Page 71 of Feed Your Fiends

I drag her into my side and snake my arm around her waist.

“I think your nervousness is just about making a good first impression. I think you’re scared.”

She snorts. “Of what?”

“Them not accepting you. In the dorms, before the break, you said that our being together was impossible because the Auclairs would never accept you. Us.”

“They aren’t the Auclairs, who I have no intentions of meeting.”

A prick, a little twinkle of broken glass, pierces me, but I staunch the wound.

“Which is exactly why you’re so scared to meet the Parrish’s. They’re extended family, so their opinion isn’t so severe, but it still matters. If they like you, it gives you hope that maybe the Auclairs could too. It’s that hope that’s scaring you because you don’t want it.”

She shakes her head, her windswept waves from the bike ride blowing in the gentle breeze. “You’re projecting. This isn’t about us- well, not in a romantic sense. This is solely about us getting answers. If I’m the white elephant in the room, you may not get them. I do need them to like me, but just enough for them to speak freely.”

I don’t believe her because I don’t want to.

“Besides, why would I care about being accepted past a chat? I’m here today, Gant,” she says, meeting my eyes seriously. “Not forever. We’re still in the bubble.”

Darkness washes over me, but the heavy wooden door squeaking open interrupts us as we’re greeted by Sylo’s pale face before I can even knock.

“You look surprised to see us,” I say, noting the slight widening of his crystal eyes.

He quickly narrows them, smiling at me with teeth that should be pointed. “No, no, just Elle. I didn’t know you had a plus one, given what transpired at the play.” He looks at Elle’s soft boots. Boots I convinced her to wear, never mind how badly they fucked up her outfit, as she’d whined.

I hate the look that crosses her features as she follows his gaze.Shame?Not at the boots, but at being by my side. I squeeze her tighter against me.

“Whoever pulled that stunt will be dead before the new year.”

“You’re saying it wasn’t you?” Sylo lifts a platinum brow.

“If it was me, I’d say it was.” I glance past him and into the massive foyer at a flicker of movement. “Did you say it was me?”

“My mother couldn’t make it to the play if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m not talking about the pointe shoes, but about our last meeting in the greenhouse.”

When I’d strung him up into a nest of spiders.

Sylo’s expression remains cool. “You mean, did I go running to mummy to alter her first impression of you? Are you afraid that it’s been altered before you’ve even met?”

Elle tenses beside me.

“You can relax, Ganty. I figured I’d let her see you for the neurotic nephew you are first-hand. Besides, what’s one more secret between cousins?”

But he’s not looking at me when he says it. He’s smiling at Elle.

I want to scalp his platinum lace front, but there’s another flicker of movement, so I smile at him sweetly instead as Delphine, who…looks exactly like my mother, pops into view.

I don’t know why that surprises me. They’re sisters. A resemblance should be expected, yet I hadn’t anticipated looking into my mother’s face. The angles are a bit sharper, her hair a tinge cooler, more of an ashy blonde, versus a golden, but it’s like I’m seeing her in the flesh again.

My eyes fall to the hollow of her throat, and I watch her collarbones rise and fall.

Alive and breathing.

My fingers twitch against Elle’s because they want to reach forherinvoluntarily. No, not Delphine herself, but the ghost she embodies,my mother.

“Gant,” she smiles. Even her smile is identical. Her lips twitch, but no more words come out as she reaches for me before thinking better of it. Instead, she settles her slender fingers against her throat.

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