O Angel, ravish me in my youth!

Render me incapable of thought

And reduce me to the primal eldest joy,

For I am yours,

Until the day Christ calls.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One: Autumn

Chapter Two: Autumn

Chapter Three: Autumn

Chapter Four: Autumn

Chapter Five: Autumn

Chapter Six: Autumn

Chapter Seven: Fallon

Chapter Eight: Autumn

Chapter Nine: Autumn

Chapter Ten: Autumn

Chapter Eleven: Autumn

Chapter Twelve: Fallon

Chapter Thirteen: Autumn

Chapter Fourteen: Autumn

Chapter Fifteen: Autumn

Chapter Sixteen: Fallon

Chapter Seventeen: Autumn

Chapter Eighteen: Autumn

Chapter Nineteen: Autumn

Chapter Twenty: Autumn

Chapter Twenty-One: Autumn

Chapter Twenty-Two: Fallon

Chapter Twenty-Three: Autumn

Chapter Twenty-Four: Autumn

Chapter Twenty-Five: Autumn

Chapter Twenty-Six: Autumn

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Autumn

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Autumn

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Fallon

Chapter Thirty: Autumn

Chapter Thirty-One: Autumn

Chapter Thirty-Two: Autumn

Chapter Thirty-Three: Autumn

Chapter Thirty-Four: Autumn

Chapter Thirty-Five: Fallon

Chapter Thirty-Six: Autumn

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Autumn

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Abigail Gibbs

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

I suppose I always knew I was different; that my fate was set in stone, and that one day, I would sit on a cold, hard throne. A symbol of what I am. A deity of my kind.

A deity among many.

I was not conscious. I was running through the green grass, screaming her name in a tongue as familiar to me as the shadow that the tall grey-stone building cast in my path. Tears streaked my face and I struggled to climb the steps, hearing the babble behind the closed entrance doors, like the stream beside the lodge that would swell after the winter rains. My polished, square, school-approved heels squealed in protest as I burst through the double doors, coming across the same sight I had seen a thousand times: hundreds of faces turning to me and then blackness. I waited, breathless though asleep, for the scene to replay itself as it always had in the past.

But this time was different. Instead of waking up in a cold sweat, cheeks wet, bed soaked, I drifted into another scene. Now, a tall statue loomed in front of me and sunlight glinted off pale paving and the tumbling water in two identical fountains. Almost as though somebody had hit fast-forward, the scene sped up and I watched, captivated, as thousands of suit-clad humans and camera-carrying tourists rushed from one side of a square to the other. The clouds sailed across the grey, simmering ocean of a sky, the square darkening as day turned to night, Nelson lighting up on his column as fewer and fewer people passed by. Eventually, Trafalgar Square emptied of any life, except for a few pigeons and a lone girl.

The scene slowed and focused on the girl. Dark hair framed her face and she wore a long black coat, half-unbuttoned to reveal the darkened outline of cleavage and hoisted high enough to show the hem of her black dress, which she tugged down every few minutes. She wasn’t pale, but neither was she blessed with a tan; most striking of all were her eyes, purple, which glowed above the light of her mobile.

Slipping her phone back into her pocket, she moved to sit on one of the long stone benches beneath the trees that lined the square. After a single minute, she perked up again, alert and tense.

Abruptly, the scene cut and was replaced by another. Darkening, congealing red liquid coated the ground and stained the water of the fountains like wine. Bodies littered the floor and I looked on, sickened as their life and energy drained from their necks and seeped across the city I knew and loved; the city I was torn from …

I was wrenched back to consciousness. Bolting upright in bed, I reached for the light on my alarm clock, surprised. It had only just turned one o’clock in the morning.

I was sweating now and heaving in air, hugging the clock to my chest so its light illuminated the room. It was empty, but every time I blinked I could see blood, and bodies, and purple eyes …

Groaning at the vivid images still implanted in my mind, I grabbed a pen and reached up to the calendar above my bed, crossing out and therefore marking the start of another day of the fast-evaporating summer holidays: the 31st July.

CHAPTER ONE
Autumn

‘Well, look here, it’s everyone’s favourite recluse.’ An apron came flying my way and I caught it, unfolded it and tied the strings behind my back.

‘Good morning, Nathan.’

‘Did you hear that, Sophie?’ he asked, turning to one of the new, young waitresses, whose arms were stacked up with crisp white plates as the much older Nathan emptied the dishwasher. ‘It’s a good morning. How unusual.’

I stared at the girl and tried to decide if I’d met her before, or if she was just totally indistinguishable from the other skinny-jeans-clad and powdered orange Saturday staff.

‘And how am I a recluse?’ I asked without tearing my eyes off her.

She returned the gaze with wide eyes as sweat began to trickle down her temples. Her fingers nervously tapped against the rim of the lowest plate and as I side-stepped her to grab a pile of menus, she scrambled back and squeaked. The plates in her hands dropped towards the tiled floor.

Haven’t met her before, then.

With a flick of my finger the plates froze in mid-air and floated onto the worktop. Before she could react again I left the cramped kitchen and made my way towards the front of the Harbour Café, flipping the ‘Closed’ sign on the door so it read ‘Open’. It was the end of August, and though it was still early I could see through the window that tourists were already beginning to crowd the busy walkway from the working harbour to the more upmarket marina; in the distance, trawler fishing boats squeezed between jetties, bringing with them the smell of fish. Neither was the glass a barrier against the sound of chinking of masts and the cry of the gulls as they swarmed for their chance to snatch a portion of the day’s catch – the score which accompanied every morning in the bustling fishing town of Brixham.

Nathan rounded the counter and crossed the café in a couple of bounding strides – not hard because of his tall and lanky build. He cocked his head apologetically.

‘Before you arrived, she was telling me she’s never seen a Sage,’ he explained in an undertone.

I shrugged. Her reaction came as no surprise. In the year I had worked at the café, only Nathan – the chef – and I had been permanent, and every new member of staff had given me a wide berth and left shortly after. The only reason I hadn’t lost my job over it was because my boss knew she could get away with paying me less. I wasn’t about to put up a fuss. She had been the only person in town willing to offer me any work at all.

Nathan placed a tattooed left hand on my arm as I went to pass. ‘And recluse because you haven’t answered my texts for a month.’

‘You were in Iceland, and I was in London.’

‘You still could have replied.’

I grabbed the sleeve of his chef’s whites – which were, in fact, black – and removed his arm. Released, I laid the menus containing the day’s specials on the tables, working my way across the café with Nathan following.

‘How was Iceland?’ I eventually asked to fill the silence.

‘Beautiful. Democratic.’

I sighed and rolled my eyes as my back was turned.

‘The humans and Sage there live together as one community, not divided like here.’ I straightened up to see him jerking his thumb back towards the kitchen where Sophie was. ‘Or anywhere,’ he added as an afterthought.

I’d heard his rhetoric on Sagean-human relations before, but he had saved up for so long to afford his holiday that I didn’t want to burst his bubble. And yet …

‘Sage? Only Extermino live there.’

I couldn’t see his eyes because his hair – curly, brown and almost down to his shoulders – was covering them, but I thought I saw him avert them.

‘Extermino are Sage too, they just believe different things.’

‘And yes, their scars turn grey just because they play happy families with humans,’ I mocked, but didn’t find the matter funny at all. ‘They’re violent extremist rebels, Nathan. They are enemies of the Athenean monarchy, and of all other dark beings too. Don’t forget that.’

He looked towards the ground and adjusted his rolled-up cuffs. ‘I just think things aren’t great as they are, whilst people like you get marginalized—’

The tinkle of a bell interrupted him and we both startled and turned towards the door, as if surprised that customers actually might be coming in. The three girls in the doorframe paused, as startled as we were, and then proceeded towards the table beside the window.

‘Good luck,’ Nathan muttered, and retreated back to the kitchen.

I took a deep breath, pulled out my notepad, and approached the group.

‘Good morning, what can I get you?’ I chirped, pretending they were total strangers.

The nearest girl flicked her long black hair over her shoulders and leered at me from behind her heavy fringe. She was tall, and her shoulders very wide; she didn’t have to tilt her head far to meet my gaze.

‘The usual, witch.’

I gripped the pen tightly, trying to focus through the window on the steady lap of the sea against the harbour walls.

‘I’ve been away for a month, I’m afraid I can’t remember what you and your friends have, Valerie,’ I said through clenched teeth.

Valerie Danvers was what could only be described as a bully. My school’s bully.

Her sustenance was my misery, not a damned coffee.

She muttered something to her friends about Sage, and then begrudgingly gave me her order, demanding that half the dish be omitted. Her friends were only slightly less unpleasant.

I went and got their drinks and was thanked with the usual grunt. A minute later I was in the toilet, back to the door, forcing myself to take deep breaths. It was a Saturday morning ritual, and had been ever since Valerie Danvers had discovered the café was the perfect place to torment me.

With my eyes closed I could almost see the short outline of a woman – my grandmother – growing older but still in her prime, with her head bowed towards a small child, half her height, and talking. Always talking.

Sagean children are like ivy; you grow fast and live very long. Human children are like butterflies. They are ugly in their chrysalis, until the day they finally emerge, and become adults. The ugly chrysalis is jealous of the ivy, you see?

I squeezed my eyelids tighter together. Breathe …

Hammering on the other side of the door wrenched me back. The small room was still dark and I grabbed a cord, flooding the room with sterile white light.

‘Autumn, I know it’s you, get out of there now!’

‘Nathan,’ I groaned. He knew Valerie was a pain, why was he bothering me?

‘Something’s happening outside!’

My skin began to heat and tingle as blood and magic raced to my hands. Walls ceased to be barriers … because from far away, I could hear a heartbeat, fast approaching and speeding up … and it wasn’t human.

I unlocked the door and peeked out. A pale Nathan stood on the other side whilst the rest of the café was empty; stepping out I could see Valerie and her friends straining over the railings surrounding the harbour, watching a commotion across the water.

I ran outside and the warmth on my skin was whipped away with the cold sea breeze; but my heart went cold too. A jetty opposite us was blanketed in a miniature patch of fog, like a fire had been lit and the smoke had engulfed the wall. Yet it lit up with flashes of light, and it screamed; it screamed for mercy … or the people trapped inside did.

My body froze. The rational part of my brain knew I should help but my feet wouldn’t move.

Suddenly, Nathan bolted away from my side and sprinted along the wall towards the screams. His action shut the fear off and I flung myself into the air and flew across the harbour, crumpling to the ground near the fog.

I had no idea what the fog was – I was too afraid to send any magic towards it in case it hit anybody trapped inside … so instead I tentatively reached out with a finger, ball of fire ready just behind in the other hand.

It seemed like fine drizzle from a couple of inches away yet as the tip of my finger touched it, no moisture collected …

Like a sheet being torn apart, I felt the borders between dimensions rip open. You had to have magic to cross them – strong magic – and weak dark-beings and humans couldn’t open them.

The dread in my heart only increased as I realized what kind of enemy I was facing: not one I could fight.

The pull of the borders tried to yank me forward and I stumbled, trying to hold myself back until the white cloud abruptly disappeared into a closing black hole; it sealed before I could possibly see who had created it.

The scene that was revealed was horrifying. There were maybe ten humans, most crouched or lying on the ground, some bleeding, all blinking and looking around bewildered at the sunlight. In the middle there was a man lying flat on his back, a pool of blood gathering around his head but not a scratch anywhere else on him.

A woman was leaning over him and shaking his shoulders. Another had her fingers pressed to his wrists. She reached out and placed a hand on the arm of the other woman, shaking her head.

‘Autumn, do something!’ Nathan demanded having caught up with me.

The humans looked up for the first time and noticed me.

‘No, Nathan, he’s gone, I can’t—’

Nathan shoved me forwards, glaring. ‘You’re a Sage, of course you can. Sage can do anything.’

I looked down at the man on the ground, shaking my head as tears brimmed. Why is he doing this? Nathan knows I can’t bring back the dead!

‘It’s your duty,’ Nathan continued.

The woman managed to stop sobbing long enough to speak. ‘They had grey scars … two of them. Hit him with black light.’

Grey scars – Extermino! And black light … That was a death curse!

‘I’m sorry, I really can’t—’

I backed away. There was nothing I could do even if I hadn’t been paralyzed by fear of the Extermino … in Brixham. Attacking humans. It didn’t make sense, and something told me that their target had been a Sage … and I was the only Sage for miles.

The woman screamed and kept shaking the man. I couldn’t watch any longer, and leaving a gaping Nathan, I took to the air again and fled the horror.

CHAPTER TWO
Autumn

Coursework: Writing to Inform ‘My Life and Purpose’

My name is Autumn Rose Al-Summers. I am almost sixteen years-old, and a Sage. As a guardian, I have one purpose in life: to defend humans, namely the students of Kable Community College, against the Extermino, a group of Sage who do not follow the rule of our monarch, and who commit such terrible acts their scars have turned to grey.

My grandmother, whom I lived with for eight years at St. Sapphire’s School in London, is dead. Therefore, as a minor by human law, I am compelled to live with my parents in a sleepy seaside town on the south coast of Devon, possibly the most Sage-deprived place on Earth.

My people, the Sage, are feared, ridiculed and held in awe by the humans of this dimension due to their self-administered wish to be ignorant of our culture. This is demonstrated quite perfectly by my experience of being a guardian: I started at Kable a year ago, and ever since have faced merciless bullying, with few friends to my name.

Thankfully, I am about to embark upon my last year of compulsory education as far as humans are concerned, and all I have to do is endure ten more months of torture before I am free of the system and the required two years as a guardian. Yet despite my hate of the place, you insist on my continuing to A Level at Kable. But I assure you; the Damned will set down their knives before that occurs.

Moving on. I have blonde hair. Auburn streaks. Natural, I might add. Liquid amber eyes. My legs are too short. My skin burns far too easily. (There, I will point out, are the simple sentences you complain my writing lacks).

And the worst thing? (I have inserted a rhetorical question. Am I ticking the mark scheme boxes now?) The thing that means as a Sage, I can be singled out and targeted? The thing that means I am instantly identifiable as not belonging to the human race?

My scars.

All Sage bear them on their right side, and each Sage’s scars are different, like a fingerprint, serving as a reminder of what we are, what we possess and what we wield.

There. That is my life.

P.S. I refuse to type my work, so you, sir, and the examiner if my work is called for moderation, will have to, as you put it, ‘decipher’ the elegant, curling script I was tutored in from age six. Furthermore, I found this whole exercise to be offensive to my intelligence. In its entirety, the coursework could have been written in half a lesson; setting it as summer homework was unnecessary.

I scanned through the sheet again, feeling my lips flatten. Drivel. It was drivel – albeit truthful drivel, but such a rant would earn me a detention, or at the very least a caution. Yet the lure of causing a stir remained, forcing me to slide it into a plastic wallet and place it into my schoolbag, ready for the first day of the new academic year.

Returning to my mirror, I grabbed a brush and roughly pulled it through my thick hair, wincing as it tugged on the blonde tangles. Deciding I could not be bothered with straightening it, I mumbled a few words and watched as it smoothed out. After running an eye pencil around my eyes, I grabbed my satchel and jumped the stairs in one, knowing I was verging on being late.

‘Mother! I’m flying to school, so you don’t need to drop me off at the ferry.’

Hearing no answer I rounded the corner into the kitchen, which turned out to be empty. I grabbed a freshly made piece of toast and stuffed it into my mouth.

‘Mother!’ I attempted to yell, the sound muffled by my stolen breakfast.

The call of ‘Living room!’ came back and, hurrying into the hall, I pushed the door open to see her curled up on the divan with her laptop, busy typing away. I frowned at the figures and symbols spread across the screen.

‘I’m flying to school.’

She sighed, placing her laptop aside and standing up to peck me on the cheek. Noticing my expression, she shut the lid on the laptop. ‘It’s a work assignment. Speaking of my job, you know you’ll be home alone for most of the week whilst your father and I are working in London, don’t you? So no wild parties. Understood?’

I sighed in exasperation, a habit I had around my mother. ‘It would be fruitless to plan a party. Nobody would come.’

‘Hmm,’ she hummed, casting a cynical eye over me. ‘Be good, either way. I’ll probably be gone before you get back, but there is plenty of food in the freezer and I’ve left some pizzas and some meat stuff in case you want any of the girls around, okay? You shouldn’t need to go shopping; we’ll be home on Thursday. Autumn, are you even listening?’

Busy creating a spell to transport my satchel to school, I clearly wasn’t. ‘I’m positive I can survive for four days. It’s not as though you haven’t been away before.’

My satchel disappeared into thin air and I retreated into the hallway, grabbing my scabbard off the rack, feeling the familiar weight of my sword balanced on my left hip as I fastened it on. I wouldn’t normally take it, or the knife that joined it, but this was the first day of the term: I might as well keep up appearances and make an impression on the new students. Tugging on my blouse and rolling my skirt up a couple of inches, I slipped my flimsy little dolly shoes on, teasing a strand of hair back into place.

‘Oh, Autumn, I don’t know why you do all of that,’ my mother said, peering into the hallway after me. ‘You’re beautiful without all that make-up and when you let your hair curl you look just like your grandmother.’ She placed her hands on my shoulders and rubbed them in circles. I shrugged them off.

I’m a match in the darkness compared to her beacon of elegance and decorum. Strike me and I’d struggle to even fizzle; she would burn for hours.

‘It’s what all the other girls do, so don’t fuss.’

She backed off. ‘You know you don’t have to wear make-up and short skirts to fit in, Autumn. Just be yourself and they’ll accept you.’

I scoffed then, ignoring the mirror because I knew it would reflect the scars that encased the entire right side of my body. Twisting and turning beneath my tights, they were a bright red, tapering to burgundy along the tips. Like the blood grass in the garden, my grandmother always said. Imperata cylindrica. Learn your Latin. They faded to ochre and yellow on my arms, before lapsing into pale gold across my face.

‘Except being myself is being a Sage, and no one around here likes a Sage.’

Rolling my skirt up even further just to emphasize my point, I placed a hand on the door.

‘Then at least take a coat, it’s supposed to rain today.’ She unhooked one off the rack and held it out to me. I stared at it like it was an explosive object until she let her hand fall, allowing me to glare at her instead of the coat.

‘It’s not going to rain.’

‘You should take one anyway.’

‘It’s not going to rain,’ I repeated, still glaring.

‘But the weather man predicted—’

‘Mother, I take my magic from the elements, I’m sure I know whether it’s going to rain or not!’ I snapped, a spark of fire flickering to life on the tip of my index finger. Quite used to my volatile emotions, my mother simply placed her hands on her hips and I knew I was in for a lecture on fire safety. Not wanting to stop and hear it I opened the door and navigated my way between the overgrowing fuchsias alongside the path, neglected over the past weeks.

‘I do not want such an attitude in this house, Autumn Rose Summers! I’m tired of your lack of respect!’

Closing the low, whitewashed garden gate behind me I stepped out onto the oak and maple tree-lined pavement, leaves already surrendering to my namesake. I paused as the latch dropped and clicked shut.

‘My name is Al-Summers, not Summers.’

She disappeared behind the maple tree in our front garden, the slam of the door telling me she had heard me.

Your mother is not like us, Autumn. She is human. Sagean blood does not run in her veins like it does in your blood, or your father’s blood.

But Father cannot use magic, Grandmother.

Carrying on along the pavement, I felt my spirits drop. The prospect of the first day back to school was not a happy one.

Magic sometimes skips generations.

Castigation was the name of the game at Kable, and it had left me despising every jibe-filled hour, flourished and garnished with stares, whispers, and an aura of fear that followed me like the wind chases the rain.

But why, Grandmother?

The curriculum was slow too, but I had learned one thing: adaption was a means to survival.

It has good reason, child.

‘Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning!’ my batty neighbour Mr. Wovarly called over his fence, gesturing to the peach-tinted sky. ‘It’ll rain later. Be careful you don’t catch a chill, m’dear!’

I forced a smile and nodded my head with unneeded exaggeration. ‘I will, Mr. Wovarly.’

I dodged his tiny terrier, Fluffy, who was leaping at the gaps in the fence, barking his small head off. Letting the smile fade, I ran the last few steps of the street and leaped into the air, feeling the familiar thrill of taking to the skies. Gaining height, wind whipping my hair back into a mess, I soared higher and higher, leaving the trees of my road far behind.

CHAPTER THREE
Autumn

Dropping into a crouch I steadied myself as I made a less-than-graceful landing in the school car park. I straightened up, brushing myself down, gazing towards the entrance. I must have made good time; the school seemed to be quiet. Deciding I had better go examine the damage done to my hair I set off in the direction of the girl’s toilets. Astounded stares followed me, from a few of the new students – judging by their height and white socks, still adorned with frills, hair pulled back into regulation buns. They gawked as I walked past, shuffling back as though I carried an infectious disease, but I knew better: if they weren’t local, this could be the first time they had seen a Sage, let alone seen one fly.

Bless their oversize school jumpers.

Yet as I skirted the edge of the school, I began to feel uneasy. Pent up nerves I had stifled all summer began to surface, reminding me of just what I was returning to. I was also drawing more unwanted attention. Girls, almost always girls, were watching me with disdain as I passed by, their lips curled until they turned and muttered furiously to their friends, glancing at me when they thought I was not looking.

Feeling self-conscious and a little sick I wrapped my arms around my middle, knowing that the sword balanced on my hip and the barriers around my mind and the magic in my blood couldn’t protect me from the words that would come.

Spotting the toilets I dived into them, noticing that for once they did not smell like an ash-tray. Neither did they smell of blood, although only a Sage would ever be able to detect that scent. Instead, they reeked of bleach, an aroma that was not much more pleasant.

I gripped the sink tightly, staring into the mirror, endlessly analyzing my hair and make-up. If it wasn’t perfect, they would notice. They always noticed. They would not notice the spots on Christy’s forehead, or the sunburn across Gwen’s collar, but they would notice my fallen eyelash, or the chipped nail polish on my right thumb, or the scent of the cheap perfume I was now using because I had spent the money I had saved up from work in London.

I sighed. I had to get a grip, and fast. The new school year was beginning and it was my duty to protect all the humans in this school, even if the dislike was mutual.

I needed to be vigilant: I had heard the whispered rumours while I was in London. We all had. The Extermino were getting larger and bolder, and their attack on my town had proved it … why else would they bother with a tiny rural outpost?

And then what of the rumour about the dark-beings of the second dimension: people were saying the Vamperic Kingdom had kidnapped a human girl. The second dimension was the only one where the existence of dark-beings was kept secret from the humans … keeping a human hostage threatened to reveal us all, and then what? Even in the other eight dimensions, the dark-beings lived uneasily. The Damned had lived through years of genocide by the humans just because they used blood magic and there were hardly any of them left; the elven fae suffered because of the climate change the humans were creating; and we, the Sage, were constantly having to negotiate other dark-beings out of difficult situations because a diplomat had said something stupid.

Yet at the moment unrest gripped the dark-beings in a way I had never known in my short life.

I sighed once again, pressing my forehead to the mirror that on this rare occasion was not covered in lipstick graffiti. Things were changing; any dark-being could feel that. We were losing ourselves, drowning in velveteen tradition and microchip technology, caught between one world and another – figuratively, of course, because each kind of being firmly belonged in their own dimension, whether the humans liked sharing or not.

Change was brewing, and I feared this was just the calm before the storm. If things did get bad, no amount of treaties could protect us from our enemies … ourselves, the Extermino … the humans.

Shaking my head I realized what I was doing and pushed aside all depressing thoughts as my grandmother had taught me to do. Dwelling on what has and will come to pass is as good as kicking the stool from beneath the future, she always said.

Assuming that the buses would not be far away, I made my way back out after sweeping one last coat of mascara over my lashes. I cursed myself as I left, wishing I had kept my phone with me rather than casting it to school within my bag – now locked in my tutor room. At least then I could have texted one of the others.

Wandering around, parting the crowd and doing my best to ignore the stares of the younger students, I did not notice when my feet came to rest at the foot of a dull bronze plaque. It stood beneath a large cherry blossom tree, planted in the centre of the concrete and plastic clad courtyard we called the quad. The words on it were clear for all to see and each and every letter reminded me of why there were no Sage in the area.

This tree is planted in loving memory of Kurt Holden,

Who died on the 23rd April 1999.

Student, friend and brother.

Taken too early by magic.

I knew the story. Everybody knew the story. He was killed by accident when the guardian at the time had failed to use the proper shields when using magic. The school ceased to host a guardian for years, until the rumours about the Extermino had started and they decided they needed one again. Six months later, fresh out of the Sagean St. Sapphire’s School and still grieving the loss of my grandmother, I arrived.

But everybody remembered my predecessor’s failure … and they assumed I was the same.

‘You can’t change what happened, you know.’

I sighed, a small smile just upturning the corners of my mouth. ‘It doesn’t hurt to wish I could.’

I turned and came face to face with one of the few people who had never uttered a bad word against me: Tammy. Nevertheless, she contradicted everything I said, thought my taste in everything from music to boys was strange and hated my ability to read her thoughts. We were chalk and cheese, but she didn’t judge and I appreciated that.

I gave her a quick hug. She withdrew before my hands had even met behind her back, a very visible shiver passing up her spine.

‘So how was your summer?’ I asked, rueful, knowing I would not have to ask that question if I had spared the time to meet up with her.

‘I have so much to tell you.’ She didn’t wait for me to answer, but continued, her words merging into one excited gush. ‘I kissed someone.’ She snatched the sleeve of my blouse, tugging me beneath the privacy of the tree, lowering her voice. ‘I didn’t just get my first kiss though.’ She pointed to the top button of her blouse, resting on her totally flat chest and petite frame.

I inhaled a sharp breath, sensing images from her conscious of what she and this guy had been up to.

‘And look.’ She swept aside her tight, dark brown curls from the back of her neck, revealing several blotchy red marks, coated in what looked like powder. ‘I tried covering them with foundation, but it hasn’t really worked, has it? It just felt so, you know, nice, when he kissed my neck, I didn’t want to stop him.’

‘Sure he wasn’t a vamp?’ I asked, intending it to be a joke.

She shot me one of her glares and a sarcastic smile, her shoulders hunching like they always did when she was getting defensive. ‘I think I’d know a vampire if I met one.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I replied, but let the subject drop as I heard the high-pitched cackle of Gwen and the quieter chuckles of the other two, Tee and Christy, as they weaved their way between the benches towards us. Gwen’s dark hair shone against the late summer sun, a grin spread across her face from ear to ear as she made squeezing – and not very subtle – motions with her hands in the air, opening her mouth to speak as she got close.

‘So how is our deflowered girl today then?’

Tammy blushed bright red. ‘I didn’t actually do it with him! Honest!’

‘Sure.’ Gwen nodded, proceeding to make crude gestures with her fingers that I hoped the younger students could not see.

‘I didn’t! Gwendolen, stop it!’

Gwen stopped immediately and scowled as she always did when someone used her full name.

The two of them descended into bickering, their circle closing. I gladly stepped back, focusing on filtering the chaotic thoughts of hundreds of teenage humans and allowing the barriers I had relaxed over the summer to rebuild, brick by brick, back around my mind. I did not even notice my eyes close as my thoughts cleared and I was able to break past the excited chatter of students and the coffee-fuelled grim resolve of the teachers. I felt my conscious skim the green pasture of the fields that surrounded the school and rush like a torrent down the rolling hills towards the river that separated me from home. In the town, perched on the mouth of the river, the cobbled streets were lined with tourists and a second ferry had been laid on to cope with the rush. On the railings that lined the embankment, the gulls waited like vultures, knowing an easy feast was on its way.

The sound of my name forced me to release the image my conscious had formed and like the tide rushing out to sea, I returned, opening my eyes.

A hand much darker than my own tugged at my fingers and round brown eyes stared up at me from behind a mass of tightly curled black hair, partly twisted into braids.

‘Tee,’ I said, greeting the younger student beside me. The girl, barely twelve, wrapped her wiry arms around my middle, clutching me like I was a sister – sometimes I felt like I cared for her as though she were a sibling. I might be inadequate at preventing the bullies from taunting me, but I hadn’t been able to stand the racist remarks that were casually thrown at Tee by the older students. In return for my sticking up for her, Tee’s cousin, Tammy, had sought me out as a friend and steered me towards Christy and Gwen.

‘How was your summer?’ I asked as Christy stepped around the chattering group, joining me.

‘Quiet with lots of rain,’ Christy replied, referring to the particularly bad summer we had endured – endless storms, broken by odd days of sunshine like the one we were lucky enough to be experiencing, lightening the blow of returning to a school regime. Tee nodded in agreement, lips raised at one corner into a glum expression I was sure I shared.

‘I keep telling you, I didn’t do it!’

A shiver travelled up my spine. My gaze darted to the blossom of the autumn-flowering cherry tree, eyes trailing the frail pink petals as they descended, spiralling in slow circles towards the ground. A breeze stirred my hair.

‘Gwen, I don’t want to talk about it.’

I wrapped my arms around my middle, feeling the chill the breeze brought tease out the goose bumps along my uncovered wrists. Above, the sun was snuffed as low, callous clouds clawed their way across the blue sky, leaving behind an ashen trail that betrayed them as coming from the direction of the sea.

Tee shuddered. Tammy untied her school jumper from around her waist and slipped it on.

‘Tammy, you don’t need to—’

‘Gwen, shut up!’

‘I was only—’

‘No, look at Autumn!’

The outlines of the tree and the people blurred, air gathering where there should be white shirts and bark. Only the falling blossom remained crisp: a rotating plume, falling, slow, slower, slow enough that I felt I could reach out and catch each petal from the air.

‘Shit! Autumn, say something!’

I could hear every step of every student, falling into a rhythm, regular. The rise and fall of my chest filled in the pause between each beat, struggling to remain steady. My hand tightened, a finger at a time, around the hilt of my sword, tips tracing a ridge, feeling the grip worn from the years of practice mold to the shape of my palm. Between the metal and my flesh, sparks sprung, words forming on my lips as I prepared to cast.

‘Autumn!’

In my empty hand I held a heart, grip tightening and slackening to the rhythm of its pumping, knowing that the beat I felt belonged to something – something that wasn’t human; something that was nearing, fast.

Death danced on my lips and I allowed my magic to drain from my system into shields around as many of the students as I could manage. Then without tearing my eyes away from the falling blossom, I let go of the sword and slipped a small knife out of the scabbard instead. I gripped it in my right hand, curse balanced in the left; waiting.

Panicked, fearful babbling faded away, leaving only the thumping heartbeat of whomever – whatever – was coming.

I didn’t have to wait long. I heard breath behind me; felt another’s magic; heard a voice.

‘Duchess.’

I spun around, lifting the dagger until it rested beneath the defined jaw line of a man not much older than me. But it didn’t get any further.

Half-formed on my lips, a curse that would kill was snatched away by the wind that whipped past, replaced with a sharp intake of breath; then a silence that was only broken by the clatter of my dagger striking the ground. Thrust forward, my hand hung in mid-air, fingers sprawled from where I had let the blade fall.

I wet my lips, shock turning to realization. The seconds fell and neither of us moved. After a minute, it occurred to me to drop into a deep curtsey, onto one knee, aware of how high my skirt was hitching; aware of how the trees whispered treason.

‘Your Highness,’ I managed, eyes fixed firmly on a blossom petal, partly crushed below the edge of my shoe.

‘Duchess,’ he repeated quietly, so only I could hear. I raised my head, risking a glance, but did not allow our gazes to meet.

Always remember your place, Autumn. Etiquette, child, is everything.

My mind fought with itself. He should not be here. He has no reason to be here. But I could ignore neither the leather satchel resting at his side nor the diary in his other hand, the school logo printed on the hard front cover. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but I knew the sixth form didn’t have to. A lump formed in my throat.

‘Do you always greet people like that, or am I the exception?’ His accent, Canadian, rung over the whispers of the students around us – they weren’t stupid. They read the magazines and watched the news. They knew who was standing before them.

‘My apologies, Your Highness, I was not expecting you.’

‘No, forgive me, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

I nodded to the ground, feeling the urge to reach out and snatch up my dagger. I knew better.

The bell sounded, yet nobody moved. The Athenea. Not now. Not here. Movement only began as teachers started to cross the tarmac, late and unhurried as they always were to tutorials. If they were surprised by the scene before them, they didn’t allow it to show.

‘Good, I see you’ve met each other.’

The sound of the headmaster’s voice straightened me up; fingernails buried into my palms to help me keep control.

‘Autumn, this is—’

‘I shouldn’t think either of them needs an introduction, Headmaster,’ a second teacher said – Mr. Sylaeia, my English language and literature teacher, as well as my tutor. ‘They will have met at court.’

Mr. Sylaeia, unlike the other teachers, didn’t hide his surprise, his untrimmed eyebrows arching as they moved from the dagger on the ground, to me, to the tanned arms of the man in front, clad only in faded jeans and a white v-necked t-shirt.

‘I’m afraid the weather here isn’t quite on a par with what you will have experienced in Australia, Your Highness. I would recommend a coat in the future,’ Sylaeia said.

‘Please, call me Fallon,’ the prince replied, his eyes never leaving me as my mind reeled, unable to comprehend what I knew was happening. I stared straight past him to Mr. Sylaeia, mental barriers opening just enough to allow him to speak in my mind – he was half-Sage, and although he did not bear the scars, he possessed many of our abilities.

‘You understand what is happening,’ he said. It was not a question.

‘Why?’ I replied, releasing the dread in my chest which wormed its way between my ribs, slowing my breathing.

‘His parents desired for him to spend a year as a guardian within the British education system. He requested a state school.’

‘There are thousands of state schools. Hundreds without any guardian at all.’

He held my gaze and his silence told me there was more, but that I wasn’t going to be privy to it.

‘Autumn: Fallon will be spending a year here studying his A2 levels. I would like you to mentor him in his first few weeks and make him feel welcome here at Kable,’ said the headmaster.

I can’t do that, I thought. But I nodded, just once, keeping my lips pursed to prevent myself from revealing the wrong answer.

‘Well, if you’ll excuse us, Headmaster, I believe my tutor group is waiting for morning registration. Autumn, Fallon; after you.’ Mr. Sylaeia motioned towards the two-storey block that housed English and I sped in front of them both, feeling my expression crumple into one of despair when I entered the dimly lit stairwell that led up to my tutor room. I moved as though in a dream, climbing the staircase without noticing where I placed my feet, unable to believe that what was happening was anything but a nightmare.

But this was reality: one of the Sagean royal family, a prince of Athenea, was here, at Kable, to study.

From the bottom step there came a burst of giggling as Christy, Gwen, Tammy and Tee followed us up. It didn’t take much brainpower to work out what the source of their amusement was. There was a reason this particular member of the Athenea was continually featured in magazines.

I swept into the classroom, ignoring the startled year sevens, whose frightened eyes moved from me to the prince, causing one tiny girl, who simply didn’t look old enough to be in secondary education, to actually pick up her seat and move around the desk, settling back down right beside her friend.

The older girls reacted in the complete opposite way. I saw their eyes graze over his scars, burgundy red, and his shirt, short sleeves clinging to muscular arms, and then to me as I slipped into a chair at my usual desk, indicating for the prince to take a seat too. He sat down opposite, facing me. Seeing an opportunity, Christy snatched the seat beside him and Tammy sat down next to me; not to be outdone, Gwen stole a chair from another desk and placed it at the side of the table and within a minute, Tee had invited her best friend over so that our little table designed to seat four was accommodating seven. I was a little shocked, and bitter … they didn’t usually make this much of an effort to be around me.

Their interest, along with that of the rest of the class, was subtle at first, as they buzzed about their summer holidays to one another before they started introducing themselves, chatting over each other to ask him questions.

‘So you’re from Canada, right?’ Christy asked. ‘Your Highness,’ she added.

‘Please, just Fallon. Not quite. Athenea, my country, is part of Vancouver Island but we are a nation of our own, separate from Canada.’

‘So, do you, like, speak Canadian?’ Gwen asked, twiddling with a strand of her dark, dyed hair. His eyes widened and I couldn’t prevent a smile from creeping onto my lips – to hide it, I began fiddling with the ring of keys attached to a loop in my pocket, searching for my locker key.

‘Er, no, we speak Sagean, and English. Some of those born further east speak French,’ I heard him say as I got up and weaved my way between the tables to the stack of square lockers in the corner of the room.

It is important in life that you are patient with those not blessed with your intellect.

But Grandmother, they ask such simple questions! I am quite sure I will die of boredom if they do not stop it.

‘I’ve never heard Sagean,’ Gwen continued, her voice meek and devoid of the flirtatious tone it had possessed before.

‘So’yea tol ton shir yeari mother ithan entha, Duchess?’

I froze, hearing my language spoken for the first time in months. Pulling the locker door open, I glanced at him. He stared at my back, his finger curled and pressed to his lips, as though pondering.

Why is he asking that? Does he not know the nature of the area? I do not speak my mother tongue because there is no one to speak it to.

I turned again to my locker. ‘Arna ar faw hla shir arn mother ithan entha, Your Highness.’

I finished, knowing I spoke in staccato and that my words did not roll from one into another like they should; Sagean felt strange to my mouth, like a second tongue was trying to grow from beneath the first.

‘Of course,’ he replied as I retrieved my bag and clicked the padlock shut. When I turned back, his cool eyes – cobalt blue – hadn’t left me. Placing my bag onto my chair, I met his gaze, raising the walls around my mind even higher to ensure he would not know what I was thinking.

I know you know, I thought. I know you know about her. And I hate you for it.

Responding to Mr. Sylaeia’s request for help handing out the new timetables, I retreated from where the girls twirled their hair and requested translations into Sagean. They giggled and commented on his accent; the fact he was a Sage, and that they feared the Sage, was forgotten.

I handed around the sheets and friends squealed or groaned as they compared schedules, exclamations of disgust erupting from those who had drawn the less popular teachers. Two year ten boys cheered, celebrating that they no longer had to study history and the three girls in the year above, year twelve, compared their free lessons, excitedly discussing how once the eldest learnt to drive they would go into town instead of studying.

I neared the bottom of the pile, coming across the cluttered timetable of ‘House of Athenea, Prince Fallon’, which was followed by a long list of prefixes and titles, the first being ‘H.R.A.H.’: His Royal Athenean Highness.

Why didn’t the school tell me he was coming? I thought, but answered my own question almost instantly. Because I never would have come back to school. They know my attendance is bad …

He barely had any frees, which was unusual for a year thirteen and when I counted up his subjects, I realized why.

English Literature, French, History, Maths, Chemistry. Five. But nobody takes five subjects at A2. He must either be mad or prepared to work insanely hard.

Knowing others were waiting for their timetables, I placed the sheet in front of him. Beneath his was my own timetable, which I set on the desk whilst I handed the remaining few out. But before the paper had even touched the wood, Tammy had snatched it up, comparing it with her own.

‘We’re in everything together,’ she informed me when I sat back down. I felt very enclosed and, with a glance around, realized most people had moved at least a foot or two nearer to us; to him. ‘Apart from GCSE French and your A level English Lit.’ She sighed. ‘You’re crazy, doing both GCSEs and A levels.’

I acknowledged that information with a nod, busy writing my name on the front of one of the homework diaries Mr. Sylaeia was handing out.

‘You’re taking A level literature, Lady Autumn?’ Fallon asked.

Tammy offered him my timetable and he took it. Still filling in my details on my diary, I watched him through my eyelashes, noting the fact he had switched to using a formal address rather than my title.

‘In that case, I believe we have that class together.’

My pen paused part way through writing my address on the inside cover. I looked up, forcing a disinterested smile, as though this was not strange; as though a prince attending a tiny, rural state school was the norm. I resumed writing, retrieving my timetable and copying it up into the diary.

‘Don’t have many frees, do you?’ Gwen commented, leaning over his shoulder and getting as close as she dared without touching the vine-like scars trailing across his tanned skin. Her hair fell on his shoulders and he shifted away from her in his chair, running a hand through his own flaxen hair.

My lips parted. That I did not expect. Gwen seemed affronted, but blessed with people skills I could only envy, she didn’t allow it to show for long as she twisted behind her and started an animated conversation with the three year twelve girls, who repeatedly looked at the prince.

My attention was snapped away as Mr. Sylaeia retreated behind his desk, writing his name up on the whiteboard. ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, and welcome back to Kable. I am going to be your tutor this year, and will take registration every morning, so we will be getting well acquainted. For those of you who don’t know, I am Mr. Sylaeia; that’s how you spell my name right there.’ He slammed his marker pen against the plastic board. ‘I’m half-Sagean and I’m told it’s a pain to pronounce, so you may call me Mr. S. if you wish.’

He put the pen down and picked up a piece of paper with a list of words on it, and squinted at the top. ‘So we have a new student in our midst today. Some of you might know him. It’s … er … A-athana? Athena? I don’t know, tricky name, that.’ He lowered the paper and squinted over at the prince. ‘They have a whole load of weird letters before your name. H.R.A.H. anybody? Anybody got any idea what H.R.A.H. means?’

By this time the class could barely contain its glee and burst into raucous laughter, in which the prince more modestly joined, tipping his chin towards the ground as he blushed.

‘I jest, of course. But yes, Fallon is joining us this year as another guardian to protect our school, and we should all feel very lucky to have two such powerful young Sage keeping watch over us in these dangerous times.’ The laughter had died down to a sombre silence now, and Sylaeia embraced it. ‘On a serious note: some of you may have heard about the recent local Extermino attack, and about others around the country. No doubt most of you have heard the rumours about the young kidnapped human girl, Violet Lee. You may be scared, or unsure of what this means for you. These emotions are all expected, but this doesn’t mean you should lash out, or be anything less than the decent human beings I know you all are … so please, respect the privacy of our guardians, do not view them through the light of how many letters come before their names, or view them as so very different from you. If you can let them get on with their jobs, then with fate’s grace, we will have a great year.’

Then with fate’s grace, I thought, we might survive this year.

I fastened the buckles on my bag, careful to avoid raising my eyes. The reality still hadn’t sunk in and I didn’t wish to hasten its arrival. I felt as though I could look up and he would not be there; everything would be normal and this unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach would disappear.

‘Autumn, Fallon, could I speak to you both for a moment?’

This time I had little choice but to look up, my eyes settling first on the prince, bag already slung across his shoulder, and then on Mr. Sylaeia, waiting behind his desk.

‘We’ll be in the quad,’ Tammy muttered, ushering the others out. At the same time, Mr. Sylaeia gestured for us to come closer.

My hand gripped the strap of my bag until my knuckles whitened and in the back of my mind, I was aware that the last time I had been so close to this boy was at my grandmother’s funeral.

Were you still ignorant then?

Mr. Sylaeia turned away, using a rag to wipe his name from the board. ‘As Autumn knows, any Sage on the school campus are my responsibility. Therefore, Fallon, I ask that you ensure you maintain shields when using magic on site and respect the privacy of the minds of humans. The paperwork I have to fill out in the event of an accident is enough to send any man or Sage to an early grave and I would rather like to make it to forty.’ The prince nodded. My grip tightened. ‘And Autumn, I read this over the summer. I thought it might interest you. Enlightening interpretation of misogyny in The Taming of the Shrew.’ He handed me a thick paperback volume, well-used judging by the creases in the spine. I mumbled my thanks, placing it into my near-empty bag.

Sensing he was finished, I moved towards the door. But as I reached it, Mr. Sylaeia’s voice sounded in my head. ‘It will not be as bad as you think.’

I fought the urge to freeze, yet I could not stop myself from glancing back at him. He was not facing in our direction, but typing something on the computer in the opposite corner. I turned back, carrying on along the short corridor until I reached the door to the staircase.

He is a wise man, but this time he cannot understand.

‘Duchess!’

I concealed a sigh, pushing through the door. It swung shut after I had passed through but quickly opened again.

No, I am quite positive it will be far worse than what I imagine it to be.

‘Lady Autumn?’

I knew I could not ignore him for long, so I turned, taking my time so that I could compose my expression into something resembling polite interest.

‘Your Highness?’

He adjusted his bag on his shoulder and shook his head, seeming puzzled. ‘On your timetable, there is no mention of your title and Lady is not placed in front of your given name. They didn’t even have the courtesy to use House in reference to your surname. Is this a mistake you intend to have corrected?’

Throughout his short rant – and a rant it was, judging by the irritated tone he used – I stared at a stain in the faded brown carpet, worn by the hundreds of feet that passed over it during the working week.

‘It’s not a mistake, Your Highness.’ I brought my eyes up to meet his, holding his gaze for as long as I could stand to, so my meaning was clear.

‘Not … a mistake?’ He turned the words over on his tongue as though they belonged to a foreign language.

‘No. I prefer not to use my title and I would be very much obliged to you if you would respect that wish.’

I continued down the staircase, hearing him mutter ‘Obliged?’ to my retreating back. As I reached the landing halfway down, he suddenly sprang forward, leaning over the banister.

‘For Pete’s sake, do you mean to say that none of the humans here know who you are? How can they not know?’

I tugged the strap of my bag higher on my shoulder, picking my words with care. ‘I’ve never appeared in any of the gossip magazines, or anything these people would read. So they know me as Autumn, Your Highness. Just Autumn.’ I bobbed into a quick curtsey and fled, marching straight past the others outside, knowing that there would be plenty of willing girls prepared to act as a mentor in my absence.

CHAPTER FOUR
Autumn

The atmosphere in the textiles room was electric. Kable was a small, rural school and news could spread in a break time, meaning that the topic of conversation was focused solely on the prince; and if anybody had not known about his arrival before, they knew within sixty seconds of stepping through the door. The two girls sitting at the table nearest the entrance almost pounced upon any newcomer, pleading for more information which I was waiting for someone to realize I possessed. It helped that I sat on the table furthest from the door and board, meaning nobody took much notice of me. I hid behind my thick hair, hunched over my sketchbook whilst I outlined a design for a dress for the upcoming unit of work.

‘Autumn, you’ll know the answer to this.’ Christy swung around in her chair, pushing the pile of fabric she had picked from the resource cupboard aside so she could lean closer. ‘He spent three years studying in Australia, didn’t he? He must have with a tan like that.’

My pencil pressed so hard against the page that the lead snapped. I brushed it aside, mustering an offhand tone. ‘Who?’

She arched an eyebrow. ‘You know who.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘And he had a girlfriend there, right? But they split up.’

My chair scraped back as I snatched my pencil and sharpener and headed towards the bin. ‘Christy, I suggest you read Quaintrelle or some other gossip magazine if you wish for the prince’s life story.’

‘Man, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I was only asking.’

‘But you know him better than the magazines, don’t you?’ Tammy asked and I was surprised at her perceptiveness – I didn’t think any familiarity had shown.

‘We played together as children when I visited court. But I have not been to Athenea since I was twelve, so I do not pretend to know him.’

The lead of the pencil snapped once more, this time following a violent twist of the sharpener.

‘So do we have to, like, curtsey to him?’ Gwen asked, and judging from the quiet that had descended, most of the class was listening.

‘You can if you like, but it is not obligatory.’

‘Okay then, if I married him, how rich would I be?’

I couldn’t help but crack a smile at Gwen’s question, lighthearted as always. ‘Extraordinarily rich.’

‘Well, Gwen,’ Mrs. Lloyd said, appearing at the door carrying a tall mug of tea, topped with a lid. ‘If you work a little harder this unit than you did in the last, you’ll be able to make your own wedding dress.’

‘I was thinking Kate Middleton-esque. But in black,’ Gwen mused, holding up the square sample of lace she had brought along.

‘You can’t have black for a wedding!’ Christy protested and they started to bicker.

‘Girls,’ Mrs. Lloyd began, neglecting to address the three boys in the class as usual. ‘There shan’t be any time to make anything as extravagant as a wedding dress considering the powers that be have only granted us one lesson a week. Therefore, I expect each and every one of you to attend after-school sessions on a Thursday. If you don’t attend at least two per month, you will be struck from the register.’

A roar of disapproval erupted, all thoughts of the prince forgotten, if only temporarily.

‘Hush girls, if you dislike it, take it up with those who created the new timetable. Autumn, what are you doing?’ she exclaimed, noticing me for the first time. I lifted my pencil to explain, but she was already barking her orders for me to sit down.

I trudged back to my seat, flopping down into my chair with little grace. As I returned to my sketch, I distinctly heard Gwen giggling to herself on the opposite side of the wooden bench. ‘The prince has an after-school lesson on a Thursday too. I saw it on his timetable.’

I succeeded in avoiding him for the rest of the day. I did not regard it as an achievement, however; to even get close to him one would have to fight through a horde of girls and even the odd teacher.

Third period brought English, and with it, the arched, disapproving eyebrows of Mr. Sylaeia as I handed him my summer coursework. He made no comment, but placed it on the pile with the two or three others that had been completed.

Lunch presented the most problems. We sat in our usual spot on the field, splayed out on the steep banks that enclosed the track, my stomach growling because the canteen was devoid of anything vegan – again. The others eagerly watched the football team practice dribbles and tackles as talk turned to the prince; after ten minutes, there was a commotion beside the tennis courts from the direction of the main school buildings. I didn’t hang around to find out what was causing it.

As I neared one of the gaps in the fence that led back towards the school hall, I heard someone – a boy – call my title. A few seconds later, louder; closer, came the call of my name and the gentle probing of another conscious against my barriers.

The part of me that longed for this all to be a bad dream told me to hold my tongue, whereas my rational side demanded I answer – he was a prince, after all. My prince.

I turned my back to the fence. ‘Your Highness.’ I lowered into a quick curtsey, aware of how his entourage, my friends and the football team were all watching.

‘You dropped this.’ He held in his hand a strip of silk material that was usually tied around the handle of my bag.

I blushed. I ignored him and this is all he wanted?

‘Thank you. I’m much obliged.’

I took the tail of the material, but he would not let go. I tugged, yet he held fast.

‘You’re much obliged for everything, aren’t you?’

I did not miss the meaning in his words. My breath caught. If he were to tell the students, it would spell the end of any of the normality I maintained here in this micro-bubble, so far removed from the whirling social scene where I was Duchess, not Autumn. My eyes became wide – he wouldn’t, would he? – and I yanked on the scarf.

He laughed. ‘Sure you do not wish me to keep it? As a token?’

Like a length of string twisted into a knot I felt my patience shorten. If he refuses to let go, I will leave it.

A snort of contempt sounded from the sidelines of the pitch, where Valerie Danvers had stopped playing to massage her elbow. ‘Don’t bother with her, Fallon; she’s not worth your time. She never says a word.’

The material drifted away from the prince’s hand. Seizing the opportunity, I wrapped it back around my bag and squeezed through the gap, leaving the field behind as fast as I could. When I stole a single glance back, he had gone.

CHAPTER FIVE
Autumn

Brixham was quiet when I returned home. It was too late for the tourists and the fleeing of school children, and the driveways and streets were still empty of parked cars. Only across the road from my own house was there movement, where a father talked in undertones to his son about the night shift down at the fish market. Beyond the whitewashed picket fence of our garden however, all was still. As the front door slammed shut behind me I could still hear the jangling of the keys in the lock racing along the vacant hallways, breaking through the silence of a house that was used to its own company.

Grandmother, why do Mother and Father live so far from London when that is where they work?

Because your father does not enjoy London society, child.

He doesn’t enjoy it? But how can he not enjoy it?

My sword followed me upstairs, my thoughts ever lingering on the arrival of the prince. Why? was the imperative question. There was always a why with the Athenea, and I had no reason to doubt that this occasion was any different. As I stowed my sword beneath my bed, those thoughts wandered further, back to the whispers in London. The Extermino gather …

My hand was still clasped around the buckle of my scabbard and I yanked the sword back out, replacing it between my bedside cabinet and the bedpost; it was a small comfort in an empty house.

In the fridge several containers were set out, my name scribbled on Post-it notes stuck to the lids. Peering into one I found a tomato-looking sauce and behind that, egg-free fresh pasta. From the colourful, fruit-adorned cardboard crate on the top shelf I pulled out a few mushrooms and an onion. Reaching up to the hooks lining the wall, I lifted a heavy-bottomed copper pan down.

Here were the signs that I had not a surname, but a ‘House of’; that I was ‘Al-Summers’ and not Summers, and that we were not a family of little means. The Mauviel pan I was filling with water cost well over three hundred pounds; our entire collection of cookware – extensive, due to my father’s love of cooking – was the same brand. Every day, a new box of fruit and vegetables was delivered to our door from the local organic farm; the countertops were brand new, replacing the old ones which were barely a year old.

We were not a bustling London household of thirty that entertained, or the peers swamping the Athenean court on Vancouver Island, but that was only through Father’s choice.

And what a choice to make.

The pasta did not take long to cook, and even less time to eat whilst I thumbed through that day’s edition of The Times. It told little, as did its Sagean sister Arn Etas. Even Quaintrelle was silent. I was surprised. I had expected the prince’s move to be mentioned, especially in the latter, which had covered in extensive, agonizing detail the prince’s breakup with his Australian girlfriend the June before.

I placed my plate into the dishwasher, having learnt to use it exactly a year before when my parents had first gone away on business. I smiled to the empty room. If the prince thought it was a disgrace that my title was not used, then what would he think of this? A Lady Sage – worse, a Duchess – cooking and cleaning and as she stripped out of her uniform, dressing herself. Not exactly royal behaviour.

No … I should be at a top school, studying politics and law and preparing for my first council appearance, which was suppposed to be on my sixteenth birthday, this November …

I wasn’t going. It wasn’t mandatory, and in my absence the Athenea sat in my empty seat and made decisions for me. It was mutually beneficial: they had more power and I could stay away from court. Nobody was exactly going to protest the situation.

On my desk, I warmed my laptop up, placing a strong cup of tea beside it. It filled the room with the scent of jasmine, steaming up one corner of the laptop screen. I folded my skirt and blouse and placed them on the flowery cushioning on the chest at the foot of my double bed. Opening the mahogany wardrobe in the corner, the only item of furniture I had convinced my parents to let me bring from the lodge at St. Sapphire’s, I felt my hands run themselves down the material hung inside. There were dresses, flowery, and black trousers for work. Beside my school jumper, reserved for the winter, were pleated skirts of every colour and stowed at one end, wrapped in grey polythene, were ball gowns, too small now, and corsets, lightly boned, but still so tight they restricted breathing; eating was out of the question.

In one of those bags I knew there hung a pale yellow court dress, with white elbow length gloves and a pair of satin shoes, laced with white ribbons. It was the dress I had worn to court when I was twelve. It had not been my first visit; it had not been the first time I had met the Athenea – my grandmother had been close to them – but it was the first time I had truly talked to the Athenean children; it was the first time I realized who I was and what I would become. When all the other little girls stared at me with jealous eyes and the adults treated my grandmother and I with reverence, I realized what it meant to be a member of the House of Al-Summers: to be second only to the Athenea themselves; as near to royalty as one could get.

Does he remember those weeks the Duchess and her granddaughter spent at his home?

In another bag, tucked behind the others, was a black dress. Mourning dress. He will remember that day.

I pushed that thought away and pulled down a loose shift, slipped it on and curled up on the seat in front of my laptop, proceeding to write a long rant of an email to Jo, an old Sagean friend, so very far away when I needed her most.

CHAPTER SIX
Autumn

The next morning brought the prospect of first period English literature with the prince. As though I had swallowed a cherry stone whole, I felt a knot of dread work its way down my throat into my stomach as I counted up the members of his already-established entourage in the class. They made up more than half the group. The knot grew.

My routine had been much the same as the day before; except today, there was no fussing mother. The top button of my blouse remained undone, my skirt folded twice at the waistband, make-up lining my eyes. I’d had no choice but to fly to school that morning: no one was there to drop me off at the ferry and I was running too late for the bus.

For the second day of the term, the school was very much alive. The buses had arrived and it looked as if every member of the student population had tried to cram themselves into the quad. They hung from the railings lining the steps leading up to the quad, or else had seated themselves on the benches, odd blossom petals settling in their hair. Most stood. As I weaved my way between the groups, chattering animatedly, it didn’t take long to work out why. Leaning casually against the edge of one of the picnic benches was the prince, surrounded by his followers and, to my disgust, my friends.

He spotted me before they did and it was he who broke the silence.

‘Fallon,’ he corrected in advance, anticipating what would have been my next words. I did not respond, but curtsied; grateful he had not used my own title.

Insulted at being cut off mid-sentence, Gwen huffed and turned back to him, trying to engage him once more in conversation. If he heard her he did not acknowledge her efforts, his eyes transfixed in a steadfast gaze at me, as though I was a problem to be unravelled and solved.

‘Your sword. You carry it always?’

‘Occasionally.’

‘May I see it?’ He held out his hand expectantly, but I did not fulfil his request, feeling my hand tighten around the grip of its own accord. The puzzled look returned, before his expression cleared and he reached down to his own belt, offering his sword in return for my own. I did not hesitate this time and he took it, weighing it in his hands.

‘Light, very light. Too wide for a rapier, yet too long for a small sword.’ In my hands I did the same with his sword, though I refrained from speaking my thoughts aloud. Too heavy and stout for my liking. Rapier, though sharpened entirely along both edges, much like my own. ‘Swept hilt, very intricate. The grip is engraved with your coat of arms. Your grandmother’s sword, I presume?

A familiar fire started to flicker into life along my breastbone. I swallowed. ‘Yes.’

‘I thought it must be. It was transferred to you on the day of her funeral, wasn’t it? I remember it being blessed atop her coffin.’

I didn’t pause to consider the stupidity of what I was doing as I found myself raising his sword to rest under the curvature of his jaw, my breathing shaky; my hand steady. His look turned to complete confusion, as though he could not work out what he had said to offend, before it returned to one of calm assuredness.

‘I suggest you lower that.’

I did not move. His voice was soft, yet the authority clear as he spoke again. ‘Remember who I am, Duchess. Lower it.’

I know you know.

‘That’s an order!’

Behind him I could see the breeze stirring the uppermost petals of the blossom tree, snatching them from the branches to the ground, to be trampled beneath the feet of the students aware that the bell had rung.

Beyond that tree there was a sea of black; rough, weathered stone slotted in at odd angles between them. Amongst those dark pillars, motionless, was a girl, caught in the transition between child and adult, wrapped in a black shift and veil, concealing the tears that would not fall. Behind her was the family tomb that would not shelter her grandmother’s corpse, because she was afforded the honour of being laid to rest in the Athenean cathedral. Instead, the oak coffin stood atop the plinth in front of the tomb’s entrance, draped in Death’s Touch and a royal blue velvet cloth bearing the Al-Summers’ coat of arms; the late duchess’ sword and dagger there too, alongside some of the prettier tokens left by mourners during her lying in state.

‘Is there a death? The light of day at eventide shall fade away; from out the sod’s eternal gloom the flowers, in their season, bloom; bud, bloom and fade, and soon the spot whereon they flourished knows them not; blighted by chill, autumnal frost; “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!”’

The blessing called and the mourners swayed in the light breeze, the faintest trace of water in the wind, as the clouds angered at the slow service, so endless for those whom it hurt the most.

‘Come, Autumn, you must sprinkle the earth now. Step up, that’s it, so they may see you.’

With trembling knees and a lip clenched between her teeth, the girl stepped forward, taking a handful of dirt from a silver bowl and letting it drift onto the roses, and then repeating the gesture twice more as the master of ceremonies called.

‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Earthern carn earthern, ashen carn ashen, peltarn carn peltarn!’

With those words, the pallbearers came forward as the girl gave a final deep curtsey, the late duchess’ son and five of the elder Sagean princes lifting the coffin high into the air and beginning the slow procession through the fallen fields to the cathedral, just visible beyond the treetops. As it passed, the onlookers, hundreds in total, bowed, King Ll’iriad Athenea joining them in a show of unity that only a state funeral could bring.

Behind her veil, the young duchess let a tear slide down her scarred cheek.

‘Autumn?’

The sound of my name snapped me from my trance. My eyes refocused, finding the glinting tip of the sword pressed to the crimson scars of his upper jaw.

‘Autumn, don’t force me to hurt you.’

He didn’t need to worry, as my rigid arm was already slackening; he took the opportunity to raise his left arm and tentatively, like I was a wild animal that might pounce at any moment, to press his fingertips to the blade and push it away from his neck. I didn’t resist.

‘Autumn, I didn’t mean to offend—’

I cut him off as I forced his lowered sword into his hands and took back my own, sliding it into its sheath. I tried to mumble something resembling an apology, but the words would not come and instead, I fled, humiliated and desperate to work out why I had let my emotions get the better of me.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Fallon

She didn’t say a word to me throughout tutorial. It was as though she was making every attempt to blot my very existence from her mind. Why?

When the A level English class started she stuck her hand out for the sheets that had arrived on the desk, just as I did the same. When our hands brushed, I thought for a moment that a flint of fire from my fingertips had caught her knuckles and that I had burnt her – there was a spark of a very different sort travelling the length of my arm – because she nursed her hand to the deep V of her blouse like I had hurt her. Yet there was no expression of pain in her face – not the physical kind, anyway. Instead, her lips parted into an O, her eyes widening.

She turned away quickly, and I thought she breathed, ‘Idiot.’

I recoiled in shock but didn’t say anything. I just couldn’t reconcile the image of the emerging woman with that of the twelve-year-old girl who, even then, had managed to stun the court with her looks and stage-managed character.

Where is the granddaughter of the old duchess who would never even speak against a superior, let alone press a sword to their throat?

‘In pairs, I want you to analyze the soliloquy I have assigned to your table. Off you go,’ Mr Sylaeia said.

I turned my attention away from her and to the sheet.

‘To be, or not to be, that is the question …’

I groaned as I read through Hamlet’s dramatic contemplation of the pros and cons of suicide, before my gaze returned to her. Her gaze flicked towards me.

‘What?’ she snapped. ‘Why do you keep looking at me?’

Fates above, is it illegal to look at her now?!

I thought fast and scanned the sheet. ‘Disease imagery.’ My pen hovered above the paper. ‘There.’

‘I don’t need help,’ she insisted, despite her blank-looking page.

My eyebrows lowered a fraction. ‘He said analyze in pairs.’

She bowed her head and hid behind a curtain of hair and began scribbling across the page.

So she’s not going to share, then? Fine.

I adopted the same tactic.

She said very little once we had finished with the soliloquies, only answering questions when she was picked on. As the bell sounded, she repeated her ritual of slowly, even sluggishly, packing her bag, as though very tired – or in the hope I would leave before her. But I did not leave (I did not fancy throwing myself to the hordes), hovering beside the door as Mr. Sylaeia called her over to his desk. She dragged her feet, hand clutched so tightly around the strap of her bag that her knuckles whitened. She seemed to know what was coming.

‘Precocious. Presumptuous. Insulting.’ He handed her back what looked like an essay. Her head drooped. ‘Not to mention the fact it was far below your usual standard.’ He glanced towards me, still hanging beside the door of the classroom that was now empty except for us. I pretended to become very interested in an explanation of adverbs on the wall. ‘Autumn, I’m disappointed. I’m the one person in this school that can truly understand your predicament – do you really think it is any different amongst the staff? – yet you repay me with such rudeness.’ I raised my eyebrows to the wall, wondering what on earth that essay contained to affect him to such a degree.

‘Sorry, sir,’ I heard her mumble.

‘You will be sorry after a detention on Thursday evening.’

She inhaled sharply and I thought it safe enough to turn back. ‘No, sir, please! I have work that evening and that’s following a twilight textiles lesson anyway.’ Her face was aghast and panicky, her eyes wide and shaped like almonds. I was aghast for a different reason. She has a job?!

‘Then your detention will take place after textiles, and you will have to miss work.’

‘Please, sir, any other evening, lunchtime even. Please, they are already threatening to sack me!’

‘Because of poor attendance?’

Her head drooped again.

‘As I thought. I wonder, Fallon, would you mind staying behind on Thursday, too? There’s a lot of summer work for you to catch up on, and Autumn will very quickly get you up to speed.’

I didn’t answer immediately. She wanted to protest, that much was clear, but her manners prevented her mouth from ruining the perfect straight line her lips created. I felt a tiny pang of resentment – what have I done? – but nodded. ‘Sure.’

That resentment increased a notch when the room went silent as they conversed with their minds, leaving me out. Yet it shattered when I caught a glimpse of her lips quivering as she turned away, her hand rushing to her face.

‘Fallon, would you mind stepping out of the room for a moment, please?’

I didn’t want to. But then I remembered the pained expression she had worn when holding the sword to my neck. I did as I was told.

Outside the door, which slammed on its self-closing hinge, I tried to demystify what had happened that morning. Yet the deeper I dug, the less it seemed to make sense. We had been friends as children! We played kiss chase and staged play weddings and bossed each other about. Now it seemed like she hated me?

A few minutes later, the door opened and a blonde blur passed without pausing. She had already shot past before I had prised myself away from the wall I was leaning on. I hurried after her down the stairs. She glanced back towards me and her pace doubled, as she half-jumped the remaining steps.

‘Autumn!’ She didn’t stop. ‘Autumn, I was just wondering if you want a lift home on Thursday? It’ll be late—’

I never got to finish my sentence as she whirled around, mouth agape; lips rolled back slightly; red, puffy eyes narrowed so that they slanted. She didn’t say a word, but her expression said more than words could. She remained like that for a few seconds before she turned back around and left; her movements slow and sluggish once more.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Autumn

How all occasions do inform against me indeed.

Fallon appeared in my history class. The whole A2 class appeared in my history class. The explanation was simple: the usual history teacher was off on maternity leave, and the current unit for our class and the A2 class was Sagean history, so Mr. Sylaeia would teach both classes together in addition to English. I knew that my look when he entered the room was one of stewed fury and betrayal, firm in the belief that he could not have thought of a crueller punishment than detention with the prince. When the latter entered I urged Christy and Tammy to sit either side of me, walling me in. They didn’t seem too pleased that we had used up all the seats in our row, leaving no room for the prince, but it didn’t matter. He chose to sit on the other side of the room, squeezing in at the far corner of a desk with some of the other A2 students. I was surprised, but relieved. Yet the horseshoe arrangement of the desks still meant that we faced him. I inched my chair around to the left, to face the board.

It would be an understatement to say that Sagean history was not a popular topic. A groan circulated the room when it was announced and I felt my cheeks flare up in shame. Even the prince’s cheeks tinted pink. He hid it well, resting his head in his hands, his elbows on the desk.

My eyes bounced back towards the desk, cursing myself for looking. There they rested until a textbook arrived. I flicked it open, finding paragraphs dedicated to customs that were second nature to me, yet so alien to those around the room. I closed it, knowing that as a child, I had studied books at my previous school that mirrored these in every way, except that they were about humanity. Looking up, the Prince caught my eye, a grin on his lips as his eyes darted down to the book and back up. He thought it amusing. I thought it a tragedy.

Mr. Sylaeia started with the same rhetoric about the prince as he had used in registration, and when he talked about the Extermino, he was greeted with the same fearful silence … and my heart went just as cold.

Mr. Sylaeia wrote three words on the board: ‘The Dark-Beings’. ‘I know you all hate this topic, but it’s compulsory! So let’s start with something simple. Can anybody explain a little about the dimensions, and name the nine different types of dark-beings and the powers they possess?’ Mr. Sylaeia asked.

Even though everybody had to know the answer, nobody spoke up until tentatively, I lifted my hand.

‘There are nine dimensions, and humans in every one. Each dimension is a rough parallel of the rest. We all share a cultural memory, because whatever happens to the humans in one dimension happens in another, because the nine parallels of a country are one state, not nine different states. The humans and dark-beings co-operate through the Inter-Dimensional council …’

I trailed off to seek approval from Mr. Sylaeia, unsure whether I was explaining it clearly. Even though I was trying to ignore him, I glanced back to the prince, suddenly embarrassed that I was explaining something he probably understood better than me.

Mr. Sylaeia nodded for me to continue.

‘We live in the first dimension, and it is the domain of the Sage. There isn’t a hierarchy amongst the beings, but we have the strongest, most versatile magic. There isn’t much we can’t do, so long as it doesn’t drain nature too much, which is where we take our magic from if we need more than what is in our blood. We’re ruled by … by the Athenea, from a small country of the same name, at the northern end of Vancouver Island.’

Now I really was blushing. He should be explaining this!

‘Then there are the vampires in the second dimension, ruled by the Varns in England. And yes, they are the ones who kidnapped Violet Lee. The vampires rely on consuming blood for energy and to top up their magic, which is what keeps them alive. The Damned in the third dimension are magic users too, but they have to make a blood sacrifice to use it … but by returning blood to the earth, they can use very powerful magic.’

Finally, the prince chipped in. ‘The fourth dimension is host to the shifters, who can shift between their human forms and spirit animals. They look a lot like ghosts when they do, and they live mostly in the mountains of central Asia … before they revealed themselves a few centuries ago, people used to think they were demons.’ His eyes lit up as people turned their attention to him and his more exciting explanation.

‘The fifth and sixth dimensions are very similar, because more forests have been preserved compared to here. That’s where the winged people and the elven fae live … they are both very beautiful beings, and nomadic. They don’t have a monarchy, and they don’t use modern technology. They are so at one with nature they don’t need it.’

‘The wolves in the seventh dimension can transform into human-like creatures at will, and the maengu in the eighth are water creatures, who can also transform to come onto land. And then in the ninth … well, we call them the phoenixes, and they can only take on a human form for one month in every nine.’

He left it at that.

Like actors in a play, the prince and I only spoke when directed by Mr. Sylaeia. The rest of the class was infuriatingly silent. They knew nothing, even when Mr. Sylaeia asked them for the basics that would have been obvious to any human elsewhere.

Eventually, he gave up, turning to me, his tone much softened now. ‘The fas, or basic principles, if you will, Autumn.’

‘The wielding of energy, preservation of the balance of nature, courtesy in respect to rank, loyalty to Athenea, and strict adherence to the Terra Treaties.’

Though Sagean was a tongue stifled beneath the other, it still felt strange to speak those words in English, when I had repeated them as a mantra in my native language as a child. They did not belong in this language. This tongue could not convey the beauty and binding power of those words.

Mr. Sylaeia pulled out the board marker that lived in his shirt pocket, scribbling out each of the fas. ‘The first four are quite self-explanatory: magic; a respect for nature, especially concerning diet and more recently, climate change; etiquette; and loyalty to the Sagean royalty. Does anybody know what the Terra Treaties are?’

I could see Fallon perk up, gazing around the room as his eyes became wider and wider. His lips parted.

‘Nobody?’ Mr. Sylaeia clicked the lid of his pen shut with the palm of his hand. ‘Nobody at all?’

A chill passed up my spine at the disturbed silence. I knew there were many things they didn’t know. I knew that beyond how hot the nobility was, and who was dating who, there was no interest in my people. Yet to not know what the treaties were …

Mr. Sylaiea answered his own question. ‘The Terra is the name given to a group of treaties signed universally by all dimensions and humanity in the early nineteenth century, formalising what had previously been a set of uncoordinated laws. The Terra Treaties are the reason Autumn and Fallon are sitting in this room as guardians, here to protect the school. The Terra Treaties are what binds a dark-being, under penalty of death, to never harm a human unless lives are threatened, with the exemption of the vampires – who wouldn’t be able to survive without this exception. The Terra Treaties are what essentially keep the peace that you enjoy.’

Nobody spoke. It was not a stunned silence; the quiet of a class in awe. It was bored silence. This was not achievement to them, or reassurance, it was politics: boring, mind-numbing politics that – beyond the hot prince – did not touch upon their closeted lives. I shivered at those words; I could still remember the whispered utterance that came with their mention in the classes at St. Sapphire’s, the pride that our race had negotiated stability for all dark-beings. The treaties did not bring stability now. They didn’t bring anything.

‘They won’t hold us in peace much longer, will they?’ I said before I could hold my tongue. But I decided I wanted to continue. Why lull in a false sense of safety? ‘Humans are in conflict with dark-beings everywhere. And situations like what has happened with Violet Lee only make things worse! Meanwhile, enemies of us all take advantage of the conflict to try and make the Terra fall apart, and cause war … enemies I am trying to protect you from,’ I finished quietly, eyes bowed to my book.

The class finally broke their silence and erupted into murmurs, followed by protests about how it wasn’t the humans’ fault. Mr. Sylaeia’s eyes widened and it didn’t matter how much he rapped on the board, the room wouldn’t quieten.

I buried my head in my hands and dug my nails into my scalp. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut?! Now everybody would think I hated them, and they hated me enough already …

I didn’t even notice the prince had stood up until I heard his voice over the hushing room.

‘Autumn is right. The Terra won’t last much longer. The world has changed, and we don’t see eye-to-eye anymore. It could lead to war. But it won’t. Fate won’t let it get that far. What do you think the Prophecy of the Heroines is for?’

I pushed down so hard on the desk to stand up that the table moved with a groan and my chair nearly toppled over. I felt silly standing but it was an old ritual from my Sagean school, and sitting made me feel small compared to the prince. ‘And how can a few dark-beings rebuild the Terra and stop a war? What if they don’t appear in time? What if they fail?’

‘They won’t,’ he insisted, and for the first time I actually met his gaze. His forehead was set in a single line of frustration and I could feel my magic beginning to warm up my veins with anger.

‘No Heroines have appeared yet. If the vampires killed Violet Lee tomorrow, there would be no stopping a war. What happens there affects us all!’

I waited, holding my breath and almost hoping he would try and deny my logic. I knew I was right, I had seen the threat with my own eyes: the hate of the humans, the Extermino … and Violet Lee, the peculiar girl I couldn’t get out of my dreams.

‘You’re wrong—’

It was still early enough in the term for the coming of the bell to be something of a shock: as the shrill, uneven wail cut through the quiet, everybody jumped.

I packed up my things as quickly as I could and rounded the end of the horseshoe, wishing my feet would move a little faster so that I could get out before the prince finished what he had to say. All the courage that I had possessed when angry had fled, just like I was fleeing outside.

‘Autumn!’

Turn for Pete’s sake! I could feel him closing in on me, the rest of the class not far behind, never breaking from their packs.

‘Duchess!’

Then came the call that stopped me, that turned me on the spot. It was a call that summoned from the unnatural earth roots that held me in place, prisoner to hear what I knew was coming.

‘Why do you keep calling her duchess?’ It was an innocent question. Tee, joining her cousin in the ranks of the class, could not have known how much I had dreaded that very question and prayed in the last twenty-four hours that nobody would notice how the prince addressed me.

I pleaded with my lips, mouthing no, no, over and over, but when he turned to look at the younger girl and back at me, I could see in his bright cobalt eyes – they always said you could mark noble blood by the eyes – that he would not oblige.

‘Don’t you know? She is the duchess of England.’

I did not wait to hear the gasps, or the questions, because I could not bear to hear them. Instead, I turned and walked six measured paces, then took to the air.

Remember who you will one day be, child!

I do not want to think of that day, Grandmother. I do not want to think of it.

Why do that? Why be so wilfully cruel? Why deny me my choice like that? At least I could run. If it had not been the end of the day I wouldn’t have been able to escape his revelation like this. Escape him.

Though the sun created a patchwork of light and shadows below me on the town, the air was cold. The wind from the sea was caught in the jaws of the concave river mouth, funnelled along the increasingly narrow valley, stirring the masts of a tall ship moored on the Dartmouth embankment. The rigging made a soft chime that the wind carried with it, an underlying melody to the beating of water that the old paddle ferry produced and the shrill whistle of the steam train weaving along the embankment towards Kingswear. It was a small village, standing in proud opposition to Dartmouth on the other side of the river, its multi-coloured cottages rising in uneven terraces much like the larger houses of the larger town did. Over bridges, past creeks and below the village school, where the old-fashioned bell tolled to announce the end of the day, the train passed, eventually coming to a halt beside the smaller, lower ferry.

It was a world perfectly preserved, continuing on in its own isolated sphere, relying on its unquestionable beauty to bring in the tourists. Yet its isolation was why I suffered.

Finally, as time in my angst seemed to move much slower, I reached the other side of the river, the trees lining its bank broken and falling into the silt. It was a pity that the leaves had fallen so early – it was barely Septembe; empty bottles, sandwich papers and silk handkerchiefs testimony to the summer nights whose mark had not yet been erased. But that was what they got for perching on the riverbank. They were rotting. They were dying.

Why? Why did you have to tell them when I asked you not to? What have you achieved by doing that?

There was a brief respite in the chill as I moved away from the sea, only for the cold to be replaced with fog as the tower of the church near my house came into view and with it the harbour a little further on and the salty suspension that the sea mist carried inland.

I still couldn’t comprehend everything that had happened that day. It felt as though the events since that morning had occurred over several days, and were still no more than skin-deep. Yet my body hadn’t failed to note the pricking and inside, I felt oddly numb – my mind’s way of protecting itself, I supposed.

I glanced at the clock on the church tower, surprised at how long it had taken me to get home. Time just didn’t seem to move in a constant way anymore.

Inside, the blinking light of my laptop lured me in as I placed a cup of tea on the desk and checked my emails. Sure enough, Jo had returned a sprawling epic that required much scrolling. Despite her confused lineage – French-Canadian and German, now serving as a guardian at a boarding school in Switzerland – her English was word perfect, something eight years at St. Sapphire’s had given her.

The first three paragraphs were dedicated to gushing about how hot the prince was, and how I should feel lucky to be bestowed the chance to be so intimate with him. The rest added up to a warning: what I suspected of him and his family was not a light accusation and that I should tread carefully. She ended with her own theory as to why he was here, which I dismissed immediately, blushing.

I leant back in my chair, unsure of how to reply. I contemplated telling her about losing it that morning, but decided against it, not wanting to provide any opportunities for rumours. There was no point telling her about what the prince had revealed: she didn’t know I hid – had hidden – my title.

Pushing away from the desk I collapsed onto the cushioned window seat. Through the window, I could see the maple tree in the garden, the nearest branch just a foot or two from my window – when I was a child, reluctantly returning home from school for the weekend, I would often seek solace in the crux of its branches, where the trunk would divide into four and form a neat little seat, perfect to fold into. It was my own palace of leaves, decorated with pinned flowers, plucked from the garden, or dream-catchers, which I would make endlessly at the desk where the laptop now sat – some of the frail structures had survived, and were now dangling from the eaves of the window, minus the feathers. They had become rotten and mildewed, and my mother had removed them. When I had collected more gulls’ feathers to replace them, she had taken those too.

I knew I couldn’t face school the next day. I couldn’t face the questions on top of the already mounting dread I had at the prospect of detention on Thursday. Besides, a day would act as a sort of buffer against the shock: the buzz about my title would have died down a bit by Thursday. Let the prince deal with the questions, I thought. Let him sort out what he caused.

CHAPTER NINE
Autumn

‘Autumn, why didn’t you tell us?’

‘You never asked.’

‘That’s not the point. You’re the duchess of England, and we never knew. I mean, that makes you the highest ranking nobility in the country. Right below royalty. Er, hello?’ Gwen snapped.

‘I thought that title died with that woman, a couple of years back. There was something about a state funeral on the news, remember?’

I shot Tammy a look, and comprehension slowly dawned on her face.

‘Oh my God, that was your grandmother, wasn’t it? And what, the title skipped your dad? How come?’

‘Human.’

I was wrong about the buzz dying down. If anything, my absence had escalated the hype. The questions didn’t stop all day, and when they did it was only because I made an escape to the bathroom, or the prince was around. Then, the questions would be aimed at him. They could extract more from him considering I was letting little out.

Thankfully, the day passed quickly. I even managed to avoid speaking to the prince for the entire length of our English literature lesson. He didn’t try to start anything resembling conversation.

Five o’clock had long passed before I got out of textiles and I suspected it was going to be a long evening. In contrast to the GCSE essay that had earned me the detention, the A level English work was long and laborious. It didn’t help that the prince hadn’t read the play or any of the set poems, so I had to explain everything he was copying out. From his desk, Mr. Sylaeia would occasionally look up until eventually, as the hands of the clock shot past seven and towards half past, he announced that we could leave.

The contents of my folder had become so sprawled across the desk that by the time I had reorganized and packed them away, the light had faded outside and what had been a murky grey sky became purple through the pouring rain. I watched it through the window, unable to see the art building roof just opposite. A knot formed in my throat.

Outside in the corridor, the rain didn’t seem as heavy, the doors at each end sealing out the roar of the wind, but on the stairs, it was clear just how bad it was. The sky slapped the rain down so forcefully that water sprung a metre back up from the ground, ricocheting off the benches and joining huge pools where the tarmac dipped and was beginning to crumble. The autumn-flowering blossom on the tree was putting up a fierce fight, but the wind was winning, sweeping the petals high into the air and away over the buildings.

‘You’re not going to fly in that, are you?’

I paused and the prince drew up beside me, both of us staring through the glass doors at the chaos outside.

‘I’ll take the bus.’

He looked me up and down sceptically and I knew that in my blouse, skirt and thin tights, I wasn’t exactly dressed for the weather.

‘You’ll get soaked. It’s dark too. You shouldn’t wait on your own.’

‘I’ll be fine—’

‘Seriously, I can give you a lift.’

I took a few steps towards the door, hoisting my bag higher on my shoulder and preparing to make a dash through the rain. ‘My parents say I shouldn’t accept lifts from strangers.’

He flinched and the puzzled expression from two days before returned. ‘I’m not a stranger.’ His tone made it sound almost like a question, as though he wasn’t even sure of that statement himself.

You’re as good as a stranger, I thought.

I hovered for a few more seconds, unsure if he was going to say anything else. When he didn’t, I braced myself against the door and pushed, hoping my body weight would be enough to hold it open just long enough for me to slip through. It wasn’t. In the second that the wind caught the door and flung it wide open, I became drenched, standing directly below the overflowing gutter; blinded by the water seeping down from my hair and the rain, battering my face like needles, I only just saw the door swinging wildly on its hinges and dived back, helped by a hand yanking on the material of my blouse. Landing on the floor, I pulled my feet back over the lip of the frame just in time as the door slammed shut so violently that the lowest pane of glass fell from its seal and shattered on the ground outside.

‘Are you okay?’ I heard the prince ask, whilst I stared dumbly at the broken door, where the wind now rushed through and chilled my exposed legs – my tights had laddered. ‘I’m giving you a lift home. No arguments.’

I didn’t argue. It would be useless to argue; his point had already been proven. He helped me up.

‘Watch the glass,’ he said and then flung the door open, bracing his back against the frame as I leapt over the fragments and sprinted for the sheltered entrance on the other side of the quad. Behind me, I heard the door slam and a curse whip passed me, mangled by the wind. It was followed by the sound of footsteps in hot pursuit.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed mine and urged me on, tugging me down the steps and into the school’s tunnelled entrance, where we paused, shivering. The prince rubbed his upper arms ferociously.

‘Ready?’ He extended his hand towards me after a minute.

I looked at it for a few seconds and then out to the rain. Even if I remained close enough to touch him I wouldn’t see him. As I looked, the car park lit up beneath the sheet lightning.

‘Come on,’ he insisted and took my hand, pulling me back out into the rain as the inevitable thunder followed. I squinted, searching for a car, any car, until suddenly through the gloom a pair of headlights flashed on and off and I caught a brief glimpse of a surprisingly understated five door sports car – but more interestingly, a car with no Athenean badge across its side.

He headed for the right door and gave me a gentle nudge around the bonnet. I pulled my bag off and got in the passenger side, placing it at my feet but keeping a tight hold on the handle, only letting go to plug my seatbelt in. He had already started the engine and was reaching across to turn the heating on, turning the dial right up. I felt the air, initially cold, blasting through the vents and my feet inched towards the warmth. With the windscreen wipers beating, he pulled out of the car park.

‘You live in Brixham, right?’ I nodded and he indicated right. The sound of the rain on the windscreen and the rolls of thunder every minute or so prevented him from saying anything, so I looked out of the window. Every time the lightning struck, the valley below us would light up, revealing the fields, houses and the corner of the late Victorian building that made up the Naval College; a building that was not a stranger to royal officer cadets, albeit the human kind. The scene was suspended in negative and then faded again.

The steep main road leading to the lower town was deserted and as we rounded the foot of the Naval College, so was the queue for the higher ferry. When we neared the slipway, a large yellow sign made it apparent why: it was closed due to the bad weather. The prince cursed under his breath.

‘Try the lower ferry,’ I murmured, finding it difficult to talk with him there. He looked at me, puzzled. ‘Follow the embankment,’ I added, but didn’t hold out much hope. If the sturdier higher ferry was closed, then the barge-and-tug that was the lower ferry would be too. I was right. As we approached the oldest part of town, where the beamed black-and-white upper floors of buildings leant precariously over the cobbled pavement and fishermen’s cottages lined the streets, I could see one of the ferrymen deserting his post as he bent against the wind. Out in the choppy river, I could just make out the lights of the ferry heading back to its pontoon.

The prince sighed. ‘Guess it’s the road way around then. You’ll have to direct me.’ I nodded and he continued. ‘I normally turn off at Totnes towards Dartmoor. I haven’t been to Torbay yet.’ He finished and out of the corner of my eye I could see him glancing at me. I knew I was supposed to carry on the conversation, but said nothing.

When we reached the top of the hill again, I saw him looking once more. He opened his mouth and closed it again, and then seemed to settle on speaking. ‘I’m living with my aunt and uncle – I suppose you know them as their royal Athenean highnesses the duke and duchess of Victoria, don’t you?’ His tone was heavily sarcastic. Titles were clearly a bother to him, except, of course, for mine. ‘They bought a place up on the moors, near Princetown. When I heard, I jumped at the chance. I’ve always wanted to study in England, and Australia had become impossible with the paparazzi. I knew this area was like a bubble and Kable seemed like a good choice with you there, so we took out super injunctions against the media running anything about our whereabouts, fed the gossips at court a lie about me returning to Sydney and here we are. No bodyguards and no paparazzi.’

I nodded slowly. I didn’t hear anything about them moving here whilst in London. They must really want the quiet life for nothing to have filtered down the grapevine. Yet I knew it would get out eventually. It was a ticking time bomb and when the press did descend, I would be implicated too.

Again, I sensed that he was trying to start a conversation, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. Everything I did want to say to him was unspeakable; treasonous, even.

‘And you are here because of your parents,’ he stated. It was not a question.

He fell silent again and I knew that with a little effort, I could break the quiet, yet made no move to do so. In that moment, it was hard to believe that at twelve, I had effortlessly talked up or down, to my superiors and inferiors, and thought nothing of the ability. It was to the manor born, installed in me since birth. But now my two tongues strangled each other and the words would not come.

‘Do you miss her?’ he murmured suddenly, his two hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly I could see his knuckles whitening. I stared at them for a few seconds, and then looked straight ahead, watching the cat’s eyes flash below us.

‘Yes. Very much,’ I whispered, not sure he would even hear me above the battering rain and hum of the engine.

Yet he nodded in acknowledgement. ‘It was horrible, what happened. It – you were so young. Only fourteen. To experience loss like that must have been …’

He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. I knew how it felt and he was obviously trying to comprehend it.

‘Murder,’ he said after a while. ‘Have you … have you ever thought about revenge?’

‘I would if I knew who her murderer was,’ I snapped, surprising myself with my change of tone.

The prince turned towards me as far as he could without taking an eye off the road. ‘I’m sorry, but have I done something to offend you? I know I haven’t seen you for several years, but we used to be friends and now I might as well have the plague.’

‘Other than reveal my title, Your Highness?’ I retorted.

He let out a sharp breath. ‘I was just trying to help you—’

‘Why?’

He passed the wheel through his hands as he took a sharp left, and then sped up as the road widened into two lanes.

He shook his head slightly and frowned. ‘Well … we go back a long way, you used to come to court a lot. Why wouldn’t I help you?’

I rubbed a clear patch in the condensation on my window and stared out of it. ‘I don’t like you.’

There was a long silence in which the muted whirring of the engine and the beating of the windscreen wipers was the only sound. I didn’t look at him, and silently wondered how many times – if ever – someone had actually admitted that to him.

He finally hummed in acknowledgement. ‘May I ask why?’

I hadn’t thought this far ahead in my impulsiveness. I had just said what I felt … for once, I had just let go and admitted to my feelings. But what I wanted to say in reply was an accusation … treasonous even. But when else will I get the chance to ask?

‘I think you, and the entire royal family and council are withholding information from me. I think you know why my grandmother was murdered, and by whom. I think that because I heard mutterings at her funeral … and why else would no answer have been given by now?’

His knuckles went instantly white on the steering wheel, and eighteen months of suspicion was confirmed by his paling complexion. ‘What makes you think I would know that kind of information?’

‘You’re second in line to the throne. You’re good with politics; better than the heir. I think your parents would trust you.’

I averted my gaze at the unexpected compliment I had paid him. I kept it averted, and waited and waited, until I rested my head against the window in defeat.

‘I have orders not to tell you,’ he said, stiffly.

I gasped and the surge of hate and pain I felt every time I thought of her trebled. I wanted to say something, but words failed me. A tear eased itself down my cheek, squeezing between the window and my skin. I closed my eyes, preventing any more from forming and allowed my hair, wet and beginning to curl, to cover my face.

I felt a pressure on my knee – his hand. I jerked my leg away and pulled my bag protectively onto my lap, feeling my cheeks flame a very bright red. His hand hovered between the gear stick and the steering wheel, as though he was unsure of what to do with it. He settled for the steering wheel.

‘I’m sorry. I really am. And I’m sorry for revealing your title too. It was wrong of me.’ I waited for him to continue. He took the hint. ‘I thought it might ease relations with the students and, though I know this will sound selfish of me, I wanted to treat you as an equal. People accept that more when they can put a title to a name.’

I opened and closed my mouth again, feeling remotely like a fish out of its depth.

‘I suppose I didn’t understand that you wanted to …’ He seemed to search around for an appropriate phrase. ‘Well, live as a human.’

I felt my chest split into a bizarre mix of anger and confusion. ‘That’s not what I want.’

‘Sure? When was the last time you used complicated magic? And I don’t mean to tidy your hair.’

I couldn’t even answer that and I slumped back in my seat.

‘Exactly. If you mean what you say, then why don’t you practice your magic?’

Again, I couldn’t answer him until we approached my road and I told him to turn right. We climbed passed the church and the adjoining graveyard, turning left onto the tree-lined avenue. I could see his eyes glancing left and right, taking it in; judging. I knew that behind those eyes, he was thinking how unimpressive it all was. Though the houses were of an intimidating red-brick Victorian design, detached and comfortably spacious, I knew this was not the norm for someone of my standing.

I told him to stop halfway down and unbuckled my belt. I hesitated, my hand on the handle, about to open the door.

Decorum, child, I heard her voice say. Decorum is everything.

I pursed my lips. ‘I’m sorry if the way I live offends you, Your Highness. I’m sorry if you don’t think I’m entitled to be upset over your stupid orders. But I’m afraid I do not have much choice in it.’ He turned to me so sharply that I felt my weight fall against the door, away from him. His expression was completely puzzled, but something in his eyes bordered upon recognition as they widened ever so slightly. ‘Thank you for the lift,’ I finished and got out as quickly as I could, scuttling around the car to the pavement and under the shelter of the tree. As I closed the garden gate behind me, he turned around and pulled away. I watched the car disappear around the corner, recalling his outburst in my mind.

A smile appeared, bigger than the one I had worn earlier. It was a bitter smile, displaying itself only in triumph.

So you know. You know why she’s dead. And I’ll get it out of you; and I’ll never like you until I have!

Behind me, light pooled across the garden from the glass panels on either side of the front door. The cars were parked in the driveway. My parents were back. I groaned and prepared myself.

The door was unlocked and I tried to open it as quietly as possible. I slipped my shoes off and had one foot on the stairs when my mother appeared from the living room, where curtains had no doubt been twitching.

‘And where have you been? It’s almost nine o’clock!’

‘I was asked to tutor a student by Mr. Sylaeia.’ I hung my bag on the rack above the radiator for the morning and turned back to her, hoping she would vent quickly so I could get changed into something dry.

‘And I suppose if I rung the school he would verify that?’ she replied, rather testily.

‘Yes.’ I knew he wouldn’t mention the detention; he had punished me enough.

She huffed, pointing out the closed front door. ‘And who was that driving you home?’

‘A friend.’

She wasn’t falling for that one. ‘None of your friends are old enough to drive.’

‘A friend in the sixth form,’ I rephrased. Yet she still wasn’t buying it as she moved to stand in front of the mirror to remove her earrings – they had clearly only just got back, as she still wore her business suit and her hair hadn’t re-curled, still resembling the short sleek bob she maintained for meetings.

‘I don’t know many sixth formers who can afford the insurance for a Mercedes, Autumn.’

My eyes rolled towards the ceiling and I took a long, slow breath. ‘Fine. A new Sage has started at school.’

She smiled in a motherly, patronizing way that was reserved for moments when she knew she had beaten me. ‘Ah, we settle upon the truth.’

I returned the smile and was about to make my way upstairs when my father’s voice sounded from the kitchen.

‘What are my two lovely ladies arguing about this time?’ He appeared from behind the staircase, a glass tumbler and tea towel in his hand.

I clutched my tongue between my back teeth, wishing they would let me go and get changed before my soaked clothes flooded the hallway.

‘A new Sage has started at school,’ I repeated.

He looked mildly interested and continued rubbing the inside of the glass. ‘That’s nice for you then, isn’t it? What family?’

This time I really did hesitate, chewing my tongue frantically. But there was no putting off the inevitable. I looked from one parent to another. ‘The Athenea.’

The glass shattered on the floor and the tea towel fluttered after it, covering the shards. My father’s mouth fell open and closed again as he tried and failed to mask his emotions.

‘My God,’ he breathed, clutching his chest. My mother moved to his side, rubbing circles in his back but looking just as shocked as he was. ‘Which one?’

‘Fallon.’

‘Their seventeen year-old?’ my mother asked, her eyes widening.

I nodded.

‘But he’s second in line to the throne. What on earth is he doing here?’

I shrugged, but having already embarked on the truth, knew it would be as good a time as any to reveal the rest.

‘He said he wants to avoid the press. He’s staying with the duke and duchess of Victoria.’ I took a deep breath. ‘And they have bought a property on Dartmoor.’

The two of them exchanged worried looks, before turning to me. I didn’t have much in common with my parents, but this was something we were united in: we didn’t want the Athenea anywhere near.

‘And I asked him not to, but he also revealed at school that we’re the duchy of England.’ That wasn’t strictly true. Only I was the duchy, but as I was underage and my father managed my finances, he was able to use it as a courtesy title.

This was all too much for him. He slumped against the banister, burying his face in his hands. My mother guided him towards a sofa in the living room and I took the chance to escape. I didn’t feel much pity for them. They didn’t want the Athenea here either, but they didn’t have to deal with them like I did.

When I got to my room I stripped out of my clothes and found my longest nightie, pairing it with a pair of thick socks. Despite the warm clothes and the hot radiator, I was still cold.

‘Inceandia,’ I murmured, and an oval flame sprang to life in my palms. Removing them, I let it float and grow into an orb in mid-air, warming my room in seconds.

I watched its solid, unflickering mass as Fallon’s words came back to me. Impulsively, I waved my hand and the flame was snuffed out. Hearing a curse in Sagean escape my lips I threw myself face down on the bed, pummelling the mattress until the tears began to seep across the pillow.

CHAPTER TEN
Autumn

It was the sound of grunts that first reached my ears: rhythmic, unbroken and oblivious to the whimpers that began to emerge as an echo.

It’s just a dream, I told myself as the scene gradually came into a blurry focus, pillars disappearing into the darkness as I moved towards the source of sound, though really I wished to get as far away as possible.

Two trees stood close together like prison bars, and between them I could see the outline of a figure, grotesque and hunch-backed with the hair and skirts of a woman; it was from this creature, thrusting itself against the tree, attacking it, that the sounds came.

Shards of bark floated to the ground like sawdust as its pale skin met with the trunk, drops of blood joining them from a set of fingertips drooping towards the forest floor.

But as I slipped between the two trees, I realized the horrible truth that the gloom had concealed.

It was not one figure, but two: a man with his back to me, hunched over the collapsing form of a woman, her torn skirts bunched up around her thighs; it was onto her, and not the tree, that he forced himself.

I circled them, trying to move closer but never managing to close the distance. Instead, she came into sharper focus, and I could see how her hair was so dark it neared black, and how her eyes shone a disturbingly familiar colour: violet, glossy because she sobbed.

The rest of her face was in shadow. But I could hear her pain. I closed my own eyes, wishing to blot away their forms with darkness, but their outlines were burned onto the back of my eyelids. Only then did it occur to me to scream. And I did. A horrific, dreadful, spine-chilling scream that was not my own as it chased around empty hallways, echoing.

I woke to the sound of the whistling kettle downstairs. Though my clock read seven, I did not move. Another one. Worse this time. I closed my eyes, trying to merge the dark and tangled curling hair of the woman I had just seen with the straight, sleek hair of the girl whose image I knew to be Violet Lee’s. I hoped it was a struggle because they were not one and the same.

I knew there was no way I could face school. Sliding out of bed and pulling a dressing gown on, I approached my mirror to see what damage needed to be done. Not much. I look awful. My eyes were already puffy – I must have been crying in the night – and my nose and cheeks were red raw from the cold the evening before. My hair, too, was a mess.

Shuffling into the kitchen, I saw my parents unpacking papers from files. I continued shuffling towards the fridge, allowing my slippers to screech against the tiled flooring. I contemplated adding a cough for effect, but my father was already blocking my way; hand on my forehead, feeling my temperature.

‘You’re freezing, Autumn.’ He took another look at me. ‘I think you should stay home from school. You must have caught a chill from being out in that rain yesterday.’ Out of the corner of my eye I could see my mother narrowing her own eyes.

I knew I should put up some sort of protest myself for authenticity. ‘But Father—’

‘No disagreeing. Just blame the mean prince for it all,’ he joked, but his eyes, also puffy, told the real story. He bent down to kiss the top of my head and turned me by my shoulders so I faced the hallway again. ‘Now back to bed with you.’

They were going out for the day and as soon as I heard the front door shut, I changed into fresh clothes and cleaned away the smudged leftover make-up from under my eyes. Then I curled up on my window seat and watched the people who lived on my road beginning their days, shifting dustbins around, starting cars and herding schoolchildren along the pavement. Opposite, the fisherman’s son threw lobster pots into the back of his truck, stamping his cigarette out with his boot.

‘You were right, Fallon Athenea,’ I whispered. ‘I do want to live as a human.’

It took a lot of willpower to go into work the next day. But I knew that having to cancel for my detention had put me on very thin ice with my employer, and it was the only café on the harbour willing to take on a Sagean teenager.

The air was still damp and speckled with rain, but I walked into town anyway. The bus wasn’t an option as I was running low on money – I had no access to my wealth without my parents’ permission; they certainly weren’t going to give me an allowance – and I needed what I had left for the bus to and from school if the weather turned bad again.

As I walked, I passed the newsagents and paused, scanning the headlines of the tabloids and local newspapers. There wasn’t even as much as a hint about the Athenea, and royals would have made the front page. I had already checked the broadsheets at breakfast. Again, there had been nothing. The injunctions are working so far then.

The closed sign was still up on the door when I got to the café. Inside, my boss glowered at me from where she sat working out pay slips and all was quiet behind the counter. I lowered my eyes and hoped she was angry because I had missed work for my detention, and not because of what had happened last time I had a shift.

Sophie was working again and when I entered the kitchen she backed behind Nathan.

There were no pleasantries this morning.

‘You didn’t answer my texts again,’ Nathan accused.

I halted and stood my ground in the doorway. ‘You gave those humans hope when you knew I couldn’t save that man!’

‘I was just trying to help,’ he countered.

‘You made me look awful. School has been hell!’

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, but didn’t really sound it.

I shrugged and went out to prepare the café for opening. Even though seeing the man’s dead body had been an all too horrible reminder of the death of my grandmother, it wasn’t the death that bothered me, or even the appearance of the Extermino. It was Nathan’s reaction … it hadn’t been him that day, and it hadn’t been him in the kitchen just now. He was too callous, and not the light-hearted person he usually was.

But when I went back to the kitchen he had recovered.

‘C’mon, enlighten me then,’ he said, leaning on the edge of the sink. ‘What was so important on Thursday that you ditched us all?’

‘There is a new guy at school—’

‘Oh, there’s a new guy, is there?’ He brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes, and I saw they were full of mischief.

‘A new Sagean guy I had to tutor.’

The sheen on his eyes faded and he faltered. I wasn’t surprised. One Sagean teenager around here was more than enough for the human population to cope with. ‘Anyone we’ve heard of?’ He glanced towards Sophie, who had stopped shifting plates around to listen.

I didn’t answer, feeling my teeth close around the tip of my tongue.

Nathan noticed. ‘You Sage and your privacy. Seriously, who am I going to tell? I’m a computer geek who dropped out of uni. I have no friends. And you won’t tell, will you, Soph?’

Sophie blushed and shook her head, but when I caught her eye, she returned to the crockery.

I sighed. ‘He is of a higher status than me.’

His mouth fell open, comprehension dawning, and then he promptly swore. I didn’t need to give further explanation. Nathan was the only human outside of my family who had known about my title – he had ‘accidentally’ found my supposedly deleted Wikipedia page – and more importantly, he knew where it put me in the ranks. He waited until Sophie had left the kitchen before he spoke again. ‘What the hell? Here? Which one?’

‘No. I’ve said too much already.’

He fell back against the counter, gripping its edge very tightly. ‘Aren’t you pleased? They’re supposed to be heartthrobs, aren’t they?’

I laughed dryly, gathering up the baskets of salt and vinegar to put on the tables. ‘I think every other girl at school is pleased. I’m not.’ He smiled in confusion. I continued, lowering my voice. ‘If the press find out about this, and they will eventually, then I will be dragged in too. Can you imagine what a field day Arn Etas would have if they found out that I work in a café?’ It was only part of the truth, but I certainly wasn’t telling him what I knew the Athenea were hiding about my grandmother.

His smile faded. ‘What’s so wrong with that?’

He followed me out as I organized the tables and flipped the sign over to Open. He continued to trail after me as I scooted past Sophie back into the kitchen, waiting for an answer.

‘I’m a duchess, Nathan, not a maid,’ I muttered, then stopped. ‘I don’t particularly like this life; it’s near impossible for a Sage to live around here, but I am content with it as long as I am out of the spotlight.’

He shook his head, making his muddy blond fringe bounce as he screwed up his nose. ‘I swear you should’ve been born human. But anyway, what are you so down about? Just don’t have anything to do with him. And if he gives you any trouble, just tell him you’ve got a friend who is a purple belt in karate who will beat him up.’

I looked his wiry build up and down and raised an eyebrow. ‘Or I could just hex him.’

‘Or you could do that. And anyway, cheer up, Valerie just came in,’ he said, peering out of the kitchen.

I groaned. What a way to round off the week.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Autumn

I succeeded in following Nathan’s advice, partly by skipping school, until Thursday. I couldn’t completely avoid the prince, of course, and still greeted him each morning in tutorial and in history and worked – silently – next to him in English literature. But he didn’t press for my company and I began to think that I had made my stance on him clearer than I had thought when he had driven me home.

I woke up Thursday morning with the prospect of after-school textiles period, and therefore a whole room of gossiping girls. The hype around the prince had still not died down and even I had to admit he had incredible patience considering how he was effectively stalked by half the student population. The paparazzi seemed like a better bet compared to that.

We were let out late from the lesson before lunch and coming out, I found that most people had already eaten. Thankfully, the canteen had finally got their act together now that there were two Sagean vegans in the school and there were plenty of sandwiches left. I grabbed one, paid, stuffed it into my bag and made the walk of shame through the seating area to the exit. From one of the circular tables inhabited by the football and rugby teams, the prince caught my eye and raised his hand, as though to motion me over. I quickly looked away and sped up.

Tammy and the others were on the field, making the most of the reappearance of the sun, and that was where I was headed. I easily made my way through the mingling students – they had always parted for me before, but now they stumbled and moved with a kind of disbelief, as though I couldn’t be who the prince said I was.

‘Freak! Oi, freak!’

The call came from the other side of the quad. I told myself to keep walking.

‘Fur-reak!’

I closed my eyes briefly. Valerie Danvers. I was surprised she hadn’t approached me earlier, considering the new material the revelation concerning my title must have brought her.

‘Hey, useless! You let that man die on purpose, didn’t you? You basically killed a man! Just like the last guardian killed Kurt!’

Keep going. Ignore her.

‘Oi, duchess! You too much of a snob to talk to me now? Duchess, where’s your granny? Go on, tell us where your granny is.’

Keep walking. She will get tired of it eventually if you ignore her.

‘C’mon, don’t be a spoilsport, I only asked a question.’

I bounded up the steps to the field, walking as fast as I could.

‘Is your granny dead, freak? Did they murder her?’

My breathing shortened. I was almost running.

‘Did they kill her ’cause she’s a freak like you?’

My tongue ran across dry lips, blood hot.

‘Fucking witch, she deserved to die.’

Sticks and stones, she always said. Sticks and stones.

‘Mortana!’ The curse left my lips before I could stop it, accompanied by a writhing ball of molten energy which had been stewing in the sweat of my hot palm, fighting against my clawed fingers to find its way to her skin. As I closed my hand around empty air, I felt hot blood run like a drink down my throat.

But the spell never reached her chest. A shield sprung from midair, reaching over Valerie and her friends as a globe that rippled as my magic met with it. The curse, blue in the air but black as it fanned out across the shield, searched for a hole in the defense; finding none, it surrendered itself with the sound of a shattering glass, and gradually, the barrier faded into nothingness.

There were gasps and even a few screams, and I knew that all over the field, people had sprung to their feet in shock. To the left of us the headmaster stood frozen to the spot, extremely pale and sweating. The teaching assistants on the other side stared at Valerie and her friends. Nobody moved but the prince, who lowered his outstretched scarred hand and glowered at me. I tried to look at him. I tried to form something resembling shock or remorse on my face, but it would not come as I watched Valerie, feeling sparks jump between my fingers.

‘Go,’ he snapped as though I was a servant to be bid about. My eyes flicked towards him and straight back to Valerie. I did not move.

‘That’s an order, duchess.’

Courtesy in respect to rank; loyalty to Athenea; strict adherence to the Terra Treaties.

My feet began to move. I tore my gaze away from Valerie and watched the ground in front of me instead. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her square up, her fists clenching.

‘Don’t so much as move an inch towards her, Valerie.’

My eyes snapped up to the prince and his expression softened. I focused on him and not the other students as I walked, faster and faster, wanting to break out into a run and get myself out of there because I was afraid of what my anger would do next. I tripped down the steps and heard the thud of the prince’s feet behind me.

She deserves to die.

My breathing hitched and the anger exploded against my ribs and sank into the pit of my stomach. If he hadn’t been there, a personification of Athenea’s authority, I would have turned straight around and finished her off.

All of a sudden, the prince grabbed my hand and tugged me along the path behind the hall building. He led me right around until he found a secluded corner, and without noticing how muddy the ground was, pulled me onto the grass.

‘She’s not worth it,’ I heard him say as I was spun around so my back was against the wall and he faced me, arms folded, lips pursed. I registered the blackening anger in his eyes, but it was nothing compared to my own. My breathing would not slow and I could still feel a burning in my palm where sparks leaped around. Dancing on my tongue were several curses that would at least put her in hospital.

‘Autumn, you’re not in control, you need to—’

Animated voices sounded around the corner and he hushed mid-sentence, waited for them to pass, then switched to Sagean.

‘Aclean. Calm down. Take deep breaths.’

I closed my eyes, forcing air into my lungs, waiting for the anger to seep away. I tried not to think of her; I tried not to think of anything, to become numb, but it was impossible with the sound of his breathing, husky and more erratic than my own. Listening to it, I felt the fury ebb away to be replaced with shame. Shame, then fear, as the full realization of what I had just done hit me.

The previous guardian at Kable had been banished for accidentally wounding – fatally – a student. But I had intentionally tried to injure a human. The Terra set out a far worse punishment for such a crime. Death.

I slowly opened my eyes. He was stood in the same position, but this time the composure had disappeared.

‘Are you out of your mind?’ he suddenly exploded after a minute of silence. His arms unfolded and flew into the air beside him as he took a step towards me. I shrunk away into the wall. ‘Do you have any grasp on what you just tried to do?’

Each time I inhaled my breath split in two and my lower lip began to tremble as I shook my head. ‘It was an accident, she provoked me—’

‘How long has she been bullying you?’ His right hand slammed against the brick wall beside my head and his face moved closer to mine.

I glanced at his splayed fingers nervously. ‘W-what?’

‘You’re a Duchess; you were not brought up to lose control so easily. She must have been filing away at your patience for you to do this. How long?’

I kept shaking my head, looking at his shoes to avoid the fire in his eyes. ‘A year, maybe.’

‘Since you arrived?! Why haven’t you reported it? I heard what she said. That was more than bullying, it was racism!’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ he repeated, raising his left hand and closing his forefinger and thumb so they were almost pinching. ‘Autumn, you came this close to blowing her to pieces! This close to breaking the Terra! I won’t report you, but if that curse had hit her there would be no sheltering you.’

I blinked back the tears in my eyes, feeling a mixture of relief and horror, because his words were true. There was no hiding when the Terra were breached. There was no mercy in the law courts, because they were the only thread that suspended us in a state of peace with the humans.

‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘I know.’

He closed his eyes briefly and groaned, placing his other hand on the wall the other side of my head. ‘Do you have a death wish? Because what you just did makes it seem like you do.’

‘I-I’ I couldn’t answer and neither could I shake my head. Instead, I ceased my attempt at holding back the tears. They slithered down my cheeks and plummeted as I hung my head.

‘Autumn?’

My bisected breathing became rasps, and the rasps sobs. There was no stopping the misery now. I knew that much. It was an insatiable beast, but its touch had become silken and light over the summer as hope had surfaced. But that had been a deception; soft strokes to entice. It was back. Yet. Though it was a cold demise, it was not a product of mine. No. It had been caused by him. The prince.

‘Autumn Rose? Tell me you’re not being serious?’

Now that brief moment of flattery in the car the week before disgusted me, because it was he who had dragged up so many things that I had learnt were better buried, for my own wellbeing and sanity.

‘Please?’

I could not say anything.

‘Autumn, a death wish? Do you mean you want to take your own life? Mortalitas voltana?’ His face crumpled and his hands closed around my shoulders, shaking me slightly.

I raised one shoulder, intending to shrug, to look nonchalant, but couldn’t summon the energy to do any more; to deny what he said.

‘No? You’ve thought about it then?’

I gave a small nod.

‘B-but why? What is it? Is it your grandmother?’ He shook me even more and when I didn’t answer, pulled me into a crushing embrace. I sprang back before my sobs heightened, tripping over my own feet to put as much distance between us as possible. ‘Autumn? What is it? Tell me!’

It’s you! I wanted to scream, and I would have if it had been completely true. But it wasn’t. It was everything.

‘E-Extermino. Not saving that human man … V-Valerie. Your stupid orders about my grandmother! I hate your stupid orders!’

Through my blurred, frantically blinking eyes I could see him watching me in horror as I backpedalled, summoning the magic still brewing after Valerie’s words and took to the air.

Let me be numb again, I thought. Let me bury the depression as best I can. Burying is better than this.

The wind slapped against my cheeks, bitter and stinging. But behind my closed eyelids, it was not air making contact with my cheek, but a hand. Once, twice. Hard enough to leave an imprint.

‘Stiffen that upper lip, child! Kindness only comes when you are strong because when you grow up the world will fall on your shoulders! You are my heir; how dare you cry? How dare you be so weak? How dare you lose your mask?’

CHAPTER TWELVE
Fallon

I did not let out a breath until she was high in the air, a retreating speck. Around me I was aware of voices, incoherent interference in the distance, as I struggled to switch my mind back to English – whether those voices were those of human minds or tongues I could not tell. I could barely even think.

Suicide. Any fool could see that she was not happy. But there was a huge cavernous cut in emotion between unhappiness and … and … that. Between dejection and despair; between discontent and utterly losing the will to even live.

A surge of adrenalin passed through me. There was no way she should be alone; not in the state she was in now.

I tossed my bag from my shoulder; it disappeared before it reached the ground. I was meant to have a math lesson that afternoon, and catch-up afterwards, and leaving would mean abandoning my car until the next day, but none of that mattered. School wasn’t why I was here.

Knowing she wouldn’t hang about I took to the air in pursuit, praying she intended to go home. But when I’d risen far above the campus, there was no sign of her and when I expanded my conscious out, hoping to touch upon her own, I found nothing. Making a split-second decision I headed over the river, wondering how she could have disappeared in less than half a minute.

When the town came into view, I searched for the church and graveyard we had passed when I had dropped her off. To my complete relief, frantically walking though the graveyard was the young duchess. I waited until she had passed through the gate in the dry stone wall and then dropped to the ground behind the church tower.

She didn’t hang around once she reached the lane – though she didn’t push herself as far as her magic would allow, but moderated herself to a jog. I took after her as quietly as I could; cursing the crunch of the gravel path and opting for the grass verge instead, weaving between the graves. All around, wilting flowers lay in mildewed jars.

I halted at the gate and waited for her to reach the top of the hill at the path’s end, where I could just make out the cottages and their tiny doors giving way to the vast branches of a maple tree. When she crossed the summit, I broke out into a jog too and quickly emerged at the turning she had directed us to the week before. On the other side of the road, I could see her diving between the unruly shrubs in her yard and hear the slam of a front door.

I let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t let her be alone, not with those thoughts running through her mind.

Yet when I reached the opposite sidewalk, something made me pause. There were no gates, or guards, or lodges, but I was acutely aware as I passed the sign bearing the avenue’s name that this was her territory, and that I was trespassing. It was like being a kid again, trying to steal apples from the crown orchards; they were not fenced and we were never told not to go there, but we knew that what we were doing was wrong.

I took a few cautious steps and glanced around nervously. It had been a long time since I had walked around a neighbourhood alone and unguarded.

I stopped when I reached the edge of her front yard. It wasn’t an unpleasant house – it was quite charming in a small, rustic sort of way – but it was hard to believe that the duchy of England, with all their wealth and property, lived here; much easier to imagine the field day the paparazzi would have if they knew the details of their lifestyle choice.

I gripped the pointed post of the white picket fence. It was common knowledge the House of Al-Summers had always rejected pomp, but this … this I had never expected.

Then I noticed something that made my blood run cold. In the driveway were two cars.

It took a minute for my heart to stop racing. I knew her parents worked away in London. It had never for one moment occurred to me that they might actually be home for her.

I shook my head and let out a sharp breath. She was not alone. I could go. Yet at the same time, it seemed like a perfect opportunity. Human or not, her parents were nobility and I would have to introduce myself at some point. It would be an advantageous move.

But even as I placed my hand on the gate I knew that I could not do it. I could not face them, look them in the eyes, and shake her father’s hand. Guilt – for now, at least – prevented me from intruding upon their lives any further.

I looked up at the house, half-expecting, half-hoping, but knowing it would be better if I didn’t, to see a flash of gold. There was nothing.

She is safe now. Her parents will take care of her.

And so I let go of the gate, turned, and walked away.

‘If your mind is anything to go by, I’d say you’d been to dinner with a vampire, and you were the main course.’

I did not reply. Behind my closed eyelids all was dark.

‘Fal, I’m your cousin. What is it?’

‘You remember Autumn Rose as a child, right? How would you describe her?’

‘Confident, pretentious, bossy maybe. Good talker.’

‘Yes. She was. But that is not the wreck I’m at school with. That is not the girl we came here for.’

There was a pause. ‘It’s this place, Fal. It’s godforsaken.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Autumn

My parents were home, and there was no faking illness with the shrewd eyes of my mother tuned to any pattern she didn’t believe colds could muster. A cold that miraculously healed in time for work the previous weekend only to return exactly a week later was not a believable cold; that was why I was up with the bright break of the next day and in school just as the caretakers were unlocking the doors.

The sun had not yet risen high enough to warm the bench I sat down on, so I stretched the tips of my toes beyond the shade and let my legs bask in the growing heat as the light worked its way up towards my skirt. I slid a little lower, letting my head rest on the back of the bench.

I closed my eyes. He wouldn’t be here for another twenty minutes at least, and it would be half an hour before the buses arrived.

Why did he bring up that yesterday? It made me uncomfortable; more than uncomfortable. I was admitting a stranger into the innermost workings of my mind; and as much as he obviously thought to the contrary, we were strangers. Playing as children to pass the long hours at balls did not make us friends. I didn’t even properly remember the visits before I was twelve and I had not been the only child of high birth to move in such circles at that time. There were dozens of us. Yet in just two weeks he was privy to things I had not divulged to a single human at Kable. How does that work?

I summoned a globule of water, about the size of a pea, into my hand and let it skate across my palm, perfectly intact, and down to the base of my wrist. It was soothing – a trick my grandmother had used to get me to sleep when I first went to live with her.

I felt the clouds close over the sun and reluctantly opened my eyes, thinking it must be time to find somewhere to hide out until tutorial. I blinked a few times, before the globule burst and I scrambled to my feet.

Leant against a nearby bench was the prince. The remnants of a small smile on his lips disintegrated as our eyes met and he began the stuttered apologies of someone caught red-handed.

I dropped into a low, cautious curtsey, unsure of how else to react.

‘Don’t,’ he muttered. ‘Just don’t.’

Instead of standing back up, I sank onto the bench.

He sat down beside me. ‘Tell me you wouldn’t do it?’ he asked in a near whisper.

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Have you seen someone about this? Had therapy?’

‘Right after she died. It didn’t help.’

‘But it’s got to be better than this. Look what happened yesterday!’

I said nothing for a while, resting my forearms on my thighs and leaning forward; that way I couldn’t see him. ‘Have you heard of something called coping ugly?’ His silence answered me. ‘Sometimes things – and emotions – that might otherwise be bad are the only way we can cope.’

I briefly glanced back to find him shaking his head.

‘But how can you still let it affect you? Why not start looking forward instead of back?’

‘It’s not just her.’

‘Then what else is it?’

I remained mute. He sighed, before I heard the bench creaking in protest as he leant forward; out of the corner of my eye, I could see his arms, clad in the thin wool of his jumper, just inches from my own, bare.

‘You have a job.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘Runs in the family, huh?’ He let out a chuckle then stopped abruptly. ‘St. Sapphire’s was lucky to have your grandmother as a teacher. She was one of the best.’

‘Yes.’

The dark blue jumper disappeared from my view. ‘Does it not bother you that your parents work in the City? The banks have a lot to answer for these days.’

I shrugged.

‘Listen, I was wondering if you would agree to a fight this lunchtime? Only to retirement, not first blood. I’ll run it past Mr. Sylaeia in the tutor time … if-if you want to, that is.’

I sat quietly for a few minutes. I heard him shift.

‘The Extermino could come back and attack here any time. We should keep ourselves ready.’

I scoffed. ‘We wouldn’t stand a chance against them. But, yes. I would like that.’ I rose to my feet, hearing the rising chorus of voices from the car park as a busload of students arrived.

‘I have a few useful tricks up my sleeve to use against them. Oh, wait, you’re going?’ he questioned, scrambling to his feet.

‘Your entourage has arrived, Your Highness.’ I bowed my head in the direction of the entrance and curtsied as he narrowed his eyes at the oncoming crowd.

‘My what?’ he said, but I had already turned and retreated, hearing his title, and mine, rise on the wind as he was swamped once again.

‘I will not go! You cannot make me!’

The child fastened the ribbons of her straw hat beneath her bun, a few stray hairs covering the clumsy knot. Usually, she would tie a neat bow, but she could not do that whilst walking, especially so fast, with careful emphasis on every step to make sure that it echoed. She climbed the staircase, intending to lose herself within the pre-lesson crowds of the dining hall, but her grandmother followed close behind. Her footsteps were the echo-of-an-echo, and they were relentless in their pursuit.

‘Child, it is your tenth birthday! You cannot turn your back this time.’

The girl was careful to keep her back to the older woman, weaving between the crowds towards the top end of the middle table.

‘Why not?’

‘Because already you ignore your parents when they travel to the City on business.’

The girl smiled the smile of someone much older, revealing a gap in her bottom row of teeth, partly closed by an adult tooth.

‘As do you, Grandmother.’

‘Mr. Sylaeia was fine with it, he said we should practise defensive magic, just in case.’ The prince hoisted his bag higher, marching across the field with me at his side. ‘But the headmaster was a pain. I don’t know why he’s so against it? Does he want Extermino knocking on his door?’

‘Kurt Holden,’ I muttered.

‘Yes, but that was years ago, wasn’t it?’

‘Valerie still remembers,’ I replied under my breath, extremely conscious of the way the prince’s fan club had swollen in their ranks to include most of the school: the wildfire gossip network had kicked into action once again. Most settled on the banks nearest the school buildings, whilst a few of the older, bolder sixth formers continued on with us towards the very end of the field. When we stopped and deposited our bags, they carried on to a sunny patch in-between the trees.

‘Right, no weapons and the first to retire loses. But don’t push yourself too hard, we need to keep a shield up to protect the students.’ He began unbuckling his scabbard from his belt and my eyes, without seeking my permission, wandered down. ‘I don’t suppose you’re the type to put a wager on this, are you?’

I blinked a few times and shook my head, hastening to cast my own sword aside, along with my flimsy shoes – they would only get broken.

He began backing away, and as he did, I felt the buzz of a shield erupt from the ground up. It rose above our heads, enclosing us in a dome forty feet high. He continued back, a smile appearing on his face. I recognized that smile: it was the smile he wore for the media; a wry grin of quiet confidence.

‘I should warn you, duchess: I won’t go easy on you.’

‘No, Your Highness,’ I responded, adding my own magic to the shield. My muscles tensed and I was shocked by how quickly it was draining me. It was then that I questioned what on earth I was doing. I had as good as admitted to him in the car the week before that I hadn’t used any serious magic for well over a year; in contrast, he had the best education and disciplined training money could buy.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.