Page 30 of Mud

“Silly me, I almost thought that was an order,” I said with a hand to my heart, and the boy laughed. It was short and deep, and it vibrated all the way through my bones.

“Go out with me,please.”

Iris, I’m in love…

Not really, but the way he looked just now, and the way he said that word.Please…

Yum.

I cleared my throat to make sure I sounded as confident as I was pretending to be, and I still barely managed a, “Nobody.”

“What’s that?” He turned his head as if trying to hear me better and took the opportunity to lean in closer to me at the same time.

“Nobody,” I tried again—and I was still smiling. “You don’t have to break me up with anybody.”

He turned but didn’t move away. Our noses were maybe an inch apart, and every color in his eyes bore into me, seeing right into my soul.

Iris, save me…

“Then I’ll see you at our date.”

His words were a caress to my ears. He moved away, and again, I was glad to have been forced to keep my shit together my whole life because it served me now. It kept me from making a complete fool of myself in front of all these people.

“Where?” I asked as he lazily took a step backward now, hands in his pockets, that smile on his face still.

“You’ll know,” he said with a nod.

“When?”

His smile widened. “You’ll know that, too.”

How?was what I wanted to ask next, but he was moving farther away, and I said, “Wait—what’s your name?!”

“Taland,” he said, and my knees got weak. “Taland Tivoux.”

My heart skipped a long beat.

Taland Tivoux was the name of the boy I was sent here to spy on.

“Don’t tell me yours. I’ll find out myself.” He raised a hand, smiled, waved slowly. “See you soon, sweetness.”

He turned around and walked away, leaving me all alone in the cafeteria with an empty tray in my hands and a million thoughts in my head that refused to settle down for a long time.

I found out thewherethe very next day.

It was Saturday, and the students were unwinding, resting, preparing for the semester to start properly on Monday. The day before wasn’t half as bad as I thought it might be, and the professors we met during introduction seemed pretty nice, too. This was all very new to me, and I was prepared to be overwhelmed within the first couple of hours, but strangely I wasn’t. Strangely, I was calm. I absorbed everything around me as well as I could, and it wasn’t that difficult to talk to other people, either.

The third day wasn’t even over, and it was painfully obvious how different life had been for me than it had for everyone else. They all came from normal families with average income here. They had all lived their lives free of bodyguards, and I doubted a single person in this building had had to take classes onproper etiquette when in the presence of guests.They hadn’t had maids or butlers or chefs or tailors that tended to their every need. They’d lived normal lives,notas grandchildren of one of the most powerful women in the world.

And I yearned tobe themso badly it hurt.

Maybe, if I did this right, and if I was allowed to work when I turned eighteen—maybe I could get away from Madeline for real. At least for a little while. Maybe I could make my own normal life away from her if I tried really hard.

If I succeeded in this…mission.

By the end of the day on Saturday, I already had the file on the boy I’d met last morning—Taland Tivoux. The professor who’d brought it to me taughtFamiliar Bonding Basicsin the Greenfire school freshman year, which meant he wasn’t going to be teaching any of my classes. Redfires didn’thave familiars to bond with. Of all Iridians, only Greenfires could do that.

The file had a picture of the boy, too, but that picture didn’t really do him justice. It must have been taken at the beginning of freshman year because he looked so much younger there. Younger, but his eyes were the same. So full of mischief. Full of secrets—delicious, sinful secrets.

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