An amused smile flitted over Edon’s lips, his cheek dimpling before he smoothed his face out into cold indifference.
Mickey’s mouth was tight as he reached us. “What happened?” He glanced at our hands and his jaw clenched.
Point made.
But when I tried to take my hand back, it didn’t budge. Edon’s hand had tightened over mine just enough keep it in place. I frowned.
“Well, Mickey, it looks like I’m doing your job for you—reining in rebels and such.” Edon smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
Mickey glared at Edon and turned away from him, focusing on me instead. “What happened?” he repeated. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m fine.” I tugged my hand out of Edon’s and took a step toward Mickey.
“Someone tripped me in the hall and Edon…” I trailed off.
“I dealt with the someone,” Edon supplied.
“Where were you?” Mickey asked Bridgette.
“Watching the show. Don’t worry,” she said. “She was safe the whole time. Just a minor trip.”
“And you didn’t see it happening?”
Bridgette shrugged. “I figured it was for the best.”
“What? You let her trip me?”
“Of course. It took your mind off of O’Faolain’s class, didn’t it? Plus, you stopped running down the hall like a Banshee, and you got a nice reminder to keep your guard up—which you need to do now more than ever,” she said, her tone turning censuring.
“Speaking of which, I’m going ahead to scout out her next class,” Bridgette said, leaving without waiting for a response.
Mickey’s eyes bore into mine. “What happened in O’Faolain’s class?”
I looked away. “He was getting some payback in.”
“Payback for what?”
“My guess would be for publicly threatening to castrate him after she becomes queen,” Edon said, his eyes twinkling.
“You didn’t,” Mickey deadpanned.
“Well, after today, I might actually do it.”
Edon chuckled, the sound dancing up my arms, making my heart flip in a weirdly pleasant way. “You’d be doing the fae a favor. Little O’Faolains running around everywhere would be a nightmare.”
The image surprised me into a grimace.
His smile softened and after a few moments, I realized that I was standing there, staring up at him.
I quickly looked back over to Mickey.
Mickey didn’t miss the exchange.
“We should probably get to class.” He looked pointedly at Edon as he went to grab my arm. What was this, a property dispute? Or just a belated sense of needing to be protective of the person he’d hung out to dry by being gone for over a day. Annoyed, I swatted Mickey’s hand away and started walking.
I heard a soft chuckle behind me.
“You’ve got a fiery one.”
Mickey ignored him. I ignored them both.
Mickey followed me all the way to English before he broke away. I slid into my seat right before the bell rang. Ms. Cochran was one of the few fae in school that looked normal. She looked like she was in her fifties with wiry, dark-brown hair and circular glasses perched atop her sharp, long nose. She stared at me. And kept staring. I tried not to fidget in my seat, holding firm to the fact that I was on time and Ms. Cochran, a stickler for the rules, could kiss my—
“Well, now,” she drawled, turning her back to the chalkboard. “It appears that Bridgette is late to class today.” Sure enough, she was right. Bridgette hadn’t been in her usual seat behind mine. Uneasiness wound its way through my gut. I was pretty sure she said she was checking out this class; she should have been here already.
Ms. Cochran wrote an Irish phrase on the whiteboard—one I couldn’t recognize. “What an interesting development.”
I heard the soft scrape of chairs against the floor and looked up.
Everyone within a desk-space of me had abandoned their chairs, many leaving the class altogether. I looked at the teacher, alarmed, but she was still writing on the board, the phrase turning into a paragraph.
And that’s when I saw Goldilocks stand up from her desk in the far right corner of the classroom.
“It’s nothing personal,” she said, her mouth twisting into a feral grin as she walked toward me, her hair springing up and down like gold slinkies. “I don’t hate you. Just how weak you are.”
I held up my hands, palms out, as I stumbled out of my chair. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m only going to be weak for a little bit longer and then I won’t be. So how about we focus on that when-I-won’t-be part.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You poor little pawn. Do you really think that after the investiture there will be anything left of you?” She sighed. “I really am doing you a favor.”
When she sprang. I dove out of the way. It was a reflex trained into me long before I could remember. I rolled onto the floor and under a desk.
“Ms. Cochran!”
Only the squeak of marker on whiteboard answered.
Someone grabbed my shoe and started pulling. It couldn’t be Goldilocks because I could still see her grinning at me.
I kicked my shoe off, scrambling out from under the desk to see a girl with raven hair and green, cat-like eyes. Great, Goldilocks had a stooge.
Well, then. I took a semi-deep breath and ran toward the door, but the stooge rammed into my body, hooking her arm around my waist, dumping me onto the floor.
My head banged onto the cold marble as I stared up, dazed.
“Do it now,” Goldilocks said, her voice tight.
Do it now. Do it now? Do what now?
I saw a flash of metal arc through the air and I rolled away without thinking. The clang of metal glancing off marble rang through the air.
Freak! They really were trying to kill me. How did this make sense? I’m a freakin’ heir to the throne and I’m surrounded by rebels that wanted me dead. Where was my stinkin’ entourage of big beefy bodyguards?
My
