Page 32 of Faerie Trials

Andcertainlyno more ridiculous school parties where I drank too much ambrosia and acted like a fool. Shaking my head, I kept the bag close to me, tucking it between the folds of my towel. Luckily, whatever I wore transfigured with me, so no need for my tiny mouse body to lug a full bag of brain boost back to the second floor of the castle.

Talk about suspicious.

I spared a last look at the stocks in the pantry.Stealing. Again. I’d never thought it would come to this. At least Raelynn had given me permission to come into the pantry for other things, although she knew nothing about the other ingredients I was forced to pilfer for my concealment potion. She didn’t need to know about the extra helping of brain boost powder.

And I needed to keep it that way.

* * *

“What the hell are you doing?”

I squawked, falling out of my chair and landing hard on my tailbone at the sound of Onyx’s voice in my room later that night.

When I glanced up, he stood over me with a furious expression, his cheeks red in stark contrast to his nearly white hair like someone had painted rosy dots on his skin.

“What are you doinghere?” I countered. Anxiety spiked through me. “How did you get in?” I scrambled to get up. Using the desk as leverage, I stood and tried to push my rat’s nest of hair away from my eyes. Somewhere along the line I’d fallen asleep, and I hurriedly wiped at the line of drool trailing down my chin.

Onyx tapped his foot in impatience. “How do you think I got in, Tavi? I came in through the damn cracks in the wall as a bug when you didn’t show up for our transfiguration lesson.”

I hissed, reaching behind me to rub my backside. “What do you mean, I missed our…” I trailed off. It was Sunday. Our new day to meet. “Oh. I’m really sorry.” I vaguely recalled us discussing the change in days. “I completely forgot.”

After what happened last night, it wasn’t a surprise. If my legs weren’t attached to me, I would have left those behind too. Especially considering how numb they felt from sitting at my desk all day.

But hey, silver lining. I’d managed to finish my homework assignments for the academy, completed an essay on hedge witches, and even worked through one of the spells Juno sent me home to practice. I felt pretty accomplished, considering the massive headache still lingering. Along with the massive exhaustion.

Too much drama in my life, I thought, staring at Onyx and his hard look. I needed to downsize. Drastically.

“You’re sorry?” he repeated.

“Yeah, I am. I’ve been a little distracted and I really didn’t remember we’d changed our day to Sunday.”

“I find it hard to believe that you forgot about our practice,” Onyx said. He crossed to the bed and sat down, which did not make him any less intimidating. I didn’t really like looking at him taking up space on my mattress. “I thought you actually wanted to learn how to use your transfiguration. Especially considering the months where you weren’t able to transform thanks to the king’s lockdown.”

I figured Onyx must take after his father in some respects. Not many, but some. The look on his face was one I’d seen on Kendrick’s before. Unyielding. And pissed off. This wasn’t a man you would approach on the street. He practically had a sign clearly marked on his forehead warning you away. Except I couldn’t go anywhere. He was inmyroom.

“I told you I was sorry,” I replied dryly, rubbing my eyes. Wishing I had the power to snap my fingers and send Onyx off somewhere, anywhere as long as it was far away. “I have a lot going on right now.”

“Not so much that you need to skip out on our lessons. They’re important,” he insisted.

There was no good way to make him understand. “Everything is important. I promise you I won’t forget the next one. I just had a bad night last night.” I stopped and sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Mike and I—”

“Mike!” Onyx interrupted with a scoff. “Michael Thornwood, the Crown Prince? You need to put him right out of your mind. Let him go, Tavi. You can never be together. You have to know that.”

A chill shot through me. I didn’t care how many times I’d thought the same thing. Hearing it come out of Onyx’s mouth made me furious and a little afraid. My stomach twisted and churned at his words. “Maybe, maybe not.” I fixed him with a glare and Onyx threw up his hands.

“There’s nomaybe, Tavi. He’s the crown prince and you’re a half-wolf shifter. There is no universe where this thing you’ve got going on becomes a reality. You need to buckle down and focus on staying under the radar.Staying alive.”

He spoke to me like I was a child who couldn’t understand why cookies for dinner was a bad idea.

“You break into my room just to yell at me?” I snapped.

“No, I was worried about you and had a hard time figuring out why you’d blow off our lesson.” Onyx got to his feet, crossing the space in two strides to place his palms on my shoulders, fingers biting down. He was a good foot or so taller, staring down his nose at me, and his gaze pierced me straight through. “It seems I was right to worry. You’re not focused. You’re losing control.

“I’m doing the best I can.”

He shook his head. “Your best isn’t good enough right now.”

I broke his contact and turned away. “And the last person I need rubbing it in my face is you.”

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