Page 56 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

I watched as Nathaniel finished searching for the star cards and stacked all of the decks carefully back in their boxes. Maiwould be furious if one of her beloved decks was missing a card, and I was pretty sure if she had seen how he had thrown them all around, she would have yelled at him.

He cursed when one of the cards fell out of the stack he was creating. The card fell on the floor and landed in front of my boots. I bent down and picked it up.

The Lovers.

“Thank the cards, I almost forgot to ask how your whole idea of staying away from Doe is going when you’re riding out with her?” For a moment I froze, questioning how he could have known, but then I remembered the whole sight thing. Nathaniel just usually didn’t talk about what he saw because, in this shitty life, we didn’t get to be happy. “Shit, Archer, I haven’t seen you that happy in years, and that’s fucking bad, mate.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I brushed it off, grabbing my clothes and walking towards the bathroom. Nathaniel stepped in front of me before I could reach the door. The hard edges of his face softened a bit.

When I first met him, I thought he was a sociopath, incapable of expressing or feeling emotions at all. Over time, I realised that life had simply broken him at a young age.

“You know exactly what I mean, brother. We dragged her into this mess, and we cannot risk any more than we already have. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Who is we?” I hissed. “I was the one who showed her Umbra. I am the one who can’t risk it, and God knows I’m trying.” As the realisation hit, I let out a sigh and straightened up. "When I didn’t know her, it was so easy, but the closer we got, the more I felt this desire to be near her. It’s fucked up. I've never loved anyone in my life. I've never even been close to someone in that way before because I just don’t want it. But now, when I’m supposed to stay away and act like a total arsehole, I start spiralling.”

I swallowed my pride, admitting that. Frankly, I wasn’t the sort to typically spiral. I always had complete control over everything, so that everything turned out exactly as I wanted it to.

I’ve known this girl for one month, and there’s this connection I can’t explain. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt, and I hate it. I hate it because I can’t stop myself from feeling this way when I’m around her.

When I’m around her, I feel whole, as if she were the one thing I’ve been missing my entire life.

No.

Just no.

“I know you feel this way. I’ve seen it. But you can’t dive into those desires. It will be the death of you. Yours andhers.” My heart skipped a beat at the way he mentioned her. “Maisie has seen where this will lead, and it starts with you falling in love.”

I shrugged off Nathaniel’s hand on my arm, not wanting comfort or anything like that right now. This was pointless and stupid. How can me being fated to end her life begin with us falling in love?

“Maybe what Mai saw won’t happen.”

“You don’t understand. Since Samhain, she’s woken up every night hyperventilating because she’s seeing it play out. It’s destroying her, and we’re doing everything to help you, but you’re being a stubborn idiot. She’s never wrong.” Nathaniel mirrored my rage.

He was my best friend, my brother. But lately, we’ve been stubborn bastards, acting as if we fought on opposite fronts. The only sign that he still cared for me was the fact that he was desperately searching for an answer to my future, even though anyone outside of our inner circle would think we hated each other.

“She’s been wrong before. Otherwise, you wouldn’t stand in front of me today.” I pushed past him, tasting the words like venom on my tongue. Regret burned in my chest, but I was just so damn angry.

“I’ll see you at dinner,” I let them know this was their clue to leave me alone before I shut the bathroom door behind me.

What had I done to the universe to deserve such agony in life?

We satat our usual place in the dining hall. Everyone knew this was ours, and no one dared to take it, even though the tables weren’t reserved for any of the students. Aquila wasn’t necessarily divided into popular and loser groups. There were around three hundred students here, and most of us had it hard enough at home without causing a riot here too.

Surely, our school had its mean ones, and its geeky types. But Aquila had a strict no-bullying tolerance, and if you crossed the line, you’d be sent straight home to mummy and daddy, where things would look much worse than here.

I looked down at my dinner. Roast beef, roast potatoes and peas with carrots. I separated the overcooked baby carrots from the rest of my vegetables and placed them on the side. There was just something about overcooked carrots that disgusted me. They tasted sweet when I expected something else from my vegetables, and they fell apart on my tongue.

A plate was placed across from me, and I looked up to see Dorothee had taken a seat at the table. She usually sat beside Maisie or Jesse, far away from me.

I looked her over. She had changed into an oversized jumper, and her hair was braided to one side now.

“If you don’t like them, we could trade your carrots for my peas. I don’t like those either,” she suggested kindly and had me swearing in my mind. When she had first arrived here, she’d been so quiet you could barely get a word out of her when you asked her something.

But now, she had become so comfortable around us that she’d gained the confidence to speak. And her voice drove me to insanity.

“Yeah, why not,” I answered coolly, taking her plate and pushing my carrots onto hers before I did the same with her peas onto mine, placing the plate back in front of her when I was finished.

My friends were talking quietly among themselves. They knew better than to talk to me right now. I appreciated it, in the same way it made me feel like a complete arsehole.

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