Page 76 of The Black Witch

I may be devoid of magic, but I’m Carnissa Gardner’s granddaughter, Vyvian Damon’s niece and favored by Lukas Grey.

For the rest of the shift, I try to cling to my roiling fear and anger to bolster myself and justify Lukas’s actions, but it’s impossible to hold back a fierce wave of sickening guilt. And I’m careful not to meet anyone’s eyes for the rest of the shift.

Especially not Yvan’s.

CHAPTER TEN

Confrontation

After my shift is over, I leave without saying goodbye to anyone, and no one says goodbye to me.

The large dining hall outside the kitchen is crowded with scholars and professors and tight groupings of military apprentices sitting at marshwood tables, a steady hum of conversation reverberating throughout the hall, the clinking and clanking of silverware and serving spoons creating a noisy din.

Dusk is descending, the stream of pedestrians passing by the windows fading to dark silhouettes. One of the Urisk laborers busily lights the wall torches and table lanterns.

I scan the vast room, worriedly searching for Lukas’s face.

And that’s when I see the Icarals.

They’re seated at the far edge of the hall, the tables around them deserted as if all the other scholars are actively avoiding them.

My lodging mates—Ariel Haven and Wynter Eirllyn. I didn’t get a very good look at them last night, but I know ithasto be them.

Wynter is similar in appearance to every other Elfin maid in the room. Like them, she has silver eyes and long white hair decorated with tiny braids, pale skin, gracefully pointed ears and ivory clothing. But unlike them, her clothing is modified in the back to make room for thin, black wings. She sits slumped, her wings wrapped tight around herself like a blanket.

She looks weak and sad.

Ariel, on the other hand, looks like something out of a nightmare. She’s dressed in complete, screaming defiance of the Gardnerian dress code. Instead of a tunic, she wears a tight black top, laced haphazardly up and down her back. The lacing makes room for wings that are ragged and torn, making her seem like a crow that has suffered a run-in with a clawed predator. She wears pants like a boy, and large clunky boots, and her hair is chopped very short, standing out at odd angles in greasy-looking black spikes. Her eyes are darkly rimmed with black kohl, making her pale green eyes seem almost as white and soulless as those of the Icarals in Valgard. Unlike Wynter, whose wings are low and now folded discreetly behind her, Ariel seems to be making a show of flapping her wings menacingly. She crouches over, as if dodging a blow, her eyes narrowed and angry, scanning the room darkly.

There they are. My tormentors. Sitting there, eating spice cake.

It all comes flooding back—Ariel’s demonic show, the scraping on the door, my terror when I thought I was about to die.

Lukas might have been too harsh with the kitchen workers, but these creatures—they deserve everything they get and more.

I forget about fear as anger rips through me.

My fists balling, I stalk down a side aisle, straight over to their table, and snatch the cake out from under them. They both look up at me with wide-eyed surprise.

“The denizens of hell donotget to eat cake!” I snarl, heart racing.

Ariel shoots up to a standing position, her hands supported by rigid, spindly arms crisscrossed with what look like fresh and healing knife marks. She screws up her face into a frightening grimace and lunges at the cake.

I step quickly aside and she loses her footing, crashing down onto the table, plates and food scattering everywhere. Wynter’s hands fly up to ward off the stray food and drink as sounds of surprise and shock go up around us.

“What’s going on here?” an authoritative male voice says from behind me.

I whirl around and come face-to-face with a green-robed professor—a slightly disheveled Keltic man with messy, shortish brown hair and spectacles.

The professor’s eyes go momentarily wide with shock.

My resemblance to my grandmother. That’s what’s stunned him so. I can see it in his eyes.

The broad room has gone nearly silent, except for some astonished whispering, almost everyone staring at us.

Ariel, now covered in food and drink, pushes herself off the table and points a long finger at me. “She took our food!”

The professor’s shock morphs to extreme dismay then barely concealed outrage.

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