Lux (The Nocte Trilogy, #3)(16)

“They taste awful,” I say defensively.

My mother looks sympathetic, but she is still firm.

“Calla, do you know that if you’d been born even a hundred years ago, you’d be the village lunatic? You’d run raving your madness down the streets and no one would be able to help you. But since we have the benefits of modern medicine now, you’re going to be able to live a completely normal life. Don’t piss that away, my darling.”

Her voice is kind, which softens the sharpness of her words, words in which I can hear the striking influence of my grandmother Eleanor. Mom bends to hug my shoulders, and I inhale Chanel and cashmere. I want to cling to her, to linger in her thin arms, but I know that’s impossible. She’s got a lot to do. She always does when we’re at Whitley.

She pulls away and pushes her shoulders back, looking at my brother.

“Finn, I want you to come to town with me today. Father Thomas wants to speak with you about being an altar boy.”

I giggle at the look on Finn’s face because we hate mass.

Absolutely without any kind of equivocation.

Hate.

It’s so gloom-filled and harsh, so repetitive and boring.

I know Finn wants to be an altar boy about as much as I want to take my meds every day, but he obediently disappears with my mother and Dare and I are left alone. He looks away from me almost pointedly, and I feel cold because of it.

“What do you want to do today?” I ask him, shivering, my fingers tracing out the design of the elaborate oriental rug beneath me.

Dare looks away. “Nothing.”

He’s stretched out in a window seat, his head resting against the glass. He stares aimlessly at the grounds he’s been forbidden from.

I refuse to take no for an answer, because I’m bored, because I know he’s bored, and because if we don’t get out of this stuffy house, I might die.

“Wanna go out to the garden?” I ask hopefully. “Sabine put new koi in one of the ponds. We can go feed them.”

“You know I’m not supposed to,” Dare tells me roughly, without even looking in my direction.

“Since when do you care about that?” I ask him in confusion, and I see that his hands are curled into fists at his sides. What in the world? We’d only arrived here two weeks ago for the summer, but Dare has been acting like a completely different person than he was last summer, more subdued, quieter. I don’t like it.

“I care about it today,” he snaps, and I’m hurt by his tone. He’s so abrupt, so…mean.

“What’s wrong with you?” I whisper, almost afraid to know because he seems like he’s angry with me, like he doesn’t like me anymore.

His fist seems to shake as it rests against his leg, his face pale as he so adamantly avoids looking at me.

Finally, he sighs and turns his face, his dark eyes meeting my own.

“Look, Calla,” he says tiredly. “You’re just a kid, so you don’t get it. I’m not the same as you. If I mess up, I pay for it. It’s not worth it to do what I want anymore. It’s easier to just do what they say. It doesn’t matter anyway. None of it will matter.”

The complete look of resignation on Dare’s face startles me, because that’s never been him. He’s always been rebellious his whole life. He’s always given me hope, he’s always made me believe that my opinion matters, that my dreams matter, that anything is possible.

But now?

He looks so sad and alone and hopeless.

“Don’t say that,” I tell him. “Of course it matters. You can do what you want to do. You don’t have to listen to them.”

“Don’t I?” His question is soft. “Did anyone ask me to be an altar boy like Finn? No. Because I don’t matter, because my last name is DuBray and not Savage. I only matter that I have a purpose, and that purpose isn’t going to be good for me. I’m a lost cause, Calla, and they know it.”

He’s right about that.

I’ve heard them whispering. Just last night, I heard Grandmother Eleanor and my mother whispering in the shadows.

Should we bring in another tutor?

I don’t see the point.

It’s all for nothing. Richard is right.

I’d wanted to spring out of bed and confront them, because they weren’t being fair.

Yes, Dare bucks the rules. But why shouldn’t he? Richard is horrible to him for no reason. His rules are too strict, too impossible, and any other kid Dare’s age would rebel. It doesn’t make him a lost cause.

It’s too unfair for words.

And now Dare’s new despondent attitude?

It’s too much.

“Get up,” I announce, walking toward him and grabbing his hand. I yank him until he has to get up, and then I pull him toward the door.

“Let’s ride into town.”

That’s against all the rules and we both know it. If we got caught, we’d be in serious trouble, both of us. Dare’s not supposed to leave the house, but I’m not supposed to leave the grounds. It’s forbidden.

Dare starts to shake his head automatically, but I hold up my hand.

“Are you scared of them?”

He pauses and I’m delighted to see an old familiar gleam in his eyes.

There it is.

The Dare Me stare.