Page 72 of A Heart of Bluestone

I hate that machine. It’s too old. Always brews coffee that tastes like burnt dirt and a smidge of sludge.

Courtney turns her gaze back down to her assignment. The textbook sprawled out beside her gives away the topic.‘CHARMS, SPELLS, ENCHANTMENTS AND CURSES: THE PRACTICE OF ARTIFICERY’

“What’s up?” she murmurs.

I can’t tell her.

I sought her out, the closest thing to a friend I have in my life, not just at Bluestone. And still, I know if I tell her anything about my contracts or suiters or arranged marriages, she’ll do what she always does.

Scoff, roll her eyes, mutter and mumble about how we all have a choice, no one can force a marriage, and that I should move out of home.

The ones like Courtney, the made ones, the half-breeds, they just don’t understand.

The world of the aristos, the elites—that world is the core of the Videralli. It’s the beating heart of all society, of economy, of war.

Do my feelings matter within the game of alliances and connections, in the grand scheme of the whole fuckingworld?

No.

No single witch really matters.

It’s the unity of us all, and then the core—the beating heart.

I’m just another casualty.

We all are.

Courtney’s not yet figured out she doesn’t have a choice. She’s silenced. She’s controlled. And that fist will tighten around her and her whole life when we leave Bluestone.

If she wriggles too much…

Vanished.

Gone.

No more Courtney.

She understands that. It’s the price to pay for entry into our world. Graduate and service.

But when it comes to the aristos…

She’ll never get it.

Suppose that’s why our friendship never quite solidifies, never quite goes beyond convenience.

We both know we spend our time together because we share a dorm room. And we have no one else. Except James but he hardly counts.

I get the sense that I won’t see Courtney after graduation.

Our circles are miles apart with the gentry in between.

And I doubt she would really want to see me then, as though to make the time for me would be a nuisance.

Moments like this bloom an ache in me, a longing for a real friendship, one with someone like me. Not a deadblood, though that would be nice. But someone like Serena back in my fold, someone I can talk to about the mystery suitor, who can advise me on my next best move, about how it feels to be auctioned and negotiated.

Someone who gets it.

“What?” Courtney is frowning at me. “Did you interrupt me to just daydream?”

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