Page 9 of Prince of Masks
It’s thick, thick like mucus pouring down my throat to my chest.
I shudder and toss aside the phial. It clatters on the bedside table.
Mother watches it rattle for a moment before she touches her fingertips to the envelopes, then slides them along the bed, closer to me.
I look down my body at them. The milkiness of sleep-eye-goo distorts my vision.
Still, I make out the cheap, thin paper of the envelopes and the ink staining them both.
One will be from Courtney. I don’t doubt it. Once she found out I am gone from the school, maybe returning to the dorm and seeing that my things are gone, or walking in on the imps packing my belongings, she will have taken pen to paper towrite the expected letter. One without heart, but the letter that friendship requires.
The fleeting wonder passes my sleepy mind, the thought that Courtney probably fought the urge to write a reprimand, write the words, ‘You brought this on yourself. Did you think you could just attack him and get away with it? Now me and James are open targets in your absence.’
I’ll bet she wrote something along those lines, then scrunched it up and tossed it before she started on the letter she actually sent.
I flick my milky stare to the other envelope.
That one has more mystery to it.
I can’t even guess who that’s from, not through the sleepy fog clouding my mind. Maybe James…
Mother says, “Both arrived early this morning.’
It is now a few minutes shy of noon. “How early?” I echo, a grumble. “Why didn’t they just come straight to me when they got here?”
Mother presses her hand into the mattress, then leans her weight to the side. Her onyx eyes run me over. The tilt of her head has a piece of inky hair falling into her olive-hued face that, delicately, she brushes out of the way.
Mother says gently, “When theyarrived.”
I hardly register her correction.
I flop back down on the feathery pillows.
My mind snags on one thing.
There’s a cold cup of coffee on my nightstand, a folded copy of the day’s Videralli newsletter, which I don’t need to read to know is mostly made up of announcements (births, weddings, deaths, that sort of thing) and market updates (stocks, gold, rates, all theboring stuff I couldn’t care less about). I don’t read it and, like all other ones in the world, the ink will start to fade. Twenty-four hours from its creation, the newsletter will be just a few sheets of blank paper.
But those two things mean that Abigail delivered them to my room this morning. She delivered the newsletter that arrives at Elcott Abbey the same time as the mail, and a coffee.
I slept through the visit—but the doubt stands.
Why didn’t she bring the envelopes, too?
The sluggish churn of my mind doesn’t stop the realisation from landing: My mail has been intercepted.
With a frown at Mother and her patient, watchful gaze, the way she dodged my question that she still makes no attempt to answer, I finger the envelopes closer to myself.
I have never before wondered if Mr Younge takes my letters to my parents before they are delivered to my room. That maybe my parents vet the mail first.
Is this something that happens? My mail trifled with. Or is it just now that it’s begun?
All my life, I’ve faced a different set of rules than my twin. Why would it be any different now?
It’s a violating suspicion.
Courtney is the only one who writes to me when we aren’t at Bluestone, James might send one letter a year, but it’s often short, less than a page, a sketch included, and as dull as our conversations in person.
Even though it’s only Courtney, and she scribbles about nothing important at all, there’s a sense of discomfort swaying my gut at the thought of my letters being read by my parents before they even reach me.
