Page 106 of The Black Witch

She’s destroyed it.

I fall to my knees in front of the smoking ashes of my only remaining link to my mother and sob.

* * *

“I want her gone.”

Lukas turns from where he stands watching a long row of military apprentices shoot arrows through the cool, damp air toward circular targets. Twilight is descending, torches being lit around the range. Lukas does a double take when he sees my expression.

“Who?” he asks, eyes narrowing.

“Ariel.”

He searches my face for a long moment, then takes my arm and leads me away from the archery range. “What happened?” he asks.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him, my voice unforgiving. “I just want her gone. I don’t care what you have to do.”

I expect him to tell me to fight my own battles. At that moment I’m ready to hate him forever if he does. But instead, his expression turns calculating.

“The only way to get her out is to get her to attack you,” he cautions.

“I don’t care.”

He draws a deep breath and motions toward a nearby bench. “Well, then,” he says, a dark smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Sit down. Tell me everything you know about Ariel Haven.”

I’m bolstered after a long talk with Lukas, sure he’ll find a way to help me get Ariel kicked out of University and sent far away from me. But almost as soon as I’m alone again, I think of my destroyed quilt and quickly descend back into misery.

I go to my kitchen labor in a fog of despair, distracted and unable to focus even on the simple task Fernyllia Hawthorne gives me of stirring a pot of gravy, unable to hold back the tears as I stand beside the large cast-iron stove.

Iris and Bleddyn find it hard to hide their pleasure at seeing me so beaten down, the two of them shooting each other smiles full of dark satisfaction.

“Oh, the Roach issad,” Bleddyn mockingly remarks to Iris in a low voice, the two of them increasingly bold, as if testing the waters.

“Awww.” Iris glances sidelong at Bleddyn, her face screwed up in a mimicry of sympathy, as she plucks hot biscuits off large trays and arranges them in a series of wide baskets.

Bleddyn brings her cleaver down harder than necessary onto the cooked chicken carcass she’s dismembering. I jump at the sound, and the huge Urisk girl smirks, her eyes narrowed caustically at me.

Iris spits out a laugh.

Yvan comes into the kitchen carrying a load of wood. He pauses in annoyed surprise when he catches sight of me, green eyes piercing. “Why are you crying?” he asks harshly.

“My quilt,” I choke out as I watch my tears plop down into the gravy. “It’s been destroyed.” I have no idea why I’ve bothered to confess this to him—it’s not as if he truly cares about why I’m upset.

His face screws up with disgust. “You’re crying over ablanket?”

“Yes!” I sob, hating him, hating Iris and Bleddyn, hating all of them.

“It must be nice to be Gardnerian,” Yvan sneers as he smacks down the stove’s iron lever and throws in some logs. “It must be nice to live such a charmed life that the loss of a quilt constitutes a major tragedy.”

“That’s us,” I counter, my voice stuffy. “We Gardnerians live such charmed lives.”

His lips curl up into an obnoxious sneer. “I amsosorry for your loss.”

“Leave me alone, Kelt!” I snarl.

Iris’s eyes flit toward Yvan with a knowing look that he briefly returns.

“Gladly,” Yvan replies, glaring at me. He loads more wood into the cookstove and slams the iron door shut.

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