A Girl in Black and White (Alyria 2)

Something on my desk caught my attention, and I glanced down to see a few words written on a piece of paper: Number thirty is wrong. The only princess I’ve done is you.

For a moment, I just looked at his handwriting, somehow fascinated at the scrawl—but then, unease ran through me, and I found my list and flipped it over.

Number thirty: I hate that you lied to me about not ‘doing’ princesses, yet in the gossip rags there’ve been three claiming to have been in your bed this week. I hope you choke on one of your princesses!

He read my list? I growled in my mind, hesitation settling over me at the idea as my eyes shot down to number seventy-four:

I hate that you’ve somehow redefined the meaning of the word hate. And I hate how I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

I groaned. He’d read this. He must have thought I was infatuated with him now. Well, I did have a list of seventy-four items . . .

I was standing there, uncertain, when Agnes walked in. “I thought you might be back,” she said, closing the door behind her. Expression tight but slightly tired, she looked me and all the black smudges over with a frown. “Do I want to know what that is?”

I shook my head. “No.”

She leaned against the door in silence for a moment. “I know you girls don’t understand much about the Sisterhood yet. And that it can be frustrating not understanding what your life will be dedicated to. I was where you are once, not so long ago, in fact.

“But once you are sworn in, it will all become clear to you of who we are and what we do. It’s not as nefarious as everyone makes it out to be, but we do have our goals and aspirations.”

I don’t know, that sounded a bit nefarious to me . . .

“The one thing that we Sisters hold to the highest standard is loyalty. We are all a family amongst it all. But when family disobeys, family is punished. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I only watched her, not getting a definite vibe from her yet that I needed to do anything, but I wouldn’t act frightened of her words. She had little magic; I didn’t think she was strong enough to resist my persuasion. If I didn’t want her to leave this room again, she wouldn’t. She would merely be compelled to stay here until the end of time. But the truth was, that Agnes never treated me unfairly. And I wouldn’t act on anything unless I was sure that she would take this further.

She sighed at my demeanor. “You cannot have such pride when you are a Sister among your superiors.”

She was wrong. I was a Shadow. I was her superior.

The thought was so strong, and had come up on me so quickly, bouncing through my mind that I couldn’t even push it away, didn’t even want to.

“I know what a house like this is like to a young Sister, and I don’t blame you for getting out every once in a while. I had a friend who could get by the wards as well. But we had a nasty witch of a High Sister, and when she found out, I didn’t have a friend anymore. You get what I’m saying?

“The publicity you brought to the Sisterhood could have been damning to us all, but thankfully we have a useless magistrate. I will keep this incident to myself, as long as you use discretion until All Sister’s Day. You will no longer be under my charge then. Understood?”

I had to push this dark, entitled feeling away that was disgusted by taking orders from this Sister, and nodded.

“As for your pledging, you and Farah are the only ones left to decide now that Juliana somehow snagged that Montgomery boy. May I suggest you visit your mother? It seems she is only flirting—and who knows else—with your candidates rather than being serious about choosing one.”

“Yea, I’ll visit her today.”

. . . and the reality was finally here.

“Just watch out for trouble from the magistrate. Though, I have faith in you in that department,” Agnes said dryly before she shut the door behind her.

It was then that I realized Agnes was all right.

A pushover, but all right, indeed.

“What about this one?” my mother asked, holding a dress up against her.

“It’s lovely,” I replied, not even glancing at it, because—He. Read. My. List. I had private stuff on that list, and I might have asked him if he’d like to see it before, but I’d only been jesting. I wouldn’t have voluntarily shown it to him if he gave me all the silver in Titan—and that was saying something.

At least number seventy-four seemed to be the only one to blatantly give away my non-feelings. Ugh.

“So, we’re just going to pretend yesterday never happened?” my mother asked, running her fingers over some silver chains hanging from a vendor’s stand. The sun did glint off them just right, urging my fingers to reach out and touch them. I gave my head a little shake to clear my thoughts.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I replied.