Page 84 of Queen of Nothing

Her grey eyes are clouded by tears, turning them silvery. But her tears don’t fall. Her cheeks are dry.

She holds them back, her mouth a stroke across her face.

But something grows in her as she stares at my brother, something a lot like old, awakened hatred.

Mr Younge clears his throat. “Miss Serena.”

Her jaw tightens for a beat, then slowly, she turns her cheek to Oliver and looks at Mr Younge.

He clasps his hands at his front. “You might be feeling some apprehension at our unannounced arrival, but I insist that you do your best to focus. This interaction has only one outcome. Whether or not it is delayed is entirely your decision. But I do ask that you acknowledge the ramifications of such delays.”

The wobble of my damp lips comes with shuddered breaths.

I watch Father in the video.

He is angled to face the kitchen, but his chin is tucked to the shoulder of his suit jacket.

I can’t make out more than that, but I’m certain he looks down the side of the building to the lane.

Serena’s voice wavers, “I’m not going with you.” Guttural, she repeats, “I’m not going.”

There’s a rustle behind her.

I know it came from Oliver because she whips around, eyes wild, like that of prey realising the predator is lunging.

But he isn’t.

He doesn’t move into the scope of the camera.

He moves out of it.

I don’t see him anymore, not even the sliver of his shoulder leaning against the partition.

But the rustle continues.

Serena’s eyes narrow into restrained storms.

I wonder if he’s rummaging through our things. Maybe digging around the shelves, or the dresser or the bed-side table.

“Olivia isn’t here.” Serena turns her back on him. “It’s just me.”

Mr Younge’s face is unchanging. His gaze steady. Piercing. Sharp brown eyes, like mahogany chiselled into stakes.

I can’t make out the colour of his eyes through the video call, but I don’t need to. I know that look well.

It’s that same look he would give me when he caught me in lies—and would stare, wait for me to crack, to break.

But Serena is sharper than I am.

Stronger.

She’s a sword.

Polished, even in the krum world with constant fatigue and lassitude limit and living in household chores, the stare she returns to Mr Younge is probably the fierce stare of a woman born into the highest families in the Videralli looking at a mere gentry servant.

The dull drone of Oliver’s answer comes from out of view, “Suddenly taken an interest in sheet music, have you?”

My teeth grit together.