“It’s a balance!” Gwen exclaimed, tugging on her pink locks in exasperation. “I just want you to be okay! And if he hurts you, I’ll kick his ass.”
I snorted with laughter at the deathly serious expression on her face.
“I mean it!” she huffed. “Now,” she began, sitting up straighter, “what are you going to wear to the ball? Do you have a dress in mind? You’re welcome to borrow one of mine, maybe this black one?—”
I smiled as she continued to babble on about dress options. For someone so clever and bookish, Gwen had an amazing capacity to lose her head when it came to glitz and romance. I’d once witnessed her recite the Fourier transform formula by heart, bringing our mathematics professor nearly to tears. And yet, here she was, concerned by something as trivial as which dress I would wear to a ball. At least she had excellent taste.
Slyly, she suggested, “Maybe Casimir will send you another dress?”
“Absolutely not!” I said. “I explicitly forbade him from doing anything of the sort.”
Gwen sighed and rose off the bed, shaking her head as though I were a particularly obstinate child. Just before we went to sleep, I could’ve sworn she muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “impossible girl” under her breath.
30
With only five nights until the blood ritual, the hours slipped by with terrifying speed. Anxiety coiled in my stomach at the thought of August serving as a donor in the blood ritual and how powerless I was to stop it. The Zarvex rune on my arm burned intermittently, a searing reminder of the consequences should my side of the deal remain unfulfilled.
Sleep evaded me most nights. I lay awake for hours, mulling over things better kept buried. I knew I shouldn’t think about Casimir’s lips pressed against mine in that dark corner of the Labyrinth. How it felt when his dark eyes pinned me against the bookshelves like one of Devereaux’s helpless butterflies. No matter how hard I fought to drown those thoughts, they rose to the surface like bodies in a black lake. The worst part was that Casimir trusted me implicitly; he had no idea I was plotting to fulfill my bargain with Evren behind his back.
I caught myself wondering about Isolde. I hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to ask him about her again, but for some reason, it felt imperative that I learn what she meant to him before the Jewel Ball.If he loved her still.
I also hadn’t forgotten about his mysterious “source” who apparently had a habit of scrying the future, or the fact that he’d hidden their existence from me.
I swallowed my pride long enough to call my mother to see if she might set down her beloved barbiturates long enough to send me money to buy a dress. I deftly evaded her questions about August. It was a long shot to hope she might send me money for a dress, but I couldn’t very well show up wearing jeans, as Casimir had so rudely pointed out.
“Arden, you know very well that your father hardly left me two pennies to rub together, let alone money for gowns,” Eleanora said in a clipped tone. A silence hung over the phone, and then, “Did you get a chance to go through your father’s belongings? The ones I sent you a few weeks ago?”
If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought she sounded… worried. “I haven’t had time,” I replied. Eager to avoid the dreaded topic of my father, I swiftly made up an excuse and ended the call.
Wednesday night passed beneath an increasingly luminous moon as Sunday loomed ahead. We still didn’t know how to intercede in the ritual, but at least theBook of Ereboswas out of Devereaux’s grasping hands. On Thursday morning, a surprise was waiting for me on the doorstep of our dormitory, another shiny ivory box wrapped in a delicate bow. I frowned down at the mystery package. I had forbidden Casimir from buying me anything for the ball, and I highly doubted my mother had splurged her own miserly funds on something as extravagant as such a beautiful box must contain. There was only one way to find out.
I sighed and brought the package into my room. Quick as a fox, Gwen’s eyes shot to the package in my hands.
“What’s that?” she asked, dropping her book and rising from her desk.
“I’m not sure. There’s no note—” I said, fumbling with the wrappings. “Oh, wait. Here it is.”
You said I couldn’t buy you a dress. This one is borrowed.
I’m betting on the fact that your pride is stronger than your obstinacy.
—C
I glared down at the note as heat fanned across my cheeks. True to form, Casimir had found a loophole in his promise not to buy me a dress. Gwen was positively effusive as she peered at the note over my shoulder.
“Oh, Arden,” she cooed. “He must really like you to send you gifts like this! Let’s open it now! Please?” Gwen danced on her toes in a nauseating display of glee.
“We’ll miss breakfast,” I whined, but Gwen was having none of it.
She seized the box from me.
“Hey!” I complained, grabbing for the package, but Gwen was too quick. In two swift movements, she had the bow off and was tearing through the wrapping. Gazing into the contents of the box, she gasped, and then went silent.
“What?” I asked, suddenly worried.
“Oh my GODS, Arden. Just.Wow,” she cooed, and her eyes flooded with tears.
“Gwen, come on, let me see. You’re scaring me.”