Page 40 of Blood & Ice

Astrid

Lucretia Boline stalked the Headmistress’ office like a predatory cat.

I could practically imagine a striped tail flicking back and forth as she navigated the room. She was clearly reaching the end of her very limited stores of patience with me. I’d earned some leeway with her when I’d helped her daughter thwart a Winter-led jailbreak in her Hollow down south. It meant I got to remain uncuffed, while both Aurea and Abraham got to stew in it while manacled in their own damn dungeon.

I had to admit, the woman had a backbone of steel. Not only had she demanded to be let on campus when I’d reported the irregularity at Blood Rose. Lucretia made Aurea transport her through the mirror and then cuffed and read the woman her rights the moment she was fully through. Tally would have saluted the move, if she’d been conscious long enough to check it.

A phone call home had revealed the spell was waning. I wasn’t sure if Morgana had given up on it, or if whatever Maverick had done toward the end of the fight had somehow destroyed the link she’d been using to aim the curse. Whatever the reason, Olga and Betanya agreed that the family should be up soon, though some nightmares were likely to occur.

“I hate this place,” Lucretia said, gesturing around at the dim confines of the office when I failed to answer her question for the umpteenth time. She didn’t seem convinced by the plethora of “I don’t know” that I had to offer. The truth was: the fight had happened almost too quickly for me to track. I hadn’t been the one running or slinging spells. I had a big fat goose egg on the details she wanted most.

“You hate this place?” I asked and couldn’t keep the surpriseout of my voice. “Why?”

Lucretia crossed her arms over her chest. “This whole lineage thing has been ridiculous for years. Tradition has allowed the Grimsbanes to remain in power long past the time it was useful or appropriate. They aren’t actually preparing any of these women for the real world. If Aurea had been less interested in politics, she might have seen what she had in you before a vampire came along and mucked it all up.”

“I don’t think the answer to the Grimsbanes behaving badly is to establish a Boline dynasty instead.”

The words escaped my mouth before I could stop them. They bubbled up somewhere from my gut and poured out, heedless of my brain’s veto. The sharp look Lucretia threw me over her shoulder was enough to glue my tongue to the roof of my mouth. It wasn’t even a hex. She reallydidscare me that much.

Hey, you try staring into the face of a woman who, honest-to-goddess, tried to smite you for ‘hurting’ her daughter. It’s scarier than it sounds. After you survive that, try doing it again.

“Did I ever say I wanted a dynasty, Depraysie?”

Lucretia’s tone was as saccharine as a pitcher of sweetened iced tea and just as cold. The smile she forced looked sneering and awful. She was trying to make the effort to be diplomatic, now that she knew who and what I was. I almost told her to stop. The effort looked as painful as yanking a tooth. She wasn’t built for this kind of thing. Like Tally, she kicked ass first and smoothed feathers later.

“I’m not disagreeing with you,” I said, deciding that conceding ground was going to get me farther with the prickly sheriff than arguing. “All I’m saying is I don’t think the Grimsbanes need to be in charge either, but how do you replace them? I mean, this place is an institution like Yale or Harvard. People go here because of them.”

Lucretia shrugged. “It’s up to you, in the end. Once I’vecleared you of any wrongdoing, it will be your job as faerie council to the school to decide what happens now. I don’t think it should take long to gather evidence that backs your claims. My best deputy has already confirmed that the dolls were constructed with blood magic so that backs what you told me. Though I still find some of the other details suspect.”

Yeah, I just bet she did.I’dthought Celestine was crazy until I saw what Maverick could do when he really let loose with blood magic. It wasn’t just dangerous. It could be catastrophic. Did that mean he deserved to be burned no? No. So, I wasn’t telling Lucretia the whole story, pretending Rook and I had discovered Morgana’s affliction on our own and had come to foil her intentionally. Lucretia could smell the bullshit but wasn’t sure which bits I was lying about. All of it sounded so absurd.

“Talk to Aunt Celestine,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I can’t explain it any better than she can. She’s the one who turned me onto the conspiracy in the first place. If you want more answers, you should ask her.”

Lucretia did another circuit of the room. The eyeball floating suspended in a jar tracked her progress. I hoped it wasn’t actually reporting the conversation back to anyone, but I couldn’t be sure. I wasn’t sure aboutanythinganymore. If Mav was right, everything I thought about magic was wrong. Every story I’d been told was a lie.

There was no way I could convince Lucretia of something I barely believed myself, so I just shrugged, as though I had nothing else to offer on the subject. And then the first half of what she heard hit home, and I sat up straighter.

I stared at her, not sure I’d heard right. “And what do you mean, it’s my job?”

Lucretia did something truly terrifying then. She smirked at me and leaned her hip against the desk. She always gave off the aura of a powerful beast, coiled and ready to strike. This wasLucretia at rest, a lioness resting on a rock after a successful kill. I knew that whatever came out of her mouth next was going to be bad if she was aiming anything so pleasant as a smile in my direction.

“Weren’t you listening when Headmaster Thorne told you about the new regulations the school was under?”

Yes, he had, but I’d been half-starved at the time. One of his former fledglings had locked me in a basement after brutally ending my life. I thought I was entitled to be fuzzy on the particulars.

“Remind me.”

Lucretia scooted further onto the desk, disrupting some of Aurea’s knick-knacks. If Aurea had been here, I was sure she’d have let out a furious tut of disapproval, especially when Lucretia kicked her legs, setting her spurs jangling. It was a pleasant sound in the dim, unpleasant room.

“The representatives of the Faerie courts arbitrate disputes at Blood Rose from now on. The responsibility falls to the nearest to the castle, geographically speaking. That means that duty falls to you, Depraysie. You’re the closest royal at hand. It puts you in a unique position.”

“What unique position?”

She cocked her head to the side. “Blood Rose is essentially yours to run as you see fit, provided you have an older fae to oversee you. You haven’t reached the age of majority, even if you’d remained a witch. I won’t feel comfortable letting you run an administration on your own until you’re at least seventy.”

The picture she was painting seemed impossible. Blood Rose was mine? That couldn’t be right. I wasn’t a princess yet. I wasn’t through with school. I hadn’t even lost my virginity! I couldn’t be in charge of all these people.

But what was the alternative? Let the Grimsbanes have it? They’d been running the place like a country club for centuries.Didn’t other supernaturals deserve a chance to attend the school?

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