Page 59 of A Heart of Bluestone

Oliver has been better taught the value of money than I. Woven into the threads of our futures, mine is spend it, his is to create it.

Landon seems to have learnt the lessons I have been taught. Too wasteful.

That is a problem.

There was a time the Barlows ran the tech world. But another witching family, the Garcias, rose up from the Americas in the early 2000s and stole the reins.

The Barlows could fall into upper gentry with just a couple of bad investments. Then Landon will be losing Tudor timepieces in silly card games.

“The glasses,” Serena says with a look up at me, luring in my attention, “will be the filter. It will only add the draught if it finds you are lying.”

I nod, a slight gesture, because I know that to be a warning. No harm will come to me if I play along.

Asta pushes up from Serena’s chair.

Together, they pour clear vodka into the glasses, then hand them out.

Dray sets down his scotch between his bare feet, then takes his offered glass. It’s filled to the brim, and some droplets spill down his hand. He leans closer and licks the clear trail away—and his eyes lift to me.

I blink, a flutter of my lashes, before I turn my hot cheek to him. A frown wrinkles my mouth as I snatch the glass from Asta, and a decent splash hits the thigh of my tights.

With a glance down, I see that the cream hem of my skirt has darkened with spilled drops. I swat at it.

I shift in the chair. But it doesn’t matter how I move, how I sit, how I lean my weight—I am not uncomfortable because of the chair, but rather the Snakes around me.

Everything about it feels unnatural.

Everyone has their glass of vodka when Serena sinks into her seat. She crosses her ankles and leans to the side, then aims her smile down at Landon slumped on the floor.

“Truth.” She ignites the game. “Or dare?”

Landon murmurs, “Dare.”

Serena’s smile fades a touch. “I dare you to kiss Olivia—for a full minute.”

My face falls.

Blood is quick to drain out of my head and pool to my churning stomach.

Landon doesn’t look too pleased about it, either.

His eyes roll back with a huff before he brings the rim of the glass to his mouth, then shots it back. He slams it down, hard, on the coffee table before he pushes up onto his feet.

My wide gaze cuts to my brother.

But Oliver isn’t looking at me.

Landon sidesteps along the edge of the coffee table, inching closer and closer to me, rigid on the armchair.

But I trace my brother’s steady stare to Dray Sinclair.

Looking up from beneath his lashes, the shadows of the grand parlour cast a menacing, mutinous look over him.

“You fucked up,” Landon says, and though he looks down at me, the deer-caught-in-a-scope, his words are for Serena. “You didn’t specify tongue.”

Serena’s face hardens. Her lashes lower over steel eyes, and I think fleetingly of drawn swords.

Landon moves for me.

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