I nodded.
‘But he’s second in line to the throne. What on earth is he doing here?’
I shrugged, but having already embarked on the truth, knew it would be as good a time as any to reveal the rest.
‘He said he wants to avoid the press. He’s staying with the duke and duchess of Victoria.’ I took a deep breath. ‘And they have bought a property on Dartmoor.’
The two of them exchanged worried looks, before turning to me. I didn’t have much in common with my parents, but this was something we were united in: we didn’t want the Athenea anywhere near.
‘And I asked him not to, but he also revealed at school that we’re the duchy of England.’ That wasn’t strictly true. Only I was the duchy, but as I was underage and my father managed my finances, he was able to use it as a courtesy title.
This was all too much for him. He slumped against the banister, burying his face in his hands. My mother guided him towards a sofa in the living room and I took the chance to escape. I didn’t feel much pity for them. They didn’t want the Athenea here either, but they didn’t have to deal with them like I did.
When I got to my room I stripped out of my clothes and found my longest nightie, pairing it with a pair of thick socks. Despite the warm clothes and the hot radiator, I was still cold.
‘Inceandia,’ I murmured, and an oval flame sprang to life in my palms. Removing them, I let it float and grow into an orb in mid-air, warming my room in seconds.
I watched its solid, unflickering mass as Fallon’s words came back to me. Impulsively, I waved my hand and the flame was snuffed out. Hearing a curse in Sagean escape my lips I threw myself face down on the bed, pummelling the mattress until the tears began to seep across the pillow.
It was the sound of grunts that first reached my ears: rhythmic, unbroken and oblivious to the whimpers that began to emerge as an echo.
It’s just a dream, I told myself as the scene gradually came into a blurry focus, pillars disappearing into the darkness as I moved towards the source of sound, though really I wished to get as far away as possible.
Two trees stood close together like prison bars, and between them I could see the outline of a figure, grotesque and hunch-backed with the hair and skirts of a woman; it was from this creature, thrusting itself against the tree, attacking it, that the sounds came.
Shards of bark floated to the ground like sawdust as its pale skin met with the trunk, drops of blood joining them from a set of fingertips drooping towards the forest floor.
But as I slipped between the two trees, I realized the horrible truth that the gloom had concealed.
It was not one figure, but two: a man with his back to me, hunched over the collapsing form of a woman, her torn skirts bunched up around her thighs; it was onto her, and not the tree, that he forced himself.
I circled them, trying to move closer but never managing to close the distance. Instead, she came into sharper focus, and I could see how her hair was so dark it neared black, and how her eyes shone a disturbingly familiar colour: violet, glossy because she sobbed.
The rest of her face was in shadow. But I could hear her pain. I closed my own eyes, wishing to blot away their forms with darkness, but their outlines were burned onto the back of my eyelids. Only then did it occur to me to scream. And I did. A horrific, dreadful, spine-chilling scream that was not my own as it chased around empty hallways, echoing.
I woke to the sound of the whistling kettle downstairs. Though my clock read seven, I did not move. Another one. Worse this time. I closed my eyes, trying to merge the dark and tangled curling hair of the woman I had just seen with the straight, sleek hair of the girl whose image I knew to be Violet Lee’s. I hoped it was a struggle because they were not one and the same.
I knew there was no way I could face school. Sliding out of bed and pulling a dressing gown on, I approached my mirror to see what damage needed to be done. Not much. I look awful. My eyes were already puffy – I must have been crying in the night – and my nose and cheeks were red raw from the cold the evening before. My hair, too, was a mess.
Shuffling into the kitchen, I saw my parents unpacking papers from files. I continued shuffling towards the fridge, allowing my slippers to screech against the tiled flooring. I contemplated adding a cough for effect, but my father was already blocking my way; hand on my forehead, feeling my temperature.
‘You’re freezing, Autumn.’ He took another look at me. ‘I think you should stay home from school. You must have caught a chill from being out in that rain yesterday.’ Out of the corner of my eye I could see my mother narrowing her own eyes.
I knew I should put up some sort of protest myself for authenticity. ‘But Father—’
‘No disagreeing. Just blame the mean prince for it all,’ he joked, but his eyes, also puffy, told the real story. He bent down to kiss the top of my head and turned me by my shoulders so I faced the hallway again. ‘Now back to bed with you.’
They were going out for the day and as soon as I heard the front door shut, I changed into fresh clothes and cleaned away the smudged leftover make-up from under my eyes. Then I curled up on my window seat and watched the people who lived on my road beginning their days, shifting dustbins around, starting cars and herding schoolchildren along the pavement. Opposite, the fisherman’s son threw lobster pots into the back of his truck, stamping his cigarette out with his boot.
‘You were right, Fallon Athenea,’ I whispered. ‘I do want to live as a human.’
It took a lot of willpower to go into work the next day. But I knew that having to cancel for my detention had put me on very thin ice with my employer, and it was the only café on the harbour willing to take on a Sagean teenager.
The air was still damp and speckled with rain, but I walked into town anyway. The bus wasn’t an option as I was running low on money – I had no access to my wealth without my parents’ permission; they certainly weren’t going to give me an allowance – and I needed what I had left for the bus to and from school if the weather turned bad again.
As I walked, I passed the newsagents and paused, scanning the headlines of the tabloids and local newspapers. There wasn’t even as much as a hint about the Athenea, and royals would have made the front page. I had already checked the broadsheets at breakfast. Again, there had been nothing. The injunctions are working so far then.
The closed sign was still up on the door when I got to the café. Inside, my boss glowered at me from where she sat working out pay slips and all was quiet behind the counter. I lowered my eyes and hoped she was angry because I had missed work for my detention, and not because of what had happened last time I had a shift.
Sophie was working again and when I entered the kitchen she backed behind Nathan.
There were no pleasantries this morning.
