Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

I recognize the grim set of his mouth. He’s preparing for battle. “The sídhe is a safe place. We can protect you there.”

“Protect me from what?”

My voice rises high and I hear Gumba’s hulking mass shift behind me. Roark doesn’t seem to notice.

“From everything.” He scowls and gestures at all of me. “How do you expect to defend yourself from things worse than other students if you aren’t drawing on the ley line? You’re bruised and bleeding from a simple physical education class, for Herne’s sake. I can’t believe you’d still be this reckless, especially after I—”

I’m not sure who’s more shocked when my fist connects with his face: Roark from the pain, or me from actually landing the hit. He stumbles back into the wall, his shoulder colliding with it hard. He clutches at his nose, fingers gingerly probing the area, while I shake out my hand and seethe in the doorway.

“Guess I’m not the only one bleeding now,” I snap.

“I know you’re angry, but think about it please,” he says while black blood oozes between his fingers.

The please cuts the deepest.

“Are you really asking me this?”

“Smith,” he says and now I wish I could pull on the ley line, just so I could pop him again and make him shut up.

But I can’t. Instead, I use my words as my weapon, willing all my anger and hostility into them. “You’re asking me to go to the sídhe after you chose fucking torture over helping me save my home. And you’re asking me to do this even though you haven’t apologized or tried to talk to me since you screwed up and then secretly moved out of our apartment?”

A drop of blood falls from his hand onto his pale grey dress shirt. It takes a moment to soak into the fabric.

“Do you have anything to say to me?” I ask.

It’s a dare and a plea. But he doesn’t speak, which is answer enough.

“No,” I say, biting off the word so I don’t lose it completely. Whatever he sees on my face must say more than that one clipped syllable, because he gives a single, curt nod.

I close the door on him. When I move away from it, Gumba watches me with thinly veiled concern. “Feel better?”

“Can we not talk about it?”

The silent, non-judgmental turn Gumba makes is the reason he is one of my dearest friends. And he doesn’t say boo about me and Roark for the rest of the time I’m studying with him. It isn’t until I’m leaving that he rumbles, “It’s the first promise I’ve ever heard of him breaking.”

“Fantastic.”

“Maybe you should hear him out.”

It’s a damn good thing I don’t have any magick to use because I’d probably do something stupid to get away from this conversation. “And maybe I would if he stopped running away from me without explaining a damn thing.”

“Will you stop baiting him so he can try?”

“I’ll think about it.”

I’m pretty sure I mean it.

On my way home, I decide that Gumba may have had a good point. Truthfully, I don’t like being angry with Roark. I know I’ve felt that way in the past, but this time it’s different. This anger chokes and suffocates me. This anger is personal. It isn’t something I can brush aside. It would be so much easier if I could go back to hating or fearing him, but that’s never going to happen.

My mom’s ringtone cuts through those painful thoughts. For a sp

lit second, I consider letting it go to voicemail. Since I left the farm after failing my parents so utterly, I haven’t called them. The thought of hearing the gory details of the plans for the move, of the money we lost from the damage I caused, or listening to them dance around the topic of my magickal future was enough to keep me from checking in. But Roark’s refusal to explain his actions is what’s hurting the most; I can’t do the same thing to my parents. I won’t be like him.

“Hey, Mom,” I say, forcing cheer into my voice.

“Finny, I’m so glad to reach you,” she says.

That twinge of guilt I felt for avoiding my family grows into a full pang.