Chapter 749

"Oh, you keep it," she says, holding up a hand. "It's good to see you drink something."

I nod and look around for a minute, continuing to sip from the cup. "Where is Mittens?" I whisper, intuiting that he's a secret.

"He's been hiding," Daphne says, unable to keep the little smile from her lips as she pulls back the blankets a little bit to reveal the little cat curled in her lap. "He's very good at it, unsurprisingly."

I reach out a finger and stroke it over his tiny head a few times, enjoying the soft shadowy feel of the tiny cat. Daphne and I silent for a long, peaceful few moments.

"Are you okay, Ari?" Daphne whispers, breaking it. But I don't begrudge her that I know she's worried. "I mean, I know you're not - I just - these past few days."

"I know," I whisper, opening my eyes a little and looking down at my cup. "A few days ago I had...all of them. And now Tony is gone. And Luca is..." my lip trembles and my throat seizes up. Daphne squeaks sadly and moves closer to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and tilting me a little so that I lean against her.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up," she whispers.

"It's okay," I sigh. "I mean, it's kind of the only thing on my mind anyway."

"Oh good!" mom says, beaming as she bustles into the room in her own fancy robe. "You're up! Now we can get started with step 2!"

"What's that?" I ask, frowning at her. "What was step 1?"

"Step 1 was making sure you survive," mom says, plopping down on the bed and leaning close to give me a kiss. "Step 2 is feeding you! And also distracting you from your woe."

I groan a little, wanting to hold onto my woe a little bit. I don't know why - maybe it's just...the only thing that feels real. "What's step 3? Can we skip right to that?"

"Step 3," mom says cheerfully, "is -"

"Bloody revenge."

We all spin to see Cora leaning in the doorway, grinning at us a little deviously. I laugh - I can't help it. "You have many options, baby," Cora says, coming close and stroking a hand over my hair. "We can skin him alive, or we can cut his toes off and make him eat them, or we can -"

"Oh my god," I say, looking at my aunt with wide eyes. "You've...thought about this."

"Yeah, well," she sighs. "You've been asleep a long time, kid. What else were we going to do?"

I look around in shock at my three lovely defenders and can't help smiling again when mom and Daphne just shrug, like Cora's precisely right.

"Oh, revenge later," I say with a sigh. "Now...can we have wine? And maybe...more ice cream? Without the sleep meds this time?"

"The perfect medicine," mom murmurs, pressing a kiss to my cheek. "I knew I raised you right."

A few hours later, my skin is buffed, my hair has gone through four treatments that have left it shiny and lustrous, and my nails are a pretty blushing pink. I'm also about four

glasses of wine deep and houret

exclusively eaten bowl after bowl of ice cream today, so my mind is sufficiently unable to mope as much as it would if I stayed back at the castle. Deep down, I'm very grateful for my mom knowing precisely what to do. noveldrama

I mean nothing is fixed, and nothing has changed. But my soul has been wrapped in a comfortable quilt of pampering girly things, and honestly, I'm the best I could be right now. I mean, it's not good but...I am comfortable.

Mom. She really does know.

"This is a shame," I say with a sigh, looking at my fingernails as I sit with my three companions on the wide plush couch in our sunny suite. "I'm going to have to take this off before I go back to school."

"Screw it," Cora says, taking a big bite of a pretzel slathered in mustard. "Boys can wear nail polish too." She returns the half-finished pretzel to the wide coffee table, which is predictably covered in food. "Not little shrimpy ones who are trying to convince people that they're not a girl."

"I wonder how much of your secret is intact though," Daphne says, frowning at me a little, her voice gentle. "After Rafe carried you...pretty naked through the halls.

"I had a blanket," I growl, snatching a wrapped piece of candy off the table and throwing it at her.

Daphne grins. "And no hat. What mystery, a girl in Rafe Sinclair's arms with a pretty rose-gold braid arching over her head -"

"Oh, shut up, they saw that in the Examination too and they're all too stupid to figure it out. Or, at least too scared to say anything."

Mom beams at me, I think pleased

to see that I'm feeling well enough to

be cheeky, "You okay, baby?" she asks, soft The first time, really, that

she's invited me to talk about it Which must mean she thinks I'm

strong enough to talk about it now.