Page 123 of A Heart of Bluestone

I avoid his gaze, though I sense the unease in it.

He runs his hand over her arm and murmurs, a soft, gentle chide, “Asta.”

Ugh, the pity in that makes me want to smack his head into the rubble.

“I’m not stalking you,” I snap at her, though my vocal cords sound like they have been dragged over a grater. “I’m hiding from Dray. Obviously. I forgot you even existed.”

It’s the truth, really.

I’d forgotten all about this coupling since Serena burst my bubble.

Asta narrows her eyes at me. “Dray isn’t here.”

“He wasn’t,” I scoff, hoarse, then shove by her, “but he is now.”

I hear the faint murmur of Eric saying to her, “We should go.”

And it brings a frown to my face.

Is their relationship so secret?

It was secret enough that I knew nothing about it. But I am hardlyin the know.

I doubt Dray would care very much who Asta is sleeping with. Not when he has Melody to straddle him, or—let’s be real—half of the female student body throwing themselves at him. The only ones who wouldn’t are the ones who want to preserve their image or the ones sharp enough to understand he would never marry outside of aristos.

Melody Green hasn’t figured that out yet.

There’s always someone who thinks in romance, not reality. I would feel sorry for her if I had any pity to spare outside of myself.

I don’t.

I’ve polished off a quarter of the bottle by the time I come to the centre of the maze. I know it’s the middle, because here, the ruins are cleared out around a squared patch of dirt, under which are the doors to the dungeons, caved in and buried in snow and debris.

I look around with a sigh heavy enough to puff out my cheeks. Paths fork in all directions, a half-dozen of them.

I pause.

It’s been the better part of an hour, now. Surely Oliver and Dray are gone from the party.

If they have games on in the morning, they will be gone now, tucked in bed, dreaming of killing kittens and puppies. I assume they dream of fucked up shit like that.

I turn back the way I came.

It’s a not straight line all the way back, and I realise I fucked up the moment the path splinters into three routes, and I can’t remember which one I came from.

Bottle loose in my grip, I flicker my hazy stare between them. For the life of me, I just cannot remember which one.

My mouth pushes into a pout of pure self-pity.

I loll my head back and look to the stars. Clouds wisp over them, but faint and fine, like a paintbrush strokes soft grey over a speckled ink canvas.

I find the moon. I find the North Star.

I go right.

And I drink the bottle empty.

Not a feat, since it was never full to begin with, but there was enough in it that, now staring at the gloss of the empty bottle, my mouth turns down with a frown.

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