Usually when I need to clear my head, I run the mountain trail that snakes up from the southern wall of the Sanctuary. But I really do need to get my back-up katana into shape, so I’m set up under the canopy of Nathaniel’s ancient apple tree, the one trying to punch its way through the Sanctuary walls. It’s early autumn, and the tree is heavy with leaves and waxy fruit. Patches of sunlight filter through, casting abstract patterns on the grass. It’s quiet, peaceful. Perfect.
To sharpen a katana properly takes weeks of concentrated effort—I’d never have the patience for it—but a few hours of working a blade over a whetstone is enough to freshen the steel and usually enough to clear out the cobwebs.
Not today.
I’ve been sitting here on my mat for half an hour and I haven’t progressed beyond preparing the whetstone. I keep getting lost in random fantasies involving Rafa on the training mats. We’re sparring, alone, and when I pin him—
‘What are you smirking about?’
Daisy’s standing in the doorway to the scriptorium, dressed in black leggings and training singlet. I don’t know how long she’s been watching me but I hope she doesn’t see the heat in my cheeks. I should slap myself. I’m blushing over Rafa.
‘Nothing.’ I reach for my sword, check the line even though I haven’t started working the steel yet.
Daisy crosses the courtyard, picks a low-hanging apple on her way. She cradles it under her nose and takes a deep breath. ‘New season apples. Finally.’ She sits cross-legged on the ground opposite me, the bucket of water between us. ‘I hear you had some excitement last night.’
I run the blade over the whetstone, focus on keeping the action smooth and steady. ‘Uh huh.’
‘As did Rafa.’
I wet the steel, keep up my rhythm.
‘Caught on camera for all to see.’
The blade slips off the end of the whetstone. Daisy’s still talking but all I hear is white noise. He filmed us? Blood thunders to my temples and I taste bile. I’m going to throw up. I’m—
‘Are you listening to me?’
I force myself to swallow, breathe, finally look at Daisy. She must be mortified.
‘They were going at it like crazy—’
Wait. They.
‘Who?’
‘Rafa and Mya,’ she says, exasperated. ‘The cameras are working again in the training room. They had no idea they were being filmed.’
Thoughts smash up against each other and it takes a second for her words to take shape. And even then I can’t quite make them fit together properly.
Rafa didn’t film us.
Rafa had sex with Mya in the training room.
Last night.
My stomach twists into a knot. ‘When?’
Daisy shrugs. ‘It can’t have been too long after you two got back from your run-in with Bel and company.’
I need to swallow, but my mouth is too dry. I flash hot, then cold. Rafa had sex with Mya.
Then he had sex with me.
And I’ve been thinking about him all morning.
I scramble to my feet and make it to the edge of the courtyard before I dry retch.
‘Gabe, are you okay?’
I retch again, everything in me straining. The wall is the only thing keeping me upright. I rest my head against the rough stones. Rafa was fresh out of the shower when I went to his room because he’d just been with Mya. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. My fingers are shaking.
‘I must still be concussed.’
Idiot. Idiot. If anyone found out…It’s embarrassing enough that I went there with Rafa, but this…this is humiliating beyond words. It was Mya. And the fact he was with me in the same night won’t faze her. She’ll gloat that she got there first.
‘How badly did you get hurt last night?’
I push down the rage. It fights back, hard. ‘Not badly,’ I lie. ‘Laceration to the neck and a knock to the head, that’s all. I’m fine.’ She looks me over, unconvinced. I haven’t come this close to throwing up in fifty years. I go back to the tree and sit down, force an embarrassed smile. ‘Did you go to San Fran last night?’
She rubs the apple against her t-shirt to polish the mottled skin. ‘Only for an hour or so. Jude was really throwing back the tequila. I offered to shift and sober him up but he wasn’t interested. He wanted to get hammered. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to him rant about Nathaniel and the Five, so I came home.’
‘You left him alone with Mya?’
‘She left not long after Rafa. They were probably slamming hips at that point.’
The image is a sharp jab between my ribs. ‘So she’s lost interest in Jude, then.’ I coax the words out, try to sound normal.
Daisy laughs, bitter. ‘I doubt it. And honestly, if he’s that stupid…’ She takes a vicious bite of her apple. It crunches and snaps and she screws up her face, spits out the mouthful. ‘Ugh.’ She wipes juice from her freckled cheek and tosses the rest of the apple across the courtyard. ‘Nowhere near ripe.’
Even Daisy’s reached the end of her patience with Jude. She’s wanted more than friendship from him for years, but he hasn’t hooked up with another Rephaite for a century. He was the first of us to realise how much drama that could create in a society as small as ours.
Yes. Well.
‘This arguing with Nathaniel,’ Daisy says. ‘It’s got everyone on edge.’
I flick water on my blade. ‘I know.’
She blames Mya for the tension—no faulting her there—but she doesn’t know the decades of buried anger that have preceded Jude’s rebellion. Mya just happens to be a very effective and aggravating catalyst.
‘Nathaniel could answer his questions,’ I say. ‘They’re reasonable enough.’
‘You’re defending Mya?’
‘I’m defending Jude.’
Daisy tucks her hair behind her ears. It’s longer than it’s been for a while, almost to her shoulders, and vibrant red even in the shade. ‘He’s pushing too hard. He needs to pull in his head for a while.’
‘I’m not his keeper.’
‘He listens to you.’
‘Yeah, but I’m not the only one in his ear these days.’
Daisy stands up, dusts off her leggings. ‘I wonder how Jude’s going to feel about Mya and Rafa?’ She picks another apple as she leaves.
I know how I feel about it. I snatch up my sword and go back to work on the whetstone. Pain builds in my head. Blood pounds at my temples.
And I know what I’m going to do about it.
I’m going to fucking kill Rafa.