“Okay,” he says.
I walk toward him, casting my eyes down. When I’m about to pass him, he surprises me by catching my arm.
“What are you doing here, Esmeray?”
My heart hammers as the heat from his touch moves through my body. “I didn’t exactly get a choice… since I’m… since I’m the new heir.”
He doesn’t say anything else until I slowly look up to meet his gaze. “I’m so sorry about your brother.”
It’s hard to swallow around the lump in my throat. “Accidents happen, right?”
He suddenly refuses to look back at me.
Hell, does he know it wasn’t an accident?
“Dwade?” His name comes out more sharply than I intended.
“It’s good to have you here,” he says, then releases my arm and heads toward his room.
I can’t seem to move as I watch him go to his door, unlock it, and disappear inside. It feels like I just watched a ghost. A memory of the boy who used to sit and talk with me for hours. Both of us tended to be quiet, but together we seemed to always have something to say. Is there any part of the boy I once knew there? Did I imagine his reaction to my brother?
Heading back outside, a troubling thought follows me as I wind down the outdoor staircase. What if my brother’s friends had something to do with what happened to him?
For the first time in my life, I find that I miss my home. At least there I had the ghosts and monsters to keep me company.
Here? I had no idea who I could trust and who I couldn’t.
And even though I’d planned to keep a distance from Dwade, Bron, and Lucian, I’d never imagined I’d be adding their name to my list of suspects. But I was. A fact that killed me.
6 Esmeray
It’s late at night as I sit on the tall wall that surrounds the school. Outside the wall, a forest spreads out around us, enchanted to discourage humans from accidentally stumbling onto our world. A ghost of a young fae woman sits beside me on the wall. I could tell that she was initially frightened of me. Knowing I could see her meant that I was a dark fae, which scared her, but her curiosity at having someone who could see her slowly seemed to overwhelm her nerves.
“Why do you sit out here when you should be sleeping?” she asks, her question hesitant.
“Because.” I search for the words. “I don’t need a lot of sleep. And…I like the nighttime. The moon paints the world in a kind of peaceful glow that the sun destroys.”
The woman slides a little closer to me, looking out at the moon. “I never thought about the night like that.”
A strange peacefulness settles between us. Not quite like we’re old friends, but like we’re two people who want to be alone with someone.
“You’re new to the school?”
“Yes,” I say.
“I’ve never heard of a student coming in partially through the year.”
“There were…special circumstances.” The last thing I want to talk about is my brother’s death, but I also know enough to realize that ghosts often hold the secrets of a place. “My brother, Rayne, died recently. I took his place.”
She lets out a slow breath that makes goosebumps erupt on my arms. “I knew Rayne. Everyone knew Rayne. He was so handsome, so kind, really the best.”
When I feel a tear run down my face, I wipe it away. “He really was.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I draw my knees up, cautious to keep my balance on the top of the wall. “It’s okay.”
“Such a shame,” she whispers.
“They said it was an accident. That he found a sword, locked away in the cellars of the school, and sliced open his stomach with it…himself.”
The ghost turns to face me, and I regard her confused expression in my peripheral vision. “They said Rayne was playing with a sword?”
I nod, trying not to alarm her with any quick movement.
“But I heard…I heard he had angered someone.” I stay silent before she continues. “He had started digging into things they didn’t want anyone to know about.”
Now I do turn. “Who didn’t? What kind of things?”
She frowns. “It was something about the fae. About the past. About the dark and light fae.”
It’s hard to breathe. “Why would anyone care if he looked into that?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but I know that there were whispers that he was angering people.”
“Thank you,” I say.
She nods, and lifts off from the wall, before pausing. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
When she fades away, I can’t seem to move. An old memory stirs at the edges of my memories, and as much as it hurts, I can’t help but let it in. I was six, I think. Dwade, Bron, and Lucian would often sneak over to our house that summer. With their lands bordering our own, they often ran wild through the woods only to appear on our property. Their parents didn’t like them associating with the mixed breed children, but they couldn’t openly stand against it. To lose favor with my parents was too dangerous a thing.
So that summer Rayne and I would wait, sitting in the trees, and watch for any sign of them each day. He always had a book in his lap, swinging his legs on the tree branch as if he was sitting on a bench. I never read. It wasn’t something I enjoyed, but I enjoyed watching him read. I would see the emotions flashing across his face and wonder at how a book could make him…feel. Sometimes his walls would be down, and I’d open myself to him and feel everything he felt. It connected us in a strange way, and when he was finished with a book, he would explain it to me, his voice so filled with wonder at the story.
Wonder at
