The next day began much the same as the one before. Reece came in looking like she was disappointed in who I was as a person, and I replied with equal surliness. She laid out my clothes for the day and placed the makeup and hair supplies on the desk, but when she was done arranging, she stood by the door and refused to offer any further help.

She must have considered it her 'act of rebellion', but that suited me just fine. I slipped on the outfit, opted for absolutely no makeup, ran a brush through my hair, and called it good.

As I was turning for the door, she spoke for the first time.

"You are going to have to start preparing yourself with greater care," she said.

I turned back to face her. "You wear bracers and leather boots," I replied, gesturing my hand towards her.

"I'm not the sole heir to the Dareship," she said. Her eyes were hard.

Maybe that’s why she dislikes me so much, I thought, pondering the idea. Is she jealous?

I replayed our previous conversations, and it seemed to track. The idea made my stomach churn with unrest. If she was jealous of my position, she'd played the enthusiastic fangirl well, and she could be still stringing me along in a different way. That all implied a certain degree of duplicity that I didn't like, and as I left the room, I felt the hairs on the back of my head stand on end. Maybe she wasn't as harmless as I'd originally thought.

Breakfast offered similar hostilities. I opted to sit beside Annora instead of Ace, but that turned out to be a fruitless venture. Annora was silent in her anger, but Ace arrived after I was seated, smirked, and chose the seat next to mine, much to my displeasure.

"I thought you sat down there," I grumbled. His face was a present and irritating reminder of my botched escape attempt and the embarrassing fainting incident that had followed. I knew now why Rosamund disliked him. He was manipulative and incorrigibly arrogant.

As if to prove my point, he laughed at my comment. "We don't have assigned seats."

Of course not, I thought, chiding myself. I had inadvertently situated myself between two people who I absolutely did not want to talk to and felt like an idiot for doing so. I had created my own personal torture, and I internally branded it "Club Jackaninny" for lack of a better idea.

Ace kept trying to bother me, but I chose to stare down at my plate and wait for breakfast to arrive. When it did, the situation improved tenfold. Ace didn't suddenly become a better human, and Annora hadn't stopped looking at me with a steady gaze of icy disappoint, but the food smelled like heaven and beauty and all things wonderful.

There were fresh breakfast meats, warm spiced bread, and a colorful assortment of fruit all piled on the plate. The fruit juice—oh, the fruit juice—was some combination of otherworldly flavors that tasted like the harmonious blend of a perfect Georgia peach and a fresh Floridian orange and a delicious handful of Mexican strawberries. I wasn't exactly sure what the combination was, but it seemed perfect. After I downed the glass, I looked up from my food heaven and caught Annora's eye.

"What is this?" I asked, unable to resist my curiosity. It was so, so good. I needed to know for when I went home.

She looked over at me, her lips drawn in a tight, flat line. She clearly wasn't happy about my escape attempt, but I refused to feel remorse. "It's peach, mango, and Colu berry."

I nodded, feeling the same wave of confusion that had come before when I'd recognized words I shouldn't. "As in the Colu Forest?" I murmured to myself. I felt Elise's bookmark grown heavy in my pocket, and I fished it free.

The tree at the top. I stared down at it. When we'd engrave the bookmark with Auntie's machine, I'd added that image at the bottom to make the bookmark prettier. It was supposed to be a tree from Auntie's book. A Colu tree. The scraggly tree was dotted with berries just as I remembered.

I went to stuff the metal bookmark back into my pocket, but Annora caught my wrist.

"What is that?" She whispered. She kept her eyes up to avoid drawing attention, but Ace seemed to take note. I caught him watching out of the corner of my eye.

I pulled my wrist free and shoved the bookmark back into my pocket. I didn't want her to know. It was an undeniable instinct. After everything that had happened over the last few days, I wasn't sure I could trust her.

She'd expected me to know nothing of Roanoke, so she couldn't know about Auntie's stories. Or, at least, she couldn't know that I'd grown up hearing them. I had no idea what Auntie's bedtime stories meant—if anything—but I had to protect them as best I could. So, I said nothing but a quiet "it's mine" and went back to eating.

I felt something nudge my leg a few minutes later and looked down to see Ace surreptitiously tapping me with his foot under the table. I looked up and glared.

He pretended to frown.

I smiled coldly back. I wanted nothing to do with him, so I tapped my chair twice to descend. I had nearly made it to the door when I heard him behind me.

"Are you still pouting?" He asked.

I spun to the sound of his voice, casting a glance up at the table. The breakfast was coming to a close, but I was one of the first to leave. Many were still engaged in conversation, and none seemed to take note of our discussion happening below them. Still, I dropped my voice. "I am not pouting. I'm angry. You strung me along like a child, and then you nearly got me killed!"

I expected him to smirk again (his default expression), but instead, he took on an analytical expression that I couldn't quite pin down. It still definitely had some smirk elements to it though. "I suppose that is rather congruent with what I did. Still, think about how much fun we had!"

"Before or after that bird tried to kill us?" I asked with a surly drawl.

"The phoenix was never after you," he said, waving off my concern with one gloved hand. "It was a phoxa—a mother phoenix. It was only attacking because it sensed a male"—he gestured grandly to himself—"near its nest. I tried to warn you."

"How did you know when it would attack?"

"Phoxa are nocturnal creatures," he explained. "They wake at the appearance of the first night star. You could set your clock to it."

I nodded along, trying to process and store interesting information. There was so much to learn about this weird world. But getting home had to supercede that.

"Regardless, you manipulated me and made me feel like a fool. I would rather not speak to you for the duration of my stay." I smiled contemptuously, making it clear that I was not being sarcastic by any measure of the word.

He smiled back with undeterred playfulness. "Very well," he walked closer as he passed, leaning in to add. "I will see you this afternoon, Gwyn."

Arrogant pard. 

How are y’all doing? I hope well! We’ve gotten to the point where I’m going to transition from daily updates to updating twice a week. From here on out, updates will be every Monday and Friday. Stay tuned Friday to see what adventures the rest of the day has in store.

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-MM