chapter ten

I walked alone, only the sound of my proper, black Mary Jane’s slapping against the tiled floor and the muffled voices behind the closed doors keeping me company. That walk felt like the longest one in my life—longer by far than walking to Father’s throne room. Definitely scarier.

Light poured from the window in the door to room 133—homeroom. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Fear and uneasiness were banished and replaced with confidence, strength, and maybe a little eagerness. Ready, I squared my shoulders and opened the door.

The teacher paused mid-sentence, her hands raised in an exuberant gesture. She turned to me.

Mrs. Park: left the cloister to pursue family life—except she’d been unable to conceive in the year that she and her husband had been trying.

Innocent.

Kind.

Devoted to teaching.

I scanned the faces of the students—some smiled, some did not. Most were normal teens with normal teen problems, but there were a few blips on my radar. A boy in the back of the room around whom greedy Shadows crouched. And I didn’t care.

Because there was another boy. A boy who made my stomach clench and my skin contract with fear. The smell of citrus filled my nose and my mind filled with the impossibilities—he couldn’t possibly be the boy from my dream. I wanted nothing more than to bolt for the door.

Except, I had my orders, and there was Miriam.

I saw the moment she changed her expression from bored and hung over to my personal student ambassador, ready to teach me everything there was to know about St. Mary’s—and not a sliver about herself. Akaros would have been proud of a student who could hide her soul like that.

Akaros always wanted more deception from me, but really he had no idea just how much I kept hidden, the secrets of my soul.

The moment gone, the room erupted with whispered speculation, judgments of my hair, my body, my skin—every conversation revolving around me and what my story might be.

“You must be Desolation,” Mrs. Park exclaimed, reaching out a hand to take mine. I forced my awareness of the students away as I focused on the teacher. She smiled, her blue eyes clear, honest and open. My hand clasped in hers, I learned several more things: Mrs. Park was crazy with happiness.

And I liked her.

And I hated that.

I yanked my defenses back into place just as I pulled my hand from hers. Mrs. Park’s smile slipped, but to her credit she tucked her doubt away almost as if the moment of fear she’d felt when she touched me hadn’t been there. Almost.

“So, Desolation?” Mrs. Park asked, picking up the roster from her desk.

“Uh, Desi, please, Mrs. Park.”

She sighed, and her smile grew. “Miri, your student ambassador, saved you a seat beside her,” she said, nodding in the direction of an empty desk and chair on the left side of the room.

Miri stood beside her desk, her eyes not quite able to join the smile on her lips. She rotated her wrist in a little wave. “Hi.”

I nodded and smiled, but didn’t trust myself to speak. My whole body hummed with nerves and awareness.

Miri in the dark, the Shadows surrounding her.

But here, she had a fighting chance against the dark. And that’s where I came in.

After we sat down, Miri leaned across the aisle and whispered, “We’re in Macbeth.” She held up her copy of the play and I nodded. A thread of pride wound its way up my throat and I had to bite back the urge to brag. I could easily theorize on Macbeth’s morals and similes, the truths and almost-truths, because Macbeth was a discourse on chaos—and Hell thrived on chaos.

But even as socially awkward as I was, I knew to keep my mouth shut.

“We’ll pick up where we left off,” Mrs. Park said as she wrote ACT 5, Scene 1 on the white board. “We need someone to read for the doctor, the gentlewoman, and of course Lady Macbeth.”

Before she could turn around, a falsetto voice in the back called out, “’Tis I! Lady Macbeth!” I turned to see the boy with the Shadows—pimples, glasses and unruly hair—pose with a hand on his hip. He raised his other hand high with his pinky finger crooked in the air. While the rest of the class burst into laughter, I narrowed my eyes. The boy wasn’t nearly as innocent as he appeared—his soul was as dirty as the Ganges River.

“Very nice to meet you, Lady,” Mrs. Park said without missing a beat. “Though it would be a great honor to hear you deliver the words yourself, perhaps we should let one of the students have a go.”

The boy did a decent imitation of a curtsy, then collapsed into his chair to another round of laughter.

“That’s Marcus Allen,” Miri whispered. “Class clown and band leader extraordinaire.” And Lost Soul, I thought. But what would cause a teenage boy to sell his soul to the devil? What possible reason would someone so young have to throw their life away?

But then again, there was Miri—wasn’t she doing the same thing?

I drew a curling pattern round and round the edges of the pages in my book of plays, thought of Aaron and all the ways humans could be misled.

“Desi?” The sound of my name shot through me like a lightning bolt. I jerked my head up, instantly aware that every person in the room was looking at me.

“Yes?”

One corner of Mrs. Park’s lips twitched into a smile, but the tightness around her eyes suggested frustration. She was already worried I’d be a problem. What have I missed? “Perhaps you’d be willing to read Lady Macbeth today?”

“Oh, okay,” I said in as contrite a voice as possible. I looked down at my page and tried to push the dark thoughts away so I could concentrate on not embarrassing myself any further.

“All right. Enter the doctor and the gentlewoman—they’re outside the Lady’s bedroom, waiting to see if she’ll sleepwalk again. All right then, go ahead,” Mrs. Park said, sitting down with her book open on the desk in front of her.

A boy cleared his throat and spoke;

“I have two nights watched with you,

but can perceive no truth in your report.

When was it she last walked?”

A warm breeze slipped across the nape of my neck, sending a shiver racing down my spine. Trying not to draw attention, I turned to look behind me so I could see who had spoken. I looked past the girl reading the part of the gentlewoman, trying to see who had spoken for the doctor.

“Since his majesty went into the field,

I have seen her rise from her bed . . .”

Everyone had their heads bent over their desks—I had no idea which boy had read.

Miri caught my eye and whispered, “Something wrong?”

“Uh, no,” I straightened in my chair and focused on the page, on blocking out the warmth, like mellow sunlight spreading inside of me, the feeling that I knew that boy. The girl continued reading the gentlewoman’s part and I waited for each of the doctor’s lines, hoping something the boy said would deny what I thought I knew about him. That he was that boy. The boy from my dream.

“More needs she the divine than the physician.

God, God forgive us all! . . .”

The boy spoke the words more slowly than the rest; spoke them in a near whisper, so the whole class had to hold their breath so as not to miss what he said. His words fell on my ears like a caress, and my heart raced. I did know that voice, could almost remember the sound of it near my ear, feel his breath on my cheek . . .

The bell rang and people sprang from their chairs all around me.

“We don’t have long between classes,” Miri said, stuffing her books into her St. Mary’s messenger bag. “And, you’re with me all day!” Her smile added dimples to her cheeks and this time her eyes shone with genuine good nature. I had trouble reconciling the girl in front of me with the one I saw in my father’s vision. It didn’t seem possible that a human could be so wholly desperate for darkness and yet still shine with such worth.

“What?” Miri said with a laugh. She looked down at herself. “Do I have something on me?”

I covered a groan by ripping open the Velcro on my bag and sliding my book and papers inside. “I’m sorry.” I stood up, my hands clasped onto the shoulder strap of my bag like it was a life preserver. “I guess I’m just not very good with people.” At least that was the truth.

Miri leaned toward me and linked her arm through mine so she could pull me closer for a conspiratorial whisper. “Dean Nelson told me about your family—I totally get it.”

My first reaction was to jerk away—she knew about my family! But then I noticed: shining eyes, slight smile, a human classroom. None of it a threat. There was no threat.

“You know,” she said, escorting me out of the room and down the hall, “royalty and all?”

Oh.

Oh.

“But don’t worry,” she hurried to add, “I won’t tell anyone—not if you don’t want me to.”

We walked arm in arm, while I concentrated on acting like this was totally normal, like every part of me wasn’t urging me to break away, to get away from her touch. Miri’s high, light voice ran in a steady narration of the school, the people we passed and what it must be like to be a real live princess (I’m pretty sure my experience in Hell wouldn’t meet her expectations). I had a hard time concentrating—I was reminded of Hell and the way the crowds would sweep past me as I cut a swath through the middle. It seemed things weren’t so different after all.

Until someone brushed against my shoulder.

Fire shattered my usual cold calm and I gasped, my feet stumbling. I gripped my arm and looked around for the person who could make me feel—not exactly pain, but something—like that. The broad back of a tall-ish boy wove into the crowd in front of me—the same boy who I couldn’t get a read on in class. His shaggy brown curls, only barely meeting the school code, bobbed and disappeared in the sea of students.

The fire gave way to need—I needed to know that boy. Needed to know who could make me feel that warmth—who, with just a touch, could break through the defenses that even Akaros had never been able to breach.

“Are you okay?” Miri asked, peering into my face. Up close I could see the fogginess in her eyes, and smell her spearmint gum that didn’t quite mask the alcohol on her breath.

I opened my mouth, but couldn’t find the words. I nodded instead. After a brief pause, we resumed our trek to our next class and Miri continued her commentary.

I didn’t pay any attention to her words. My mind was occupied on a minefield sweep—hunting for any reference to the boy and his effect on me. But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t avoid the feeling that he was the boy from my dream—even though I knew that was completely ridiculous.

The thought that he might be here, someone I couldn’t control, couldn’t discern any of his weaknesses or shortcomings, filled me with dread. I hated the power being the devil’s daughter afforded me—but this feeling of helplessness, the complete absence of power? I didn’t like that at all.