Page 72 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

“Apparently, James and Dottie proved that our families are each other’s ruin.” It wasn’t an ideal lie, but it certainly made more sense than just being an arsehole without reason. ThoughI had lots of experience in that part. For some reason, I felt disgusted by making the girl beside me sad.

Doe shrugged. “Whatever you say. Despise me or don’t, that’s on you,” she said carelessly to me before turning her attention to the diary laying on the table. Her ginger hair fell in front of her face, hiding her from me. I fought the urge to brush her hair back over her shoulder, just so I could look at her a little longer.

She opened the book to an inscription written in Latin.

Mysteria i tenuit in corde meo, ut protegatur astra sanguine

– Dorothee Odette De Loughrey

Confusion crossed Doe’s face.

“It’s roughly translated to: Mysteries I kept in my heart so that the stars were shielded with blood,” I translated for her. She’s taking Latin class, but she was terribly bad at it. Which was probably because she never studied it before until she attended Aquila, and all of us had an immense advantage.

“Or, secrets I have held in my heart may be protected by the stars’ blood,” Jesse added, and frankly, his translation made a little more sense in this context, now that we knew Dorothee wasThe Star.

She flipped the page, but the next was empty. So was the one after. The one after that too.

Doe flipped through the entire book, but not a single word or scribble revealed itself to her.

“All of this for an empty book?” Naomi muttered, upset at the thought that their adventure was for nothing.

“Or, her words are hidden. Shielded.” Doe’s eyes gleamed at the thought, and I understood what she meant in an instant.

“Dottie protected her secrets for only her blood to decipher them,” I continued, causing her to look me deep in the eyes witha big fat grin on her lips because this was undoubtedly what this girl loved.

The adrenaline of the hunt.

“Protected by the stars’ blood or that the stars were shielded with blood… whatever she did to hide her words, it’s blood that deciphers them. De Loughrey blood.My blood.” Her eyes lightened at the obvious answer, and she reached for the butter knife that lay beside Jesse’s plate. I grabbed her by the wrist, stopping her at the last second.

“That would look very much like self-harm, and as we are currently under extreme watch because of your little stunt, I wouldn’t recommend trying to get your therapy sessions back up to three times a week,” I warned her and loosened my grip around her wrist.

We didn’t need anyone to get suspicious and believe we’re doing some satanic shit because of our‘delusions’, especially not Chadwick.

He acts like a bloody saint, and that’s why something rubs me wrong about him. No one treats people like us with gentleness. It sounds rough, but it’s nothing but the sad truth.

I’m not a patient of his, since I managed to sound sane enough to convince the previous psychologist of this school that these sessions weren’t necessary anymore. The process of getting to this point had been difficult because the voices hadn’t been quieting down, and ignoring them is like a bleeding cut on your palm that burns every time you try to touch something. The sensation of the constant pain is the same as the headache these voices are giving me. Unignorable.

It didn’t physically pain me, but my head was never quiet. Sleepless nights tend to make me look lifeless, and that was precisely how I felt. Like a vessel to unheard voices talking over my own.

“You’re right. We’ll meet an hour after curfew in the hideout to test our theory,” Doe agreed with me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ARCHER

I watchedas the clock ticked, each second passing, waiting for the minute hand to hit ten. Usually, I don’t care if I’m on time. I come and go whenever I please. But this was different.

And as much as I hated to face Dorothee yesterday at dinner or this morning, I longed to look at her magnificent features tonight.

She painted her own story of why my disliking towards her might have been valid, and honestly, it was a relief. Knowing that she believed, for one second, that I saw her like everyone in her life always had—a liability—had me loathing myself even more than I already did. Even though she hadn’t worded it like that, it was easy to look right into her heart. At least, it was for me.

Seeing people has never been my strength. I simply saw right through them. They didn’t interest me enough because there was too much going on in my head. Emptiness had claimed my being by the time I turned ten, and the world started to darken around the edges a little more with every year that passed.

My sister had a happy nature. A bundle full of joy. I only ever saw her on holidays, but she didn’t stop chatting the secondshe saw me again. How school had been, about her friends, her grades, and her cat.

I love my sister. I loved her the day she was born, and I will love her until I’m six feet under. But I never found myself being the same boy who once told her bedtime stories until my eyes were falling shut.

Elsie called me mean when she was nine, and I was thirteen because I slipped and told her to shut up during one of her chatty moments. She didn’t know that a dozen voices haunted my head and started crying and yelling that I was a mean boy, and that she missed her older brother until Mum came in.

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