Page 3 of House of Lilith

The butterflies in my stomach go crazy. “Of course I do,” I insist, wanting him to explain straight away, but he’s already taking me through the archway and into the Dining Hall.

It makes me forget what we were talking about and I nudge him to stop, my eyes sweeping over the enormous old hall.

I’ve never seen the place this packed and I’ve never heard a murmur this feverish. The long rows of carved-wood tables stretching from the entrance all the way to the podium with the professors’ table, you practically can’t see them from all the students and all the food already laid out before them. And the elaborate chandeliers hanging from intricately vaulted ceilings are casting a soft light onto all the richly woven tapestries, stained-glass window panes, checkered floor tiles… All green and gold, the colors of our Academy.

Tonight, it all seems to glow with a special light. But what excites me most is the flag I see hanging off the wall opposite me, above the professors’ table.

“Impatient?” I hear Max ask.

And I turn to look at him, smiling from ear to ear. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

He lets out a laugh, wraps his arm around my waist and nudges me to keep moving. I know he likes showing me off, and I can’t say I object too much. As we walk to the front, where they’ve laid out five special little round tables for our own notable families to the left and ten for our guests to the right, I sense Max basking in the kind of sycophant stares and smiles only a Prince could attract. I don’t quite enjoy the attention like he does, the stares, the fakeness of it all. But he says I’ll get used to it. I hope so.

Once we reach the front, we first do a round of greeting the royals sitting at the other four tables, but we don’t linger. Everyone seems to be too excited to engage in small talk.

So we walk over to our table, Max pulling a chair out for me. I give him a warm smile and I take my seat, lifting the hem of my dress off the polished tiles.

It’s just as Max settles in that I spot Nikolay and Hilde approaching. They’re chatting as they’re walking, my brother gesturing as excitedly as usual. He looks carelessly handsome in his dark suit with a white cravat, his unruly, wavy dark hair and usual stubble balancing the posh out. And Hilde’s once again squeezed her plump body into a dress that’s a size too small, which I simply don’t get. As if she’s ashamed of her curves. Still, her rich red hair she’s put up into an elaborate hairstyle, giving her whole outfit a more regal look.

Even after they stroll over to our table, my brother and cousin don’t sit right away. Hilde throws us both a wide smile.

“Hi Max, hi Nyx,” she says sweetly, her eyes lingering on mine for a second.

I tip my head at her, my attention getting drawn to my brother craning his neck, seemingly inspecting the flag above the still empty professor’s table.

Where last year and all the ones before there was only the Grimm Academy crest, a shield in an ornate gold frame featuring the sigils of all three bloodlines, now there are two of them. The other one shows the sigil of just the shifter bloodline, a full moon divided in half, one side light and one dark. Together with the couple of stars at its top, it represents our guests’ Academy.

“Is that theirs, Max?” Nikolay asks as he turns to my boyfriend.

“No, it’s the cleaners’,” Max replies with a warm yet condescending smile. “Just last night, they started their own Academy.” He turns to throw me a smug glance, but I just look away, rolling my eyes at the two of them. I don’t like the way he sometimes talks down to people, but that’s the price you pay for picking someone so full of confidence.

For a second, there’s silence. Then Nikolay lets out a rough bark-like laugh. “Oh, you crack me up, you old fool.” And he finally takes his seat, cousin Hilde immediately following suit.

“Isn’t this cool?” she asks. You can feel the need for approval in every sound she ever produces. “All thanks to you, Max.”

He throws her a lazy smile.

“Yes yes,” my brother cuts in, lit up as he grabs a bottle of champagne from the ice bucket, “the spot is amazing, the best in the whole bloody Hall.”

I frown, turning to Max, expecting him to correct her. But he doesn’t acknowledge it, that we Romanovs would be at this table even ifheweren’t.

“But whatIreally want to talk about is, like,” my brother goes on excitedly, now sliding his forearms down the table so he can get closer as he searches for the right words. I squint at him. When he finds them, he says them in a hushed voice. “What to expect.”

And he glances around the table as if he’s just come to us with something so intriguing yet impossible to even try answering.

I throw him an incredulous look. “You’re talking as if they’re from another planet,” I snap.

“Well, maybe they are,” he drawls like he does when he’s getting ready to try to rip me a new one. I fold my arms in anticipation. “Remind me,” he asks mockingly, “what was the name of the one you made up back whenno onewanted to hang out with Your Sulkiness?”

I hear Max let out a chuckle. And I still feel my own nagging impatience to be given a glimpse into a world that’s not ours, but I just stare at my brother for a second. “They’re shifters,” I say flatly. “We have shifters here. What exactly is it that’s confusing you, oh brother darling?”

“I used to hang with the wolves here, Nick,” Hilde cuts in, her use of the word ‘hang’ making me wince a little. “I’m sure their shifters are a lot like them.”

“Really?” I hear Max say mockingly. “Youhungwith the wolves?”

Nikolay lets out another chuckle and Hilde’s pale skin goes beetroot red in an instant, but Max just goes on. “So in your vast and thorough experience, the fact our shifters and their shifters come from very different places means absolutely nothing? And history proves that?”

Still blushing, Hilde stutters, “Well, no—”

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