Page 17 of Prince of Flowers
“She didn’t say any of that,” I snapped. “And no one is going to mob you. They’re going to run away screaming. Don’t worry about Namirah and Bruna. We can’t trust them not to eavesdrop, but we can trust them to keep a secret. Right, you two? Right?”
“I swear it on my mother’s grave,” Namirah said, holding her hand up.
“Her mother’s still alive,” Bruna mumbled.
Namirah’s lips drew back. “She knows what she did.”
“Guys, focus.” I held my hands up, making sure they understood. “Nobody can find out, okay?”
Another voice drifted in from behind me, ethereal and taunting, the sound of it boiling my blood.
“Nobody can find out about what, Locke?”
I turned around in a slow, plodding semi-circle. Despite their snoopiness, I was always happy to see Namirah and Bruna. This newcomer, though? Not a bit. He stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, my nemesis, my rival, slender and coquettish and sweet. A pretty, perfumed flower.
But I knew exactly what he was like on the inside: positively brimming with poison.
“Evander Skink,” I said, my words pushing through a smile filled with clenched teeth. “So nice to see you.”
7
Evander Skink graspedat his cheek with long, elegant fingers, his head tilted, all coy and teasing.
“Please, Locke. I always tell you that you can call me Evan instead. All of my good friends do. I mean, how long have we known each other now?”
I clenched my teeth, knowing what was coming next. He blinked slowly, the fan of his lashes as pale blond as his glossy, longish hair, eyes huge and wet, like a doe, or a kitten. A very punchable kitten.
“A while,” I said, trying to keep my distaste for him under the surface.
“That’s right. A while. You’ve been here longer than I have, after all. Which isn’t the worst thing in the world. I don’t blame you for staying. It’s so nice here at the Wispwood.”
Okay, wow. What a prick. Technically true, of course — I’d more than overstayed my welcome at the Wispwood. But seriously, who said stuff like that?
Even without looking I could tell that Namirah’s muscles were tense, too. And while Bruna liked to give people the benefit of the doubt, preferring not to cast judgment where it wasn’t necessary, even she acknowledged that Evander Skink was kind of an asshole.
We even had our own secret name for him: Evander Skink, the Evil Twink. I knew that it wasn’t the most rhythmic nickname to give him, but it checked all the boxes. Evander Skink was ethereal and beautiful with his delicate features and fingers and hair, his fair skin and sophisticated fashion sense.
He looked like someone who could have climbed out of the Wispwell, like one of the ghostly wisps that haunted its waters had been granted the gift of human form. Before the fae returned to our world, I thought that Evander was what one of the fair folk must have looked like.
Now I just knew that he looked like someone I wanted to dropkick in the throat every time I saw him. He was an excellent summoner, a model student, and the cherry on top: three years my junior. Evander Skink was the anti-Locke, in short, my exact opposite in so many ways. It also meant that Dr. Fang liked him more. Much more.
“This doesn’t concern you, Evander,” Namirah said. “Besides, this was supposed to be a private conversation.”
“A funny place to have a private conversation, out here in the hallway.” Evander grinned, showing off his flawless teeth. “You do have an interesting notion of privacy, don’t you?”
Bruna cleared her throat, the only member of our group willing to play nice with Evander. “We were just discussing how happy we were that Locke has finally contracted an eidolon.”
“An eidolon, you say? Congratulations are surely in order, Locke.” Evander tapped the side of his perfect cheekbone with the tip of one meticulously buffed fingernail. His eyes traveled the entire length of Sylvain’s body, his gaze lingering too long for my taste. “Well, well. Fresh meat.”
Sylvain looked down at himself, then up at me, confused. I shrugged back. He puffed his chest out, the muscles in his arms going taut.
“I’m an alraune,” he announced. I nearly smacked myself in the forehead.
“Are you, now?” Evander’s eyes flitted across each of our faces, settling on Sylvain’s again. “Aren’t there a lot of your kind in the forests around the Wispwood? Quite common.”
Sylvain flinched, his jaw clenching. I imagined that no prince, fae or otherwise, would deal well with being called common. Still, I hoped he had enough common sense to keep everything that Dr. Fang had told us in mind. I was used to Evander Skink’s low-grade, sugarcoated bullying. Sylvain, though?
“Oh, have I offended you?” Evander gave us a simpering grin. “I do apologize. I just thought that the son of the Grand Summoner Baylor Wilde himself would contract something a little more, shall we say, exotic. Not an unattractive option by any means, though. Quite the contrary.”
