Page 128 of A Heart of Bluestone

Still as purple as a grape, she smiles in something of a farewell, slumped against my brother who’s arguing with Teddy trapped in the bubble. The longer I linger my stare over them, the better I understand—Teddy bounces the bubble directly above Oliver, and that’s one way to get a broken nose, leg, life, whatever he is keen to destroy, really.

Oliver doesn’t notice us, doesn’t look our way.

From the bottle loose in his grip, silver and cloudy, I’m guessing he’s not returning to the dorms anytime soon.

It brings the question to mind, as I suffer my humiliation thrown over Dray’s shoulder like a sack of grain. “Why are you even here? You have a game tomorrow.”

His voice is firm. Still simmering in annoyance. “Someone flooded the basements with deadly nightshade, so ice-hockey is cancelled. And the storm rolling in has cancelled snow-rugby.”

I grunt in answer.

I’m carried up the trail to the school.

Landon and James, as I look around, are nowhere in sight, and so I doubt they were at the party at all.

That image is seared into my mind forever.

I have so many questions.

I just don’t know if I can ask them.

James isn’t so open.

Landon will probably headbutt me or get Mildred to do it for him.

Part of me itches to ask Dray. Ask if he knows anything about it, Landon’s proclivity for men.

But I don’t.

He probably doesn’t know. And it might be best if it stays that way.

I don’t judge it—but the aristos do.

I keep Landon’s secret shut in my mouth.

Dray takes me through the corridors, all the way to the Living Quarter, and not once does he pause to readjust me on his shoulder or set me down, he just walks on like I weigh nothing more than a handful of feathers.

He takes me, not to the dorms, but to the cigar room, then dumps me on the plush, linen couch.

I land with a grunt.

My back crashes into the piled pillows.

But the impact jolts through me, spins my brain around in my head. It’s a scrambled, dizzied moment, and the room is bending around me.

The sick can’t be stopped.

It’s quick, it’s sudden, and eager to get out of me.

I have just a moment to push up from the pillows before it spews out of me.

Hands reach out to steady me. They are firm on my shoulders, but that doesn’t stop the sick from spilling down my front.

Dray drops onto the edge of the coffee table. His knees graze the cushioned seat of the couch.

“You have sick all over you,” he sighs.

“Fuck, really?” The sarcasm drips from my tone as it does my dazed sneer.

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