The Devoted: A Reverse Harem Omnibus (The Devoted Season Book 1)(3)
The tears come, “Yeah? And what if I do? I don’t want to hurt anyone, Da. And I know—the moment I leave home—I’m going to end up hurting someone. Badly.”
I was barely beyond the shop’s threshold and I hurt the Courier. The farther I go, the worse it gets. Somewhere out there, a daevish circles in the sky—a demon I summoned as a girl that I was unable to send back.
“I don’t want to go,” I twist my chin out of his hand and press my eyebrows together, “and that’s final,”
His good eye flickers. Da’s got a business to run and a loan to pay off, and without me getting some sort of certification we both know that this place won’t last long. But I can’t bear to think that I could hurt someone while at the academy. Or worse.
An anxious mew drifts into the kitchenette. As if warning us of his royal presence, Mr. Kitty comes waltzing in with his fluffy orange tail curved high. I drop into a crouch and open my arms to my familiar. He jumps on me and purrs. I rub my face into his soft orange fur.
“I never meant to push you, Lilac,” Da says, his voice soft again, “if that’s what you want, then that’s what you want,” he drops to my height and places a hand on my back, “I’m sorry, Lila,”
Mr. Kitty’s fur stifles my tears. I can’t let Da see me cry, not again.
“Me too,” I murmur.
###
I READ THROUGH THE acceptance letter for the third time tonight, the candlelight burning low as white wax plops into the ceramic bowl at my bedside.
Let me be the very first to welcome you to Firedrake Academy, the letter reads. It is scrawled in curly-q writing as if the thing is entirely handwritten.
I look at Mr. Kitty. He stares back, his eyes hooded. “This is the third time!” His eyes say, “Just go to bed!”
But I can’t.
I am excited to see you join our quarter four batch of novice mages. It has been almost seven years since we’ve seen a mage of your talent crop up in the young adult examinations...
A mage of my talent. The line still makes me smirk. By talent, I’m pretty sure the writer meant penchant for mishaps. What I did to the examiner makes me cringe, though the curve of my lips feels like a smile. Whatever the examiner asked me to conjure, from fire to ice or wind, something always messed up. Either, I lit the examiner’s clipboard on fire, blew her skirts up past her ears in an exasperated attempt at creating a mini-cyclone, or I called ice crystals into her hair and froze it solid.
Not even wispfire could melt that hair-cicle.
I force out a sigh, “Nothing ever goes right!”
Mr. Kitty hisses and lets out a forced meow of his own, “Won’t you stop!” his angry eyes say.
After all of the mistakes...after all of the examiners giving me death glares for outright destroying their robes, for ripping apart their rooms and manhandling their clipboards...how could any magical academy want me? Especially Firedrake—of all places?! I shake my head and toss the letter onto my bedside table, careful not to set the stupid thing aflame.
There must be some mistake.
I toss and turn. The flame dies by itself and darkness swallows me whole. A little orange light flickers beneath my door and I wait for footsteps, for running water—for anything that’ll help me forget that this letter ever came and get some sleep.
Low murmurs creep beneath my door. Low rumbles. Dad’s voice.
“No—don’t...look, I’m sorry. There won’t be anyone taking over...”
I squint. There won’t be anyone taking over what?
And who could he be talking to at this hour? Upstairs of all places?
I roll out of bed. My lavender quilt hits Mr. Kitty’s chubby face and he tumbles onto his tummy. I lower myself against the door and press my ear to it.
“...you don’t think I know that, Uri? I’ll make the money back...plus interest. Of course, always with the interest...”
Uri? I’m squinting so hard that I give myself a headache. I’m not sure who Uri is, but from time to time a man in a pinstripe suit does visit Dad. Whenever the guy leaves, Dad always looks a couple years older with slumped shoulders and a defeated demeanor. The guy never pays any attention to me, which I always find to be kind of strange. People have to be aware of me. If they aren’t, they could end up getting hit with some haywire magic.
Plus, people in this town don’t really trust me.
“...you can’t do that!”
I open the door a smidge. Soft orange light curves down the hallway and into the sliver of an open door. I poke my head out and quickly scan the hallway.
“You know you can’t! I’m not dead yet!”
His office door isn’t even closed. The third door on the left is wide open, his slippers carelessly tossed to the side like an old sack of rotten potatoes. The floor moans. Da’s pacing. Thinking.
I creep up the hallway and flatten my back against the wall nearby.
“Listen, Uri, you’ll get your money when you get your money. You have to understand—it takes at least a year for a new business to turn a profit! Not twelve days! No—you listen to me—she is not a factor in this equation. She’ll marry someone whose certified and you’ll get your money back—!”
My chest twinges. Firedrake’s acceptance letter reappears in my mind’s eye. I knew dad took out a loan to turn the first floor into a shop. But what do I have to do with any of that?