Evermore might have found yet another way to humiliate and demean us, but I won’t let it break me.
16
My phone is facedown on my bed next to where I’m sprawled, books open around me.
“ILB?” Mack asks as she hops down from the top bunk and pads to the bar cart in the corner of our room.
I never told her what happened Friday night in the cave, other than that Inara tried to murder me and then Valerian saved me. But my best friend’s perceptive—and also stubborn as hell—and she hasn’t stopped prying for details.
I check the phone, ignoring the tug of disappointment when I realize it’s not Valerian, but Eclipsa. She wants me to meet her at the gym in an hour.
Time to learn why Valerian was in the Winter Court and just how effed my life is about to get. I mean, I assumed it couldn’t get much worse—but I forgot the rule while living in the Everwilde.
For mortals, there’s always worse.
Today, I’m just a girl technically enslaved to my soulmate and singled out by the Evermore students. Bad . . . sure. But tomorrow I could find myself fighting in the scourge or chained to a stage in a skeevy club owned by Valerian’s dad.
“Silver linings,” I mutter.
“What?” Mack calls over her shoulder. She’s fumbling around with a coffee filter, trying to figure out where to insert it in our new coffee maker. “Hey, how do you foam the milk for the latte?”
I swallow down my chuckle. The expensive espresso machine—named George for George Michael, her favorite singer—is the latest victim of Mack’s new resolution to live like regular students.
Whatever that means, since most of the regular students are trust fund babies who pay more for a haircut than I’ll spend in a year. But, her dads are a bit . . . generous, especially when it comes to buying her stuff, so I understand her reasoning—even if losing George is a freaking travesty.
“I don’t think Fred comes with those options,” I say.
Fred, short for Freddie Mercury, is the new twenty dollar Target coffee maker Mack bought from Jace, whose parents run a business ferrying mortal products in the Everwilde. They’re the Amazon of the Everwilde and, if the rumors are true, every bit as rich.
I hop from the bed and pocket the phone. “But I think there might be some creamer in the fridge downstairs, if you want me to grab it?”
“Dang. I miss George.” She flips to face me, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “Whatever, we’ll make Fred work.”
I hate that Reina has made Mack question her rightful place here. Sure, Mack’s a legacy, and that helped, but she’s also the hardest working student on campus. She’s earned her spot like everyone else.
She watches me slip on my sneakers. “Where are you going? Extra training?”
“No,” I say too quickly. “Eclipsa wanted to cover some stuff I don’t understand, but it’s not actual training.”
Not a lie, but my face burns with guilt anyway, and I focus on double and triple knotting my laces.
Regular after school guardian training starts this week, but ever since the gauntlets were announced, worried Keepers have already started booking out the gym for private sessions with their shadows.
Mine are mostly in the morning with Eclipsa, but Valerian texted late last night to inform me we have two sessions a week after regular combat class together.
I waited for funny emojis or a clever remark in the message, but that was it. The single text he sent me Saturday morning, after I’d slept off the entire embarrassing ordeal, was just as short.
I’m sorry things got out of hand.
Not sure what I was expecting, but after going full on horny hooker, I expected more than seven measly words in a text.
“Asher said the gym schedule this week is already full,” Mack adds, “so he talked the ILB into letting him train me during your appointment. Apparently Instant Lady Boner rented the entire gym out so you two could be alone.” She flashes a devilish grin that brings out both cheek dimples. “If you want that—some time alone with him—I’ll tell Asher this week is no good.”
I look away before she can see the conflicting emotions raging through me. Sometimes I wonder if she suspects that the mating ceremony wasn’t a fluke after all. I kind of just let her assume it was after I was expelled because that was easier than trying to explain the truth.
And when I discovered the danger attached to my