“What?” Inara continues. “Darkling got your tongue?”
Reina and the others laugh at Inara’s stupid joke. Everyone except Kimber, who’s feline gold eyes watch me through her veil. Once upon a time, I thought she and I could be friends.
She looks away from my pleading stare, making it clear how naive that notion was.
Inara nods at Mack. “Aw, look. It’s your bestie.” Inara’s focus flickers over Reina. “Is this the girl you told me about? The one who was rude to you?” as pregnant with a Fae child, what both Fae and mortals cruelly call a dirty-blood.
Evelyn never once mentioned dating a Fae or even liking one.
We enter the courtyard, and I search the throng of students. Each time I find a Fae male, I scour them for signs that they fathered Evelyn’s child.
Which is dumb. It’s not like the Fae who impregnated Evelyn is going to be wearing a shirt that says, Baby Daddy, on it.
“Fae’s teeth, is that for . . . us?” Mack asks.
I follow her wide-eyed stare to linen-draped tables brimming with trays of food and refreshments. Shadows have already started tentatively filling their plates.
Jace groans. “Oh, God, I smell real coffee. Could it be a trick?”
“It’s definitely a trick, right?” I swallow, remembering the hazing from last year. This feels wrong, somehow. There’s no way the Fae are suddenly being nice to us.
“It’s because of her,” Richard points out, nodding to a woman standing near the tables, clipboard in hand. The woman has a pinched face, frosted blonde hair in need of a touch-up, and a dark suit. “She’s a censor from The CMH. They’re everywhere on campus.”
I’d nearly forgotten that the Council for the Mistreatment of Humans opened an investigation into the school. Perhaps with the added scrutiny, no one will die this year.
The skeptical shrew inside me cackles at this absurd idea, but . . . the promise of spending our second year with access to basic human rights lingers.
As Mack sends Thornilia off with her backpack to organize her locker, we line up behind the others, all of us chattering excitedly.
Two plates of chocolate croissants later, I slide in next to Mack at a picnic table. Richard, Jace, Layla, and a few others crowd in next to us.
Mack eyes my mountain of deliciousness. “Afraid they’d run out or something?”
I snort, taking in her measly banana and tiny bowl of oatmeal before offering her a croissant. “Here, your mouth will thank me.”
I prepare for an epic response, like that’s what she said. Instead, Mack’s lips press together. “No, thanks.”
Jace arches an eyebrow as we share a look.
“You can eat that stuff because you’re tall and burning like a zillion calories in your extra workouts,” she adds with a pout, “but some of us can’t afford to.”
“Afford to? Since when do you care about that?”
Jace snatches the pastry I was offering Mack and takes a bite. “Since we became second years. That’s when they start measuring us.”
“Measuring what? Students?” I nearly spit out my mouthful of yum, sure I misheard him. “Like cattle?”
“Darling, we’re part of an elite group of mortals who represent the most beautiful creatures in existence. That responsibility comes with impossibly high standards. Didn’t you have to fill out your measurements on the application along with your picture?”
And . . . that explains why everyone here is abnormally gorgeous. I stare at my hands, covered in chocolate, unsure how to answer.
I forget sometimes that not everyone knows my enrollment story. Which is way darker than the rags-to-riches tale the academy peddles.
Mack drags her stare away from my plate and sighs. “I had to lie on my application. Only a few inches but you don’t get into Evermore Academy with these curves.”
And just when I thought I couldn’t possibly hate the Fae any more.
Mack was promised to the Fae since birth, part of the bargain her dads made when they used Fae magic to influence her adoption.