our heads in. “How could she do that?” Odette whispered. She sounded scared. Kiara narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Delmare was fuming; Stefan’s hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her from leaping up.
“I should walk right up to her and give her a smack,” Delmare growled. “What was she thinking? There are kids here!”
Theo became stiff, like a horse on high alert. Alexei had opened his eyes, but his gaze seemed haunted. I bet his emotional shield had broken, and he’d felt everyone in the room at once. Poor Alexei.
Ethan broke from his statuesque appearance. “Gabby shouldn’t be this powerful,” he murmured. “Not at First Year level.”
I agreed. “Something’s up with her,” I said. “She’s using power that’s not her own. She has to be.”
“Do you think another sorceress is helping her? Maybe she was outside the tent, and Gabby just pretended to do it herself?” Odette asked.
Stefan huffed. “If you haven’t noticed, Lady Korva isn’t around.”
That was true. I hadn’t seen the old crone anywhere. “But that kind of illusion isn’t easy to pull off. There’re hundreds of people here to enchant,” I pointed out. “She’d need more than Lady Korva.”
“The bitch probably has a whole team,” Delmare complained.
I wasn’t sure. Gabby had shown spectacular power during the King’s Contest, too. She hadn’t been simple to beat. “I think we should keep an eye on her,” I said lowly. “She’s hiding something.”
“Isn’t she always?” Delmare sighed, but the group around the table nodded in unison— all except Ethan. He took another deep drink from his tankard again, and my stomach plummeted into a pit.
As the night wore on, Elijah and Gabby made a show of making the festival all about themselves. We turned our back on them, but to be honest, they were hard to ignore. Gabby kept on performing spectacular illusions, creating a wolven out of sparks and changing it into a dragon.
How is she doing that? I wondered. We’d just started getting into optical illusions in Intro to Illusion Magic. She hadn’t been that good in class the other day. It was like she’d gone in a new direction with her powers.
Ethan was taking losing the crown hard. He ordered ale after ale and kept his gaze on his mug as Elijah’s boasting rang throughout the tent, saying nothing.
It was difficult for me to watch, knowing how hurt he was. When he walked off to go to the bathroom, I scooted next to the boys.
“Worried about your man?” Theo asked me as I sat beside him.
“He’s a bit depressed,” Stefan said under his breath. He’d stopped drinking an hour ago— probably to babysit Ethan.
“A bit?” Alexei hissed. “He’s drowning his sorrows in ale!”
“Hey, I’m not a griffin. I can’t feel things like you can,” Stefan protested.
I figured you didn’t need to be an empath to see Ethan was upset. He’d chugged the last two beers in a matter of minutes.
“How much can shifters drink?” I asked. Ethan had to have worked through a keg by now.
“A freaking lot,” Stefan responded. “But our boy’s at his limit.”
After Ethan returned, I put an arm around his back and drew him close. “Maybe you should slow down.”
He frowned. “What for? Nothing helps.”
Damn, he really was depressed. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, feeling helpless.
Ethan shrugged. “What’s there to talk about? We might as well celebrate.”
This wasn’t just about losing the crown. I knew for a fact he’d hit a dead end with his Phantom investigations. He felt like a failure.
“Well, if you want to get it off your chest, I’m here,” I offered.
Ethan said nothing more, and I pulled away from him. I was trying so hard to make him happy, and I was failing. Gods, I felt like a horrible girlfriend.
“You can’t make him feel better if he doesn’t want to, Emma,” Kiara whispered to me. “Let him come around at his own time.”
I knew what she was saying, but it still felt like my fault. I just wanted Ethan to be happy. Why did Gabby have to come by and fuck that up?
My concern over Ethan was temporarily dissolved as someone I didn’t know came to the table. He placed a hand on Odette’s shoulder lightly. As she turned, she squealed and giggled.
Theo’s smile fell, and I knew exactly who it was. Igor was blond, like most alicorns were, and tall. But he definitely wasn’t very handsome, sorry to say. I didn’t know what Odette saw in him.