Page 179 of Feed Your Fiends

We watch as the grainy video flickers across the screen. There are no identifying features. No wisps of hair escaping the coat. The outfit is androgynous. It could be a short man or a medium-height woman. Too tall to be Enaj or Aria, though that’s no surprise.

“How do we know it’s not a minion?” Aria asks tentatively. “Beaussip has dozens of them. Rin to start.”

I shake my head. “Beaussip wouldn’t risk a snitch later. No, he or she got those shoes themselves.”

“But how?” Aria furrows her brows. “How would they have known I had the shoes? And why would they be following me specifically that night? Besides, they were in a box. Ballet students toss out old pointe shoes all the time. They’re dozens of them in that rubbish bin right now, I’d bet.”

“Beaussip is everywhere,” I say as the video restarts a third time. “And nowhere.”

Aria shakes her head in disbelief.

“Track her,” I say to Enaj.

“What?Why me?”

“You’re hovering over the surveillance footage at all times anyway, so you can get off. Track her. It’s nearly winter. Look for that coat on campus. Look for anyone snooping around.”

Enaj pouts. “That’s less time for me to snoop around, though.”

“You have a problem that I’m helping you break. Be grateful.”

“But I—’’

“Do you want him to find out what you’re up to?” I say, giving Aria my arm as she slips from the table onto her feet.

I’d deal with the consequences of touching her later.

“No!” she throws her hands up, waving them at me and nearly causing her laptop to tumble to the mossy floor. She catches it in time, and if she were pale, I’m sure her knuckles would be ghostly white. “You can’t tell him. He’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Youarecrazy,” Aria says. “But we like it. We’ll be great friends.” She links her arm through mine before slipping her hand into her coat pocket.

“Do I have a choice?” Enaj mutters, her voice thick with sarcasm and misery.

“No,” Aria and I say simply as we leave the greenhouse and head for the campus.

“Hurry up!” Aria calls over her shoulder. “The inauguration is about to start, and everyone has to be there. The king ordained it.”

Gant

Red. Everything’s red.

Or it’s about to be.

My brother’s inauguration.

He’s so happy as I symbolically crown him with my fingers, just like I’d done in our first photo together since I knew we were blood brothers. His smile is so pure as his eyes flit from me to his other half-brother, Sylo, who’s, for the first time, at the high table. Sylo’s smile, though, is too small to be genuine as he claps along with the crowd.

Zedd’s smile is eager because he hopes Hale’s twisted ascension and Beaussip’s latest article mean the end of him and Stassi.

Etienne rarely smiles, but it’s evident in his eyes as he silently meets mine for a half-second too long. But his secret is safe with me. It’ll reveal itself soon enough.

Bae’s staring into the crowd, and I follow his gaze to the seniors who are recording Hale’s big moment of officially taking over the academy. But he’s zoned in on one senior in particular. Rin, who’s clapping boredly, her eyes boring into Elle.

Elle’s at my side, her fingers laced through mine, but she’s watching Stassi carefully. Stassi, who hasn’t spared Hale a single glance since we got on campus. The same goes for Aria with Etienne. She’s more interested in a stained-glass window above everyone’s heads.

But this isn’t about my circle right now. It’s aboutthem. Those fake fucks smiling back at me. Those fiends, the true fiends that tried to destroy my little dove. Someone has to die. And if I can’t pick out the culprit yet, then everyone has to suffer. Everyone has to fucking bleed.

That’s why Hale chose red as his official colour. Mine was black.

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