Page 57 of Seas the Reckoning

“What!” she starts to stand, puts a hand to her head, seems to think better of it, and lowers herself once more. “I just found out about the curse, but I didn’t even notice the crest. I wasn’t looking at the top of his doorframe. I was too busy keeping my eye on my father and keeping up my own act.”

“And it worked?”

She scoffs.

“Enough. He’s suspicious by nature, but he was flustered tonight, and he was more than ready to believe—or at least pretend to believe—my desire to align myself with a ‘good’ family. A powerful man who could protect me. One of the duds he’s foisted on me.”

“Who did you choose?” I ask.

She twists her face, sticking out her tongue before answering.

“Piers. You’ll remember him from our breakfast. Tall and slender, hooked nose, which he loves to look down on people from. Incredibly well-connected. Disgustingly rich. Properties in a dozen different countries. And, most importantly to my dad, a very powerful warlock. It was a no-brainer.”

“You’re sure the councilman believed you?”

“I put on the water works. I thought it would be harder, but I just let all my frustration over being stuck and feeling trapped here boil over into angry tears that he mistook for fear. Told him I was wising up to needing protection and threw in a few, short snippets of what I’d been through in Carolina Beach. I know he’s already gotten the bullet points from Grammy, but I think the reminder helped. Made it seem more likely that I was terrified of ending up in danger again.”

Starla rolls her eyes, even though I for one find that to be a very valid concern.

My intrusive thoughts, shockingly silent up to now with all the wild information I’ve learned this evening, choose this moment to surface.

She could be. What if Piers hears about her fake intentions and tries to take her? What if he’s angry at her deceit and responds like Seymour and his four wives?

“Oh shut up!”

“Not me, right?” she asks.

I sigh.

“No, not you. Never you. You’re my best friend.”

She smiles but sniffles again, her eyes watering.

“Even though my great-great-grandmother cursed yours? Cursed you! It’s our fault your magic has been slowly draining you. Our fault you could get hurt, or that others could get hurt, because of it. I learned that lovely tale in my father’s study as well. What a night.”

Neither grandmother was even remotely worth meeting, as far as I’m concerned. Two terrible people.

“How did you find out?” she asks.

I’d like to ask the same. Engagements to curses is quite the jump to have made in her conversation with the councilman, but I don’t mind going first. I give a quick recap of the scene in the hallway with Seymour and the Ender.

Starla’s blue eyes spark.

“Seymour is someone I’m familiar with. The accountant was constantly slinking around after my father during my visits. I had thought he was becoming too interested in me, the last time I was here before I officially joined Grammy’s coven. My father firmly put distance between Seymour and me.”

“You think he may have known what kind of man his accountant was?”

She puts her head in her hands.

“It wouldn’t surprise me. And the crest? Maybe it’s some sort of secret network. Either way, all signs point to Azriel Taylor being involved with the people who almost killed us! Multiple times! My father is the worst.”

She stands, stomping the ground.

“I’d like to dig that old witch ancestor of mine up and bury her again. This is too much. It’s more messed up than traffic on the first day of tourist season.”

“A truly scathing insult,” I say.

She sits back down, holding her head in a hand once more.