House of Mages and Raven (Shades of Ruin and Magic #4)

Chapter 8

8

Barbie

I hadn’t seen Killian after I’d left his bed.

I learned that he’d joined his betrothed in her new compound on the south border of Shades Academy, close to the Veil. He hadn’t returned to the House of Chaos since then.

My emotions were raw and in turmoil, but I restrained myself from asking Lady Cami and Rock if their prince had spent the night with Queen Lilith there. But then Cami mentioned casually that Killian had gone to the court of the Chaos Kingdom, summoned by his father. She didn’t say when Killian had left, and I had no idea if he’d fucked his betrothed or not after he slept with me.

It was common knowledge that all the heirs fucked around. Killian hadn’t been able to do so since Queen Lilith bound him. I was the only female who could prowl through any magic, spell, bond, and curse.

A field of weeds sprouted in my head at the idea of Killian and his legitimate woman being together, so much so that my chest hurt and I could barely think beyond that. But what did I expect? What could I demand? After all, they were engaged, and I was the new woman who happened to take his fancy. Before we parted, he’d promised to tell me later if he was mine. I was sure now I’d never get the answer.

Bile rising to the back of my throat, I traipsed along the cobbed path between Infinity Library and Clockwork, peering at the white pine trees at the edge of the Windsong Woods, which got its name from the wuthering wind traveling in the trees.

Jubilee Haven loomed ahead. Even the prospect of food couldn’t lighten my gait, but I carried on as if my heart hadn’t been broken. I strolled through the open door of the dining hall with arched ceiling and marble floor.

No one had set a trap for me, as the vigilant underdogs kept watching. Shades Academy had never been so divided, and the underdogs had been expecting retaliation from the top dogs, as the trio—Jinx, Bea, and Drusilla—had warned. They were the backbone of the underdogs, the actual leaders.

Every eye trained on me. I didn’t like the attention, but Sy preened, soaking it in. My gaze skimmed over the hostile students to find my supporters. Most tables were occupied. I’d come late today. Everyone was seated where they usually sat. Seating in Shades Academy displayed a strict hierarchy. I thought I’d shaken up the system and changed things in this school, but the division of classes was inbred in everyone’s psyche.

America and the highborn students had claimed the esteemed tables around the royal table reserved for the heirs if they decided to come down from their throne seats upstairs. The only change was that they were more muted since their leader, Medea, was gone.

Dixie had returned to the elite shifters’ table, no longer mingling with Medea’s former crowd. Her dark gaze held mine before she returned to talking to her friends. An ache bloomed in my chest. I used to be friendly with her and Luna, but her lover’s tragic death changed everything between us. I still grieved over Luna, and I would never forget her. All the more reason I hated my father and the Shriekers. One day, I’d kill them all.

Cami glanced at me from her table alongside the top candidates from the House of Chaos, then went back to eating and listening to her friends. She might’ve defended me when I was in mortal danger, but in a social setting, she kept her distance.

I was more than happy to stick to my own crowd. I jogged toward Bea and the other geeks at the corner tables with a big smile on my face as they cheered me on. As I sat beside Bea, the group immediately picked up the discussion that I’d temporarily interrupted.

“The entire school has been talking about Prince Killian and Queen Lilith,” Bea told me. “There’s comprehensive coverage of their engagement on Spinchat.”

I should’ve expected it, yet a sharp pain still erupted in my chest.

“What else is new,” I said flatly, and fought to keep up my game face.

Sy’s superior hearing picked up the conversations all around. She loved gossip. And Bea was right. Chatter from every table was centered on Queen Lilith and her romance with the heir of the House of Chaos, the hottest prince in the realm.

“Can you believe that Queen Lilith is here in the flesh?” a girl from chaos house swooned. “Queen Lilith is a great beauty, and her power is incomparable, except for our prince’s.”

“I saw them walking on campus, holding hands,” another girl said from a table not far from ours. “It’s so romantic!”

A sudden rage shot through me, making me want to punch a few throats.

Or tear them out, Sy said viciously. Let me do it!

A sharp pain followed my rage, piercing my chest like a cold iron arrow. I took a swig of the coffee Bea had brought for me to calm myself down. It had a lot of cream and sugar in it, just the way I liked, but it tasted like cough syrup.

The flow of conversation from every table bombarded me. Everyone was obsessed with Killian and his betrothed. Not a soul mentioned the battle against the druid and his Legion of the Brotherhood that had happened two days ago. No one grieved for the students and the sentinels who had perished during the first trial.

The underdogs’ campaign was forgotten. I’d once wondered about humans’ short-term memories of tragic events and their speed at moving on with their lives. Now I stared at the room full of supernaturals and puzzled if I’d come to the wrong place.

I barely recognized this new world since I’d left Killian’s bed. What had gone wrong?

We can right the wrong, Sy said. Let’s take down the queen bitch and show the world who’s superior. And we’ll take back our man.

“Barbie, you’re an insider,” Mila called in a shrill voice. The reindeer shifter had jumped onto the desk in the study room and stood with Jinx, Bea, Drusilla, Wyatt, and Charlie to back me up when I went toe-to-toe against Medea and her demon pals. “You now hang out with Prince Killian’s circle. You must have firsthand knowledge about his romance. Please tell us if it’s true that Prince Killian and Queen Lilith will get married right after his graduation? I wonder who will get invited to the ceremony. It’ll be the event of the century.”

All heads whipped to face me, eager to hear every drop of my supposed inside anecdotes. So far, no one had asked me how I was doing, considering I’d almost died at the druid’s hands.

“Maybe later,” I said, shoving my rage down, and shot to my feet. If I kept listening to their BS, I’d lose my shit. “I’m going to grab something to eat.”

They nodded, looking disappointed yet still hopeful that I’d share inside news on Killian and the popular queen’s romance when I returned with my food.

Bea got to her feet. “I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to,” I said.

“I want to,” she insisted.

She was the only one who hadn’t been babbling about Killian and Lilith. She tried not to look at me, as if she knew something had happened between Killian and me, even though I hadn’t exactly talked about him ever since I got into his house.

“How are you holding up, Barbie?” my friend asked as she sidled up to me. “I tried to reach out to you after the battle, but no one was allowed to see you. The guards from the House of Chaos said you were fine and that you needed to rest. They sent me away. Prince Killian’s guards are all terrifying, though not as terrifying as their prince.”

My bottom lip quivered at the concern in my friend’s voice, but I fought the sudden urge to cry. I couldn’t lose my shit despite sadness, emptiness, and anger having gathered in me since Killian’s departure without a goodbye.

We strode toward the breakfast buffet table. For the first time, no one paid me any attention. No foes bothered to trip me, partly because they now feared me, but mostly, everyone was busy with the feeding frenzy on the epic romance between Killian and Queen Lilith.

Bellona sat with her demon pals from the sixth house, talking animatedly to a big crowd, who hung on her every word about Killian’s courtship with Queen Lilith. She’d forgotten that Killian had kicked her out of his house.

I bit my lip. “Am I waking up to an alternate universe?”

There was a tightness around Bea’s eyes. “Something shifted,” she whispered. “I don’t know what, but it’s in the air, almost like spells at work.” She shook her head. “I can’t pinpoint it, as the power is above my paygrade.”

She wasn’t alone.

I’d felt it too—a dark power in the air like pollen in the wind. Everyone was inhaling it, drunk and giddy and obsessed with the Queen of the Underworld, like they could talk about her style for hours.

“Queen Lilith has thousands of shoes,” a girl said in admiration, as if on cue.

The queen had hijacked my mind while I was weakened by the Seed of Heaven. I’d pushed through her great mind power and escaped her trap, with the aid of Sy and the wild magic. Killian had torn open the fabric of the dimension to open a path for me to return to him.

Now the demon queen had come to the academy, gunning for me again. She even had the oracle in her pocket. My familiar had created a chaotic incident in the house to make the demon queen and the Maiden leave before they could get to me.

Could the mental power from the Queen of the Underworld be permeating the air and thus affecting everyone, except me? Bea’s absolute loyalty to me made her immune to the influence. It’d be interesting to see if the heirs could also be influenced like the herd.

Cold dread and acid anxiety twisted my guts as my thoughts drifted to Killian. Had he been under her thrall? Was that why he’d been engaged to her? Was that why he hadn’t returned to me after I left his bed? It felt like swallowing shards of glass as my mind kept circling to whether Killian was warming the queen’s bed ever since we’d parted. The terrible suspense haunted me like a broken record playing on loop.

Fuck this, I felt sick.

A wave of nausea hit me, brewing in my stomach and rising toward my head. I stumbled, and Sy anchored me, like she’d done every time I’d cowered in a corner, emotionally or physically wounded.

You’ll get through this, she promised. You have me. We’ll push through together.

I fought back my tears as Sy stopped the trainwreck from heading toward the cliff.

He didn’t keep his promise, Sy. He’s not mine after all. He never was.

Sy was quiet for a long beat before she said, Rowan is still ours. We can share him.

It was killing her to offer me that. We’d shared everything in the past, but not this. There was a line drawn in our cohabited life—the fae prince was hers and the chaos prince was mine. The line shouldn’t be crossed, even though things had changed overnight and Killian was out of the picture.

That’s very nice of you, I said. Rowan is yours, Sy. Just don’t let him break your heart. And I ain’t going to commit to any man again.

You should not stop having sex just because one asshole hurt you, she said in disapproval. Sex is divine. Sex is the best drug. Sex is…

Overrated, I sneered, even though I’d had the best time of my life when I fucked Killian.

I piled mixed white and dark meat onto my plate. I had no appetite, but I needed to feed. I needed strength to overcome this new adversary and recover from this emotional wound.

“I’ll sit on the outdoor bench,” I said.

“I’ll go with you,” Bea said.

I smiled at her in gratitude as we peeled off from the buffet table, only to stop cold, my smile gone. I turned my head toward the entrance.

A girl who looked exactly like me strolled in, wearing an academy student uniform—a white top, red skirt, and high stockings—an entourage of highborn demons in humanoid form flanking her.

She shook her golden curls, exactly how I did mine.

What. The. Fuck?

With Sy’s sight, I could see every detail on the new girl—golden skin, full pink lips, and cute nose. She was like my twin, only shinier, with a radiant face and brighter hair. The only difference between us was that I had dual-toned eyes, one emerald green and one sapphire, and hers were both a honeydew green. Some of my foes called me defective due to my mismatched eyes, and this new girl who looked like me was all polished without any of my perceived flaws.

What the fuck? Sy seethed. Let’s eat that abomination.

That’d be like eating me, dude, I told her, and shuddered.

The girl’s gaze found me, and she winked at me across the expanse of the dining hall.

“Wow!” Javier whistled. “ That is Barbie 2.0.”

Javier the panther shifter hated me as much as Gunnar the vampire.

I used to sneak into Javier’s apartment to shower when I was in the House of Shifters. I’d humiliated him a few times, not intentionally. As for Gunnar, I’d made him permanently bald, so he had to wear wigs now.

Shit. I blinked, feeling like a fist was ramming into my jaw. I’d just been downgraded to Barbie 0.5.

Shit, Sy agreed. But at least you aren’t Barbie zero.

“I was going to warn you before you had to meet Grace,” Bea said in a low voice. “She’s Queen Lilith’s ward, princess of the House of Underworld.”