Bran and Lachlan were on either side of me, protecting me from unwanted advances, but I was still deeply relieved when none of the popular idiots, who had been bothering me all of last week, jumped out of their chairs and approached me. Elian Darkwing gave me a longing glance and Francisco and Cedric both stared as I took my seat, but none of them got up and came over.
Good, I thought with relief. The Marking must be working.
I wondered if anyone in the class could actually see Lachlan and Bran’s Marks on me. According to Avery, wearing a one-way Marking was a little bit like having on a flesh-colored Band-Aid. You could see it, if you were looking for it and you knew where to look, but it wasn’t super obvious.
Nobody said anything—other than the usual nasty whispers about the three of us—and I was used to ignoring them.
Morganna, however, was not used to being ignored.
“Look at the pretty little threesome,” she said, much louder than a whisper. “Did you hear that Plunkett thinks she’s a Royal?” She laughed nastily, clearly wanting the rest of the popular group to join in.
There was some laughter, but it was scattered and uneasy.
“But, Morganna,” I heard one of the other girls whisper. “She really might be a Royal! Look at her eyes—she has a triple ringed iris and golden darts in her irises—just like King Tyr and Queen Elia! What if she really is a by-blow of His Majesty?”
“Well, then she’s only an illegitimate bastard,” Morganna snapped. “That doesn’t make her a Royal!”
“Yes, it does! Her blood makes her a Royal,” another Fae boy pointed out. “Which means she could get you into a lot of trouble at Court if you don’t leave her alone.”
“Ha!” Morganna tossed her long, honey-blonde hair in a silky wave over her shoulder. “That nasty little troll will never be admitted to Court. And if she did, she wouldn’t know how to act when she got there! She’s been raised like a Norm all her life and if you ask me, that’s what she really is. She’s just put a spell on herself to make it look like she’s Fae.”
“Then why hasn’t Headmistress Nightworthy made her take it off?” Elian asked, frowning. “You know she doesn’t allow one kind of Other to mimic another kind. It’s against the Academy rules.”
I don’t know if Morganna would have had an answer for that or not, but at that moment Mr. Barron came in with his coffee and a paper. He also had a stack of fresh copies under his arm, which caused all of us to groan. We all knew what they meant.
“Pop quiz, people,” he announced, holding them up in one hand. “I know how excited you all must be, so if someone will volunteer to hand these out for me—”
“I will!” Morganna’s hand shot up in the air. “I’ll hand them out, Mr. Barron!”
Mr. Barron blinked in surprise but then he shrugged. Maybe he thought Morganna was trying to make up for her reprehensible behavior in the past. I, however, didn’t believe that for a moment.
“Here you go then, Miss Starchild,” he said, handing her the stack of sheets, which she had already pranced up to his desk to get. He looked at the class. “All right, people—don’t start until everyone gets one and you have thirty minutes to complete them.”
Then he settled at his desk with his coffee and immersed himself in his paper.
Morganna sashayed down the rows of lab tables, handing out tests to everyone, as though she was the teacher’s pet instead of a spoiled brat who could hardly be bothered to do her class work.
When she got to me, she put the test face down in front of me and gave me an insincere smile.
“Good luck, Emma,” she whispered, tapping the paper twice. Then she continued down the row, handing out the pop quiz to everyone else in the classroom.
I waited for her to finish, apprehension filling me to the brim. I had a very bad feeling about this.
Finally, everyone had gotten a quiz and Morganna had returned to her seat. Mr. Barron looked up from his paper briefly, took a slurp of his coffee and said, “Begin,” and went back to his paper again.
Feeling certain that Morganna had meddled with my test somehow, I turned the paper over and found out that—sure enough—I was right.
Somehow she had changed the language from English to…well, I don’t know if what was on my pop quiz was an actual language or not. It was laid out like a quiz with numbered questions, but the letters had all been turned into weird symbols. Question number one looked like this:
1. ???? ????¦ ??¦? ???? ???? ?
Question number two was just as impenetrable.
2. ?? ¦?? ?&???? ?????? ???????
Scanning down the paper, I saw that the entire test was like that. For a moment, I got really mad. My first impulse was to raise my hand and speak to Mr. Barron.