Page 31 of Prince of Masks
I shrug. “They said you would have to approve it.”
Father considers me for a moment, a moment that seems to stretch on too long, before he loosens a tired breath.
I watch as he reaches out for the laptop—then runs his fingertip over the mousepad.
The screen flickers to life.
He studies the screen. “Why would you need such a book list? The Purity of Ancient Bloodlines,” he reads the titles, “Reproductive Challenges and Their Mistakes, The Ethics of Purity and Prints.”
I scratch at the arm of the chair. “I don’t know, I just asked for whatever they had on my people.”
His gaze swerves to mine.
“Your people,” he echoes. The unbuttoned collar of his shirt is loosened with a yanked-on tie. His neck wears the shadows of stubble just now coming into growth. “Your people,” he says, firmer, and sinks into his chair, “are the aristos. Your people are the elites.”
I bring up my legs to basket on the chair. “But I’m a deadblood too.”
I stick to my nonchalance.
If I act like I am in trouble, like I did something wrong, then it will be too easy for Father to latch onto that, to pounce, and punish me.
We both know I did wrong.
I just don’t exactly know how or why.
I don’t get the feeling he’s going to explain it to me, just as Mother didn’t tell me the truth about the book she stole.
Absentminded, my fingernail has found a spot on my canvas shoes, a small thread undone, and I pick at that. “Mother took an old little book that I found in VeVille, and she said it got ruined, so I thought I might replace it. I guess I just wanted to know more about what I am.”
Father leans his elbow onto the arm of his chair, then plants his chin on his fist. “You carry the magic in your blood, but it is dormant. Your children will be witches. You merely have a handicap. What more is there to know?”
“Well… How many of us are there?” I throw my hands up. “Will my children be like you, alchemists, or Mother, numerologists… or will they inherit my husband’s print?” My hands slap down to my knees. “And… are banished deadbloods the reason we have made witches because most of the deadbloods are abandoned in the krum world and so… what if it’s the dormant magic coming to life down the krum line?”
Father’s mouth twists with the faint flicker of disgust. But his expression is schooled quickly. “Is the core of your interest focused more on krums, Olivia?”
Krums is not a topic I’m willing to broach, not with Father. His prejudices run deeper than blood in the body, his arrogance reaches higher than monuments, and I’m sure this is the very reason he has a slight upturn to the tip of his nose, so it looks always like he’s lifting it in disdain and snobbery.
I can’t even have Courtney over, and she’s a made one, only born of krums.
Not once, in any of the school breaks, has she come to visit. And it’s not like I can go stay overnight at the Home for the Misplaced.
Even if I could, Father would never allow it.
He hasn’t approved of my friendship with Courtney, not a single moment of it. Hetoleratesit if it isn’t mentioned to him. Because, at the bottom of it all, he must know (or at least suspect) that I go through Bluestone without friends.
Father can’t bring himself to take away the one companion I might have, even if she is a made one.
I can just imagine the ashy sheen that would pale his olive complexion if I were to ask if my made witch friend could come stay, eat at our dining table, drink from our glasses…
‘Aristos are for aristos,’ he once said to me.
I remember it, my silly thirteen-year-old mind, confused, and responding with, ‘But we’re all witches, aren’t we?’
‘A diamond made in a laboratory,’ my mother interjected, ‘will always be a little bit less than a mined diamond.’
I huff a heavy breath. My lips shudder with it.
“It’s not that deep, Father. I just thought I might pick up some books on being a deadblood. I had some questions, so what? I’m not interested to know about the krums. It’s just… reading.” I shrug. “If I requested literature on anything else, would you be interrogating me?”
