Page 182 of The Iron Flower

“Your mother wanted to run off with a Kelt,” Aunt Vyvian spits out. “At the same time the Kelts were rounding up Gardnerians for slaughter.”

What? No. You’re wrong. She loved my father.

“He’s a professor here, that Kelt,” she grinds out. “Or was.” Aunt Vyvian gives a small, hateful laugh. “But not anymore.”

“Which professor?” I ask.

Her lip twitches. “Jules Kristian.”

Shock blasts through me.No. That can’t be true.

“None of these heathens should be allowed to teach at a University,” she seethes. “You wouldn’t believe what our soldiers found in Jules Kristian’s office—proof of a web of illegal activity stretching clear across the Realm.”

“Where is he?” I ask breathlessly. “What happened to him?”

“They haven’t found him yet,” she answers, her face clouding with frustration. “But when they do, he’ll be arrested. And I’ll personally oversee his sentencing.”

Vertigo assaults me.Where are you, Jules? Could any of this be true? Why didn’t you ever tell me?

“I’ll never forget that man’s name,” Aunt Vyvian rages. “And I’ll never forget the night Vale fasted to that woman. That’s the type of trash your father brought into this family. And now look. Justlookat what it’s wrought.”

A mounting anger takes hold.

My mother wasn’t trash, you wicked thing.

Aunt Vyvian rises to her feet and picks her black calfskin gloves up from the small table beside her, her eyes full of pent-up fury, her gaze boring down on me as I struggle to keep my face impassive.

“I have to leave for Valgard to try and undo some of the horrific damage your brothers have wreaked,” she tells me, her voice tight, barely controlled. “It’s going to be up to you, Elloren, to save our family’s legacy. You’re staying here. And you are to spend as much time as you can with Lukas Grey. I’ll be back in two weeks’ time, and you will have secured a fasting date and your uncle’s permission. No more waiting. No more of your uncle’s games.” Her gaze hardens with a malice that sends a chill racing down my spine. “You can inform your uncle that if you do not fast to Lukas within three weeks’ time, I am cutting you both off completely. What little funds he once had are gone. So, you’ll both be on the street if you do not obey me in this. Do you understand?”

I will defy you in every last thing, you monstrous hag.

I force my expression into a mask of somber obedience. “Yes, Aunt Vyvian.”

She searches my face, as if scrutinizing for a chink in my deference. Seemingly finding none, she looks me up and down, no doubt taking in my sickly coloring, rumpled hair and miserable expression. A trace of sympathy lights her gaze.

“I’m sorry your brothers did this to you, Elloren. They’ve been Banished from Gardneria and from this family. We’ll speak of them no more.”

She sweeps out of the room, and I jump at the sound of the door slamming behind her.

I wait and wait, gripping the edge of my chair as fire sparks along my lines. I wait until I can’t hear her confident steps anymore. Wait until I imagine she’s in her carriage and pulling away, my breathing constricted and uneven, anger cycloning around and around inside me. My rage rapidly overtakes my frail, poison-hammered body, straining like an avalanche about to give way.

In a heated rush, I spring to my feet, grab the vase of roses beside me and hurl it at the fireplace with a growling cry. The vase explodes into a crystalline shatter, glass and flowers flying everywhere, some of the blooms bursting into flames in the fireplace.

I stand there, fists clenched, not caring about the flaming rose smoldering too near the edge of the rug.

What am I going to do?I agonize, tears streaking down my face.

Gareth is gone, my fasting backup plan gone with him, and the mandatory fasting deadline is only weeks away. But I can’t flee while Uncle Edwin is sickly and needs my care.

My mind spins, grasping for a solution.

I’ll look at the fasting registry, I desperately consider.I’ll find a young man who isn’t in the military. Then I’ll get Uncle Edwin’s approval, and keep it from Aunt Vyvian somehow...

How?I argue against myself. She’d know immediately. The Mage Council offices are overrun with her sycophants.

Suddenly, it’s like the walls are closing in on me, and I can barely breathe. I can’t be here anymore, in this stifling Gardnerian place. I want the North Tower. I want to be inside its familiar stone walls.

Even if only the ghostly imprint of my friends and family remains.

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