Page 123 of Queen of Nothing

He uses the Barlows as an example. And both the Barlow sons—Landon and Grey—are disappointments with their prints.

A brewer and a herbalist.

My mouth twists.

I drop my head as if to hide—hide from the three fierce stares aimed at me like weapons, hide from the unease that’s fidgeting my hands on my lap.

But Oliver chases my line of sight.

He leans forward and braces his forearms on his thighs. “This is about more than alliances, Olivia.”

I lift my gaze beneath my lashes.

Oliver continues, “Without monitoring the production of prints, we risk a generation of witches who can only brew some fucking potions.”

“And how do we hold power then?” Father snaps. “How do the gods respond when their instruments are weakened by sheer neglect?”

I… I don’t have an answer to that.

I truly don’t know.

The Videralli has never lost power over this world, not since they took control, hiding behind whichever face of control was there. Whether churches or empires or royalty, the Videralli was behind them all.

I suddenly feel miniscule.

The Videralli has made itself integral to the world. The Videralli made it that, if we go down, everything goes down with us.

I just always thought of myself as separate to that. An individual among the masses, fairly neutral in these dynamics. Just along for the ride, if anything.

“We all have our parts to play,” Father tells me, and it sounds so much like a warning, “and you ran from your duty. You shamed the gods, you shamed your family, and for what? In your quest to marry some mediocre professor of stars?”

I lift my gaze to his angry face unwillingly.

I shake my head, and the tears cast a filminess over my vision.

I whisper, “It had nothing to do with Eric. It was you.”

I blink and Father’s face is stone. It is contained rage.

“You,” I say, and my voice is trembling now, “were forcing me to marry the man who bullied me all the way through my school life. You told me that my pain didn’t matter, so I decided you didn’t matter.”

Out the corner of my eye, Oliver’s nostrils flare—like he’s suddenly inhaling all the air in the room to subdue the rage swelling up inside of him.

Mr Younge turns his clenched cheek to me, to all of us, and shuts his eyes on the wall, as if to find a grip on his silence.

But Father explodes.

He rounds on me, eyes blazing.

“You do not matter, Olivia,” he shouts. “None of us matter outside of the collective coven. We all make our sacrifices, and if you haven’t learned that by now, then I don’t know how else to get it through your head! Did we spoil you too much, and now you believe you are at the centre of the universe? Or did we not give you enough, and so you self-destruct every five minutes for attention?”

He distorts it.

The truth, the reality I lived, the life I suffered.

“That’s not it—”

Father towers over me, his hiss lethal, “Then what is it?”