Page 185 of The Black Witch

When I emerge from the washroom, Ariel catches sight of me and flinches back as if struck, then gives me a scathing look of pure hate.

“I have to fit in,” I try to explain to Ariel, my palms out in surrender. “I have to dress like them. You know I’m not like most Gardnerians. But we’re hiding a Selkie,” I gesture toward Marina. “It’s important that I fit in. You must see that.”

A wave of guilt washes over me as Ariel ignores my words and scuttles clear across her bed, huddling against the wall and glowering at me. Her dark look is only mildly assuaged by Wynter taking a seat beside her, murmuring soothing words as Ariel buries her head against Wynter’s chest, the Elfin Icaral’s dark wings coming protectively around them both.

Wynter’s eyes rest on Marina for a moment, the Selkie taking a seat on the floor by the fire, next to Diana. Wynter turns to me, takes in my garb, then nods once, her silver eyes full of steeled understanding.

Diana casually throws her arm around our Selkie and looks me over, a shrewd gleam lighting her gaze. She raises her amber eyes and gives me a wide, sly smile of approval, baring her teeth.

I take a good deal of comfort from this—I can count on my Lupine friend to fully understand strategy in a fight.

I pick up my new white armband and turn to Diana. “Would you help me put this on?”

Her dark, knowing smile doesn’t flinch. Diana gets up and strides toward me. She takes the Vogel band and cinches it securely around my arm.

* * *

Priest Simitri smiles broadly when I come into his History class early, pale rays of wintry light spearing through the windows. He takes in my conservative attire, complete with a white Vogel ribbon pinned around my arm.

“Ah, Mage Gardner,” he observes with obvious relief. He’s been dismayed for weeks by my dark brown, barely acceptable woolen garb, his vocal support for Vogel mirrored by his own ribbon. “You stand now in courage,” he tells me. “Even though you have been forced to labor with Kelts and Urisk, and to live with Icaral demons, you have the courage to stand apart. To let your dress proudly declare both your faithandyour support of our beloved Priest Vogel. I applaud you.”

It’s not courage, I think darkly, my stomach now a constant knot.It’s camouflage.

* * *

“The armband, too?” Yvan snipes at me as he loads wood into the stove next to me that evening.

I’m deeply stung by his harsh tone. “Don’t you think it’s smart?” I snipe back.

He stares at the flames, his jaw flexing with tension. “It’s smart.” His green eyes flash at me before he throws the iron door shut and stalks away.

Anger burns at my insides.

I’m not these clothes, I want to yell after him, aware of the newly stoked hatred bearing down on me from all the kitchen workers, Iris’s brazen look of hostility the most open manifestation. I can feel her look clear across the room.

I’m not this white armband, or these black silks, or this face,I continue to rail at Yvan wordlessly as he exits out the back and shuts the door with a sharp slam I feel straight down my spine.

I’m not Her,I continue to rage toward him, an angry flush burning at my cheeks. You know I’m not.

I’ll never be Her.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tightening Noose

It’s late the next evening when I’m intercepted by a messenger from Lukas’s division, the Twelfth Division River Oak pinned to his tunic.

Apothecary lab has just ended, and Tierney is by my side, a white band now pinned around her arm, as well. “Self-preservation,” she told me when I first took in her white band with no small measure of surprise.

It seems I’m not the only one resorting to camouflage.

The uniformed messenger hands me a long package. “Mage Gardner,” he says with a deferential bob of his head, his breath puffing out from the cold.

There’s a note card affixed to it, my name on the small envelope in neat script, written with an artistic hand.

Lukas’s hand.

A pang of regret rises. After what happened to Ariel, I’ve put Lukas firmly out of my mind, pointedly not responding to his sporadic gifts and notes. I was so mad at him for so many weeks, but guilt has gradually worn that down. I’m just as much to blame for what happened as he is.

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