Page 53 of Midnight Star

I poke at the food on my plate, but after the events of today, I’m barely able to eat. The only reason I force myself to get a bit down is because I need my strengthafter losing blood this morning. Especially given that Aerix will likely call on me again for dinner.

I hope he does.

Because each minute I spend with him will be another chance I’ll have to soften him up so I can eventually get him to tell me more about Kallista, the Blood Coven, and the Revenants.

Zoey

After lunch,I make my way to the far end of the courtyard where Isla and Elijah are waiting for me at our chessboard. A few of the pawns are only partially finished, but that doesn’t stop Isla from putting the pieces in place to start a game.

She nods for me to sit across from her, which I do.

Elijah sits on the bench at the side of the board. He glances at one of the bishops carved by Jake, which is the most jagged of all the finished pieces.

My stomach drops at the sight of it.

“I’ll be generous and let you go first,” Isla says to me, keeping her gaze level with mine.

Even though she’s only thirteen, itisgenerous of her, since she’s apparently some kind of chess prodigy.

I choose a random pawn to slide forward, since it’s impossible to focus on strategy when all I can see are mymemories of Jake’s body, Matt wasting away at the hand of the queen, and the possessiveness swirling in Aerix’s eyes during our confrontation in his quarters. And it’s not like I can strategize from only one move, anyway.

“It’s not right, you know,” Isla says as she moves her first pawn. “What happened to Jake.”

“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”

Elijah sighs and leans back. “In my three years here, I’ve never seen anything like that,” he says. “Normally, they’re sent to the barns when the royals are done with them. We never see them again. But this…”

“Is unacceptable,” Isla finishes sharply, looking to me to make my next move.

“There’s nothing we can do to stop it,” Elijah says, his voice flat as he leans back on the bench. “We can only lay low and avoid their attention.”

So we don’t end up like Jake.

None of us say it.

But we all know we’re thinking it.

We play in silence for a few minutes, and I watch as Isla wipes piece after piece of mine from the board.

“Laying low around here isn’t the best choice for all of us,” she says as she takes another one of my pawns. “After all, some of us have opportunities that the rest of us don’t.”

My hand freezes over my queen. “What are you getting at?” I ask, already suspecting her answer.

“Aerix has a weakness for you,” she says, and she studies the board, as if she’s trying to predict my next move.

She likely alreadyhaspredicted my next move.

“If he’s weak, he sure has an interesting way of showing it.” I scoff and move my rook instead—which I always called a castle before Isla corrected me during our first day of whittling—and glance back over at the central fountain.

Jake’s mutilated corpse flashes through my mind again.

No.

I don’t want to think about it.

So I refocus on the board, noting the locations of each chess piece.

I read once that the brain can only think one thought at a time. Which means if I run through the position of each piece, I can’t also think about the fact that Jake was murdered by the frustratingly irresistible fae prince who kidnapped me and flew me away while Sapphire and Riven were fighting for their lives against a horde of water zombies.

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