rubbed his chin, seemingly lost in thought. “I hate to admit this, but I think Master Knight might have saved your life. From now on you do not just observe, you learn everything you can so that if they attack again, you can defend yourself.”
“Will they attack again?” I asked.
He shrugged. “We should plan for it. I know the queen will be.”
Fear spiked through me. “But won’t practicing my magic more…accelerate the darkness?”
He shrugged, “You have great power inside of you, some of which we don’t even have teachers at this school to guide you on. Best we find out what we are dealing with so that we can get a handle on it.”
I peered at him. “How long did my mother last before she…went dark?”
He blew air through his lips, seemingly rolling that question over in his mind for a long time. Something flashed across his face that I couldn’t quite read—regret? “If I’m being honest, she was dark from the day I met her at age sixteen.”
I gasped in shock, and he frowned. “Marissa Bane grew up on the West Side with an adoptive family. Her birth parents were”—he cleared his throat—“murdered by the current Gilded City King at the time.”
I frowned. “Why is everyone always killing the Banes and then wondering why we turn on them?”
“That’s not fair.” He pointed a finger at me. “There was always a reason.”
I crossed my arms. “What was the reason you think Marissa was dark at age sixteen? Surely, she was too young to have been lost to the magic.”
He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “At age sixteen, Marissa got angry when her adoptive parents wouldn’t let her stay out late and she started a fire with her mind, burned the house down, killing them both.”
