Page 103 of Swallow Your Sorries

His refusal to look me in the eye is an answer enough, but still, I wait. We all do.

“Your rope’s running out,” Zedd says. “Literally.”

“Fine! Fucking fine! I can deal with you lot for one year. Next year is my turn anyway.”

“Who says I’m handing you my sceptre?”

I’d known Sylo a little under two and a half years thanks to our mothers’ estrangement before our birth. We’d met at the academy and while we’ve become acquainted, we haven’t exactly becomefamily. I wouldn’t pass him a drink, much less an entire school.

His eyes finally flick to mine. “No one. I’m taking it. That’s a promise.”

I smirk at that because it’s exactly how I‘d taken mine from the previous head. Maybe Sylo is more capable than I thought.

“Good.Éti?”

“Your Grace?”

“Clemency is, but what?”

“A sign of weakness.”

The rusty pulley whirls and Sylo screams, flailing as the spider on Étienne’s arm finally reaches its target before he’s hoisted legs first into the air.

But his screams are ringing with another.

Elle’s.

She’s being dragged into the greenhouse by a masked Hale kicking and cursing.

Her face of terror contorts to shock, then outrage, then… disgust, and not by the spiders.

Sylo’s infected her with the ‘ick’ as she watches him thrash like a fish out of water in his underwear. He’s hovering about a metre over the table now, and the distance is growing longer the more Étienne pulls, hoisting Sylo higher.

Elle’s lips move like she’s utterly dumbfounded, but she knows exactly why he’s here.

She knows exactly what she’s done.

“Lovely of you to join us,” Bae says, extending the bag of beans to Elle as Hale lets her go and whips off his mask. “May I offer you some refreshment?”

Zoi howls pleadingly for a taste and Elle stumbles backwards, her gaze laser-focused on Zoi’s glowing eyes.

“Get away from me,” she hisses at him and Hale both, but when they stand firm at the exit she has no choice but to stumble closer to the table. But she stops short at the sight of Sylo again, frozen in the middle.

In limbo.

That’s exactly where she is mentally too, because she’s finally realising that her only options are the ones I’m giving her. Which is to say, none at all.

“Mannerless,” Hale says winded, as he reaches into the pretzel bag.

“Couthless,” Bae agrees. “One simply does not turn down refreshment.”

“Or an invitation to such an extraordinary event,” Hale adds. “I asked her so very politely to join me in the forest and she saidno.”

Good girl.I’d have been livid if she went with Hale willingly.

“I had to chase her for a half acre. She’s fast.”

“That she is,” I say, strolling forward. “The audacity of her to liaison with my cousin, of all people.”

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