Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(40)

The first thing I remembered learning from my parents was, Never let your guard down. Taught with the sting of a conjured electric zap up my four-year-old arm at random moments when my attention strayed too far from the adults in the room.

Another early lesson had been, Hold your own counsel. I wasn’t going to ask her why she was calling either. She’d tell me when she was good and ready. Impatience looked like weakness.

“I trust your studies are going well,” my mother said, a cursory formality.

“I haven’t heard any complaints.”

“I understand you’ve had some chance to acquaint yourself with the recovered Bloodstone scion.”

There was the motivation behind this call. My gaze lingered on the view from my window across campus toward the lake. The rippling water reflected the pink haze of the sunset. On the other side of this floor in her own corner bedroom, Rory Bloodstone might be looking at nearly the exact same view right now.

Rory fucking Bloodstone, who kept throwing her preference for the pompous joymancers in the rest of our faces. Even this morning, she’d fought me. For what? For the pricks who’d slaughtered her real parents and Declan’s mom, who’d left my grandfather with a twisted scar instead of an eye before I was born, who’d fucked up Dad’s last big business venture, all of that no doubt with self-satisfied smiles plastered on their faces?

Cracking down on us every way they could, just as vicious as they accused us of being. At least we could own what we were. If Rory could have brought all her grit and fire to our side… But no, we obviously weren’t quite there yet.

“I have,” I agreed, slinging one foot over the other.

My mother had probably heard at least a few details of my clashes with Glinda the good witch. My family made sure to have at least a few staff members in their pocket at any important fearmancer institution, and if some of the witnesses had dished the dirt with their parents, as girls like Victory always did, word would have passed along through those channels too.

She cleared her throat meaningfully. “Are you sure this feud you’ve encouraged is the wisest approach? We need her ear—we need her to follow our lead once she’s among the barons, or we’ll never get anything done.”

As if I hadn’t heard her and Dad complaining about that enough times to know that. “You’ve managed for seventeen years without a proper Bloodstone baron on hand,” I had to point out.

“We’ve been forced to delay policies we’d have liked to move forward with thanks to the uncertainty about her fate. We’re tired of waiting. You’ll have to deal with her even longer than we will.”

I was the one already dealing with Rory’s irritatingly stubborn ass and the power she managed to pull out of it at the most frustrating moments.

“I started with an offer of friendship,” I said. “She threw it in my face. All that time with the joymancers screwed up her priorities. She’ll come around. I’ve been breaking her down. It shouldn’t be much longer now before she comes begging for mercy and forgiveness.”

I wasn’t going to talk about the defiance that had been etched on Rory’s face when we’d stared each other down this morning or the tiny chink in my armor she’d managed to strike me through. She just hadn’t learned yet that hitting back at me meant I was going to come down on her twice as hard next time.

“A cowed ally is certainly easier to mold than one on equal footing,” my mother said. “See if you can’t hurry the process up, though, won’t you?”

“If you or Dad think you can do a better job of it, you’re welcome to drop by and take a shot at her yourselves,” I said dryly.

My mother’s tone turned acidic. “Surely we can rely on you to accomplish this one small task without assistance?”

“I said I’m on it, didn’t I?” My fingers tightened around the phone.

I should have been able to answer this call with triumph after this morning’s exhibition. I should have been able to report that I’d reduced the Bloodstone heir to a sobbing mess and then hooked her with a promise of redemption on my terms. But no. Even after I’d had Rory dancing to my orders, she still thought she was better than us. She still thought she could win.

“I hope to hear a more productive report soon, then,” my mother said. “Your father would love to see you assert your leadership where it counts.”

My stomach balled at the words. Didn’t he see how much I was living out the principles he’d taught me? Maybe he’d be more satisfied with me if “where it counts” hadn’t proven to be a constantly moving target that the two of them kept shifting out of reach.

There would be a day, before it was time for me to take over as baron, when he’d look at me and I’d be able to see in his eyes that he was finally totally convinced his heir could fill his footsteps.

When I’d hung up the phone, I tossed it on my desk. The sky outside had deepened to purple, the lake echoing it. The color of a bruise.

The joymancers must have broken something in Rory for her to resist the natural instincts we all had so persistently. She thought she could prove the sanctimonious jackasses right if she beat us. We’d just have to break her all over ahead so we could put her back together right.

So she could be the marvel I’d caught glimpses of behind the front she put on, infuriating but so fucking tantalizing.