Page 96 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

I blinkedawake and sighed as pain shot through my neck. I rubbed the place and lifted my head, taking in my surroundings for a moment, before I realised that I was still on the floor in the hideaway.

The diary entries ended abruptly after the prophecy Maisie’s grandmother had seen, and Dottie left no note to hint when the next time would come where we could continue reading. But something told me that this wasn’t where it was supposed to end.

Archer and I were both tired and didn’t feel like going back to our rooms, so we fell asleep on the blankets and pillows on the floor. I turned my head to the side and saw him sleeping peacefully beside me. His hand was entwined with mine, but we had fallen asleep mere inches apart. One of us must have reached for the other in our sleep.

I turned fully onto my side and watched his chest rise and fall in steady breaths. When had I ever seen him this peaceful?

The clock on the wall above the door showed that we were late for breakfast, and perhaps I should have woken him up, but pulling him out of a dreamless sleep of peace felt wrong. So I just let him be and whiled away in this moment that seemed timeless.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

ARCHER

“Which constellation is your favourite?”Doe asked, grabbing another strawberry from the little basket she had brought with her tonight.

I gazed from the girl devouring her favourite fruit to the night sky and searched for the constellation. “Lyra,” I answered, finding the six connected stars.

Dorothee looked up at the sky and I pointed at the constellation, making it easier for her to find.

“Why Lyra?”

Because the six sun-kissed dots on your face mimic the stars forming a harp–almost identical.

I shrugged. “I used to watch the stars from my balcony every night when sleep wasn’t claiming me. Lyra was always the clearest. As a boy, I imagined hearing the harp play just for me.” I felt the corners of my mouth move upright at the memory. I had been so sure the stars played me a lullaby during those sleepless nights.

“That’s adorable,” she smiled and lay down on the snowy ground beside me. We were fools to watch the stars in the woods during the winter temperatures, but besides the freezingair burning my lungs, I couldn’t imagine doing anything more beautiful on New Year’s Eve.

“Do you have one?” I asked, but Doe immediately shook her head.

“I haven’t thought a lot about the stars growing up,” she admitted with a smug smile, and turned her head to look at me. In the dim, orange light of the lantern I brought, she looked like a dream.

“What’s your star sign?”

“Libra. I should have been a Scorpio, born on the twenty-third of October, but I decided to come twenty days early to gain the urge for balance and justice,” she joked, but my smile faltered as I realised on what date she had been born.

“Your parents shipped you off to Aquila on your birthday?” I remember reading the date of her birth in her medical records, but at that time it didn’t seem important, so I skimmed over the basic information.

Doe shrugged as she lay on the blanket I had laid out on the icy ground to at least give us some kind of warmth. “Couldn’t have wished for a better birthday present,” she laughed it lightly off. “Well, during my arrival, I was not aware of what awaited me, but the only thing that matters is the present.”

“Why on your birthday?” While I lay down beside her, gazing up at the sky, I couldn't help myself from asking.

“My mother held a celebration for an—uhm—award...? I don’t really know. She never really talks to me and initially didn’t want me to attend at all, but she found it a good opportunity to introduce me to her colleague’s son. She said that she’d appreciate it if I talked to him, so I tried to make her happy. What I didn’t know was that we were going to the same school two years ago, and he still remembered me as‘looney’. It’s been my nickname ever since I began to weep during class when I was twelve years old due to the sight of a classmate who had passedaway in a car accident standing in front of the blackboard. Everyone thought I was a lunatic, our teacher included.” Doe paused and sighed. “Well, Emmanuel, the colleague’s son, believed playing a little trick on me would be funny, and it would free him from being forced to spend time with me ever again. We danced, and he was so nice to me. I actually believed he might fancy me, and I enjoyed that feeling. It only lasted for an hour before he managed to lure me into another room where his friends waited covered in fake blood. They came out of their hideaway when Emmanuel and I were finally alone. He claimed that he couldn’t see anyone, and his friends started to push me around, throwing me on the ground, telling me they’d kill me to make me one of them. I—the room was dim, and I was unable to see their faces, so… I feared for my life, which was naive and dumb because the spirits I used to see could neither touch nor talk to me, so I should have known something was up, but at that moment, all I could do was fall on my knees and cry, shouting at them to leave me alone. When I opened my eyes again, everyone was gone, and I ran back to the event where Emmanuel shook his head at me, his eyes full of disgust as he told his own and my mother about my‘manic episode’loud enough for everyone to hear while I protested and continued to cry until my mother dragged me away. A week later, I sat in the car on my way to Aquila Hall. The only reason why all of this happened so fast was because my mother is a genius at getting what she wants, and the De Loughrey’s are now official funders of Aquila Hall. She didn’t remember my birthday because the embarrassment I caused her was far greater than me. Is that the Hercules constellation?” She changed the subject before I could say anything to what she had just told me.

I normally didn’t feel pity towards other people because everyone had to deal with their own shit, some worse thanothers. But I wished I had met her way before the third of October and that at least one person remembered her that day.

“No, that’s Cygnus, but they look slightly similar, so I’ll let that slide. Not everyone can be a natural talent,” I teased and managed to make her laugh.

Good, that’s what we needed tonight. Both of us.

“Natural talent at what?”

“Reading the stars. To some, they speak, to others, they don’t.”

She was silent for a long moment before she breathed a laugh, “Yeah, no, I don’t hear little high-pitched voices in my head telling me‘hi Dorothee, I’m the Cygnus constellation, nice to meet you’. But you go, Starboy.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from breaking into laughter. “That’s not what I meant, but keep making fun of me if you please.”

Doe rolled onto her side so she could face me, her grin turning serious before she spoke again. “I would never make fun of you.”

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