Wayward by Hannah Mathewson

Author:Hannah Mathewson [Mathewson, Hannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan Books

20

Cassia was going to kill him.

Ollivan would clearly disagree, but she had thought being in this mess together meant actually sharing what they knew. If something happened to Ollivan during whatever dangerous thing he planned to do that night, how would they ever stop Violet? He was the only one who knew the enchantment well enough to unravel it.

“I won’t let him do this.” She looked up at Sybella, who was wearing an expression of greedy curiosity. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just learning what it must be like to have him as a brother. Thank the stars my sister isn’t yet a year old. I would hate to have to loathe her as you must Ollivan.” She gave a small sigh. “Well. I have one thousand things to do and must be getting on.”

“What? But we have to… stop him. Or help him.”

Sybella raised an eyebrow. “Well, which is it?”

Cassia didn’t know. She had expected stopping Violet to take her beyond the bounds of her respectable life, and maybe that meant letting Ollivan be Ollivan. But not if it got him killed and left Cassia holding the gun. She needed to get to where he was going tonight, and she needed help.

But Sybella was shaking her head before she could speak. “I helped him revoke his banishment,” she said. “I didn’t know what a truly terrible idea that would turn out to be. But it’s done, and I helped, and if any of it gets out because his attack doll has run rampant across the Heart, I shall be very upset. That’s why I came up here to tell you both about the Psi man, but now I’m done. I won’t be involved any more.”

She swept towards the door, her curls bouncing and her skirt swaying with her steps. Sybella moved as if she had never stumbled; as if the only way she could end up on the floor was if it were to come to her. Cassia envied her confidence.

“What would you have done?” she called before Sybella reached the door. “When you were together?”

“What would I have done?” She gave a laugh. “It’s not a woman’s job to keep a man out of trouble if that’s where he chooses to be.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Cassia tried to channel the other girl as she crossed the space between them. “Didn’t you used to love him? Weren’t you ever afraid he would push my grandfather too far? Or get hurt?”

Sybella’s boldness faltered. “It wasn’t like that,” she said, her voice like a damning confession. “Back when the escapades were harmless, we were in them together. We used to sit outside cafés and cast glamours to taunt passers-by. Gold coins on the street. Bird droppings on their shoulders.” Cassia could almost see the reflection of memories flicker across her eyes. “I knew when he started spending time with Jasper, but he was always the same old Ollivan around me. We didn’t talk about magic.”

“Never? Magic is all he cares about.

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