Page 17 of Mud

“No, thanks. I’m not thirsty,” I said and grabbed the cookie instead.

She tried to not let her smile falter. “But it’s so delicious. Just one little sip, come on,” she said, grabbing the can and offering it to me.

“I’m fine,” I insisted, biting into the cookie. Again, I was smiling on the inside because she was panicking. She’d spent the last thirty minutes collecting bugs and putting them in there. That washard work,and now I was refusing to take the bait.

How very rude of me,I thought, just when she said, “Rora, it’s rude to turn down drinks from your host.”

I almost laughed out loud. On the inside, of course.

But before I could answer, we noticed someone was coming to us from the mansion—Fiona, one of Madeline’s oldest maids who’d served her since before I was born. Shewas a sweet woman, over sixty, same age as my grandmother, yet she looked at least a decade younger somehow.

Maybe because the pure evil that infused Madeline’s veins came with more wrinkles—who knew?

“Excuse me, young ladies,” Fiona said with that same smile she always had on her small lips—perfectly fake, perfectly polite.

“What is it, Fi? Is Grandma home?” said Poppy, and she, as opposed to me,lovedour grandmother dearly. Her father had loved our grandmother dearly, too—it’s why he’d takenherlast name. My father had kept his, and I don’t think my grandmother ever forgavemefor that.

But anyway—that was one of the reasons why I never allowed myself to open up with Poppy—or anyone. Madeline Rogan was loved and respected across the entire country. It wasaprivilegeto be her granddaughter, share her blood—and her wealth.

At least that’s what people thought.

“She is on her way,” Fiona said. “She’s bringing back Mr. Hill, and you are to expect them in her office when they arrive.”

Hill,she said, and the name sent goose bumps up and down my entire body. David Hill, the current director of the Iridian Department of Defense, the person who was pretty much in charge of everything around here.

The IDD had an actual council that made the rules and ensured they were followed. It was made of mages from each coven—and some claimed one of them was Mud, thoughmadeMud, not born. Whitefire magic could do that. Just like certain colors could do certain things better—Greenfire made the best shields, and Blackfire perfected necromantic magic, and Bluefire was faster than all others—Whitefire’s forte was healing, and draining magic outof anything, including Iridians, too. Scary stuff, but rumors in our private school had it that the councilman who was Mud had been drained—orstained,like most referred to it—by accident.

I, for one, didn’t believe it considering what Iridians thought of the Mud.

But regardless of who the council members were, from what I had been able to gather when Madeline was the IDD director, they didn’t really matter much. The power had always been hers, and I had no doubt that it was the same for David Hill now, too.

He was coming to the mansion, and Grandmother was always in some sort of a mood when he came. I’d never actually seen him, but she tended to act…strange,to say the least, for a week after he left. I sometimes wondered if it was jealousy—Madeline had been in charge of the IDD for twenty-five years before her retirement.

Poppy was already on her feet—I must get ready!—and she ran for the mansion. She left the picnic as it was, the cakes and cookies uneaten, my soda untouched, and she just ran.

Thank Iris,I thought. More time to read before sunset, though I probably only had about half an hour left.

Until…

“You, too, Rora, dear,” said Fiona, and I looked up at her, expecting to find her laughing at her bad joke.

“Excuse me?”

“You need to be ready, too,” she said, soft hands folded in front of her pale peach uniform. Her ears were perfectly pointy at the tips because she was an elf. A pure blood—or at least as much pure elf blood as was left in the world.

“I’m not allowed into the office,” I told her, standing upto go back to my rocking chair near the picnic blanket. Back to my book.

“You are today,” Fiona said, and to my horror, she sounded honest.

I swallowed hard, looking at the chair—so inviting. “Can you tell her I’m not here?”

Except where would I be on a Saturday? Not like we were allowed to go out with friends or anything.

Not that I had friends, just saying.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Rora,” Fiona said, and it was pretty obvious that she felt sorry for me. “Go ahead, put on a dress. They’re expected to arrive in twenty-five minutes.”

With that, she turned around and left me alone in the yard with only the guards keeping watch in the distance, and the monstrous mansion looming over me, its back doors wide open like a mouth coming to swallow me whole.

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