Page 12 of A Heart of Bluestone

And so I relax a little for a full twenty-minute drive to the nearby town.

Mother’s favourite local restaurant is tucked away in a romantic cobblestone street there, and according to her, serves the best salmon in the countryside.

Salmon is not what I would choose for myself. But I don’t get a moment to look at the menu before my father orders for me.

Steak tartare.

My mouth puckers.

Gross.

It’s not worth the battle, I decide. I’ll snack later in my room, just shovel buttered toast down my throat or something.

For now, I must endure.

I must suffer.

And suffer, I do.

The conversation is dull.

It winds back and forth between rumour and business. Rumour is where my interest is most piqued, but since it’s all of engagements, and I have none myself, it just puts me further into a mood. It further puckers my pout.

I pick at my raw meat, spear the prongs of the fork into the soft texture, then push it around the plate.

Before long, I’m sagging in the chair, and it’s a fight against myself to not plant my elbow on the table and lay myself to sleep. All I want is to eat my body weight in a proper dinner, and maybe squeeze in some time with my beloved pianoforte before I need to retire for the night.

There are no pianos at Bluestone.

Instead, I am stuck in a level of hell.

Father drones on and on about some dreary banking business. One of the ventures of our united families. Banks, Wall Street, Bonds, Golds, Mining. If it’s money, if it runs by numbers, the Cravens are behind the veil. The Sinclairs, too.

When I say our families are connected, that they are allies, it is an understatement. Our families are a tapestry, woven and threaded over centuries, millennia.

So much so that I was intended for Dray.

There was never an engagement, exactly. We were plighted, intended when we were children, a declaration that all knew.

I was raised believing I was to marry Dray. Maybe that’s the reason we were so close back then, the reason he would thread his fingers through mine, or pick me flowers and bring me sweets.

It was never a question ofif, butwhen.

Thewhendidn’t come. Theifdid.

I showed no magic. It should have been a gradual reveal. Tantrums to crack the ceilings, screams to echo in the beaks of birds, floating above my bed as I slept. And by the age of thirteen, my magic should have been resolved within me. I was meant to venture to Bluestone—and unearth exactly what my print was.

But I have no print, because I have no magic.

It never came.

I proved myself a deadblood on my thirteenth birthday. A once in a century wart on the family tree.

And that was that.

It changed for me. Friends turned foe. Brother turned bully.

Few have made it secret what they think of me, what they think of my place in their world. Most often, if anyone was to look long enough at the old books and scorched family trees, it’s easy to tell that deadbloods are exiled.

---