Page 67 of Queen of Nothing

“I asked him once—” Serena gently nudges the timepiece, watching how the gold dances in the light “—why he was so intent on isolating your whole future. And truthfully,” she adds with a grimace aimed at me, “I didn’t love the idea of living with you for the rest of my life. That motivated me to be in Oliver’s ear and help push you into a marriage.”

I drop my hands to my lap and turn my cheek to her.

I stare at the wall sconce, dusty and dated.

But my mind tumbles back to Bluestone—to Serena pulling me into a game of Truth or Dare, knowing Dray was coming down to the parlour room to join, and dragging me along to a party with the promise of Dray not attending, but of course he did show up.

Serena’s motives were far more layered than I ever gave her credit for.

She was doing the most.

She was pushing me and Dray together, aligning herself with me, and also grooming me to run—all at once.

But there’s something about it that doesn’t sit quite right in me.

Oliver’s protection.

I ask, “Why wouldn’t he want me to marry Dray?”

Serena shrugs, but gives an answer, “Oliver said the same thing every time I asked. He doesn’t think that anyone deserves you.” The bitterness on her face startles me. “Truly, it made me hate you for so long.”

“What did?”

“How much Oliver worked to protect you—and how much he cared about you,” she sighs, shaking her head. “I would have given anything for him to love me half as much.”

I’m completely unmoved.

Or in shock, it could be either, it could be both.

My tone is monotonous as I retort, “It’s not exactly how I remember it.”

Love and care and protection?

No one deserving me?

Oliver running off to battle Father and save me from Dray?

That was not my experience.

“You weren’t in it,” Serena tells me, and there’s a sharpness to her voice, like the edge of a blade. “You don’t know what went on in our group. You don’t know what my relationship with Asta was like, or that your brother was always chasing her, my best friend—” She spits the words out, and they strike me. “You don’t know that Landon was always on the outs, and future plans were being made right in front of him, but they all excluded him, too. You don’t know that Oliver and Dray would openly discuss who would replace the Barlows in the coven.”

Her eyes are alight now, both with ferocity and tears that she fights back, stubborn.

All of these feelings and resentments have been buried for years.

Our rule to not speak about the past, about the coven, about Bluestone, or anything to do with the Videralli, means we bury things and they spoil.

They rot inside of us.

And that’s exactly what’s being unleashed in front of me.

Rot.

Serena’s face reddens, and she hisses out the words between clenched teeth, “You don’t know that, after Oliver failed to convince your father to reject Dray’s offer, he came back to the academy—and jumped Dray in the middle of the parlour room. You don’t know that the fight was so bad that Oliver’s arm was broken, and Dray had to have some teeth put back in.”

She strikes the pile between us.

The money flitters to the wall, and the watch jangles.