I turned on my heel, searching out Avalon. I would let her have this night. I owed Seraphina nothing but revenge, but I knew how terrible the morning would be for her and I had no right to intrude on her last night of entitled happiness. It was time to leave.

Besides, I was suddenly finding it hard to breathe. Everything I had thought so impossible, so unrealistic, might actually be happening. I needed to think. I had to find solitude and silence and prepare myself for change.

And then, I would need to find Amory. I would have to explain.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Avalon pulled into his designated parking spot five minutes early for English. He jumped down from the cab of his monstrous truck and started in for class.

Are you coming? He asked telepathically, without any intention of waiting for me. Ugh. Yes. I grunted and scrambled down from the truck, following Avalon to the English and Arts building.

I dreaded going to class, but I dreaded a lecture from Mr. Lambert about the sins of tardiness even more.

I was tired today. More tired than I should be. But when Amory had come over yesterday announcing that the engagement was actually called off, I had stayed up most of the night, too nervous to sleep.

I hadn't been expecting the proposal to happen instantly, but I knew that it was coming and felt wholly unprepared.

I kept reminding myself that this was the life I wanted. I wanted to marry Kiran. I wanted to be able to change the Kingdom without war. I wanted to be in a position to keep my family safe and stop all of the suffering.

Although I had yet to talk to Kiran about it, I was pretty sure he would be asking me to marry him at any given time. I was the reason that Lucan called off the betrothal, and I was who Lucan was referring to. Wasn't I?

I shuddered, afraid that maybe Kiran wouldn't ask me after all. And then I shuddered again, afraid that he would.

I felt like I was about to be mugged and in the worst way. I knew that it was coming, but had no idea when. The sneak attack element of the whole situation was hard to accept.

"Remember in the human world, when two people liked each other and went out on dates? And it was years before they started talking about marriage and babies?" I mumbled to Lilly, but then realized she was still at home until Lucan left Omaha.

The suspense was turning me into a crazy person.

When Amory arrived yesterday with the news, I dropped and shattered my coffee cup. I had been expecting the announcement for almost twenty-four hours, but the finality of the decision still surprised me.

I winced, remembering Amory's dark eyes and how sad they looked. I asked him if he was disappointed in me. It was obvious that he had been planning something different for my future, but he assured me he was only worried about me.

Still, when he pulled me into a hug, I felt the weight of his sorrow and had to use magic to hold myself together. I felt like a disappointment, even if I wasn't one. I was tormented with the sickening feeling of letting down my brother, grandfather and my closest of friends.

And when I tried to convince myself that not only would I get to be with the one person that my soul belonged to and I loved whole-heartedly, I couldn't help but feel inadequate for the task ahead of me.

I didn't know the first thing about being a Queen. And I certainly didn't know how to reverse thousands of years of racism and prejudice. Or how to protect my family from a King that would still murder them at the first opportunity.

I swallowed hard and leaned against the bathroom door, not ready to face the reality of school or the promise in Kiran's eyes. I had expected a length of years before I would have to deal with any of this and I was now realizing how naive I had been.

The bathroom door suddenly swung opened and I fell through the open space, landing in a heap on the floor.

"Well, look who it is," Seraphina's wind-chimed voice snarled at me from above.

I stood quickly to my feet, the bathroom door slamming behind me once I was out of the way.

"Hello, Seraphina," I said carefully. My heart fell to the pit of my stomach, taking in the sight of her.

Her long blonde hair was limp, tangled and somehow duller. Her eyes were a mess of smudged mascara and swollen, reddened eyes, their once pretty blue, now an unlit cavity of anger. Black streaks stained her pale cheeks and her bee-stung lips were more swollen than usual. Her uniform was wrinkled and untidy, her tights torn and her shirt untucked. She literally looked like the scary movie version of herself and I tried to push down the fear-induced lump in my throat.

"Hello, Eden," she growled, unmoving, and then stood silently staring me down.

"I, um, I.... I should.... Um, I should get to class," I wanted to run from the bathroom screaming, but more than that I wanted to fill the terrifying silence and remove her stare.

"No!" she screamed at me, shaking the glass of the mirrors and rattling the door behind me. "You will leave when I say you can leave." Her voice dropped to a menacing whisper and I let my magic loose in my veins, the electricity igniting my senses.

"What do you want?" I asked with an even tone.

"Don't ask me what I want," she replied, her eyes turning to stone, “You do not want to know what I want."

"That is probably true," I mumbled, finding courage in my magic. The last bell rang in the hallway and I was officially late for English, again. I turned to leave the bathroom, hoping, unreasonably, that she would understand.

"Stop!" she screamed at me and I did. This time the force of her magic shattered all of the glass in the bathroom and I covered my head with my arms to protect myself from flying shards of broken mirror. "You have ruined my life." she accused loudly, "You do not just get to leave. You're going to have to answer for this."

"For what?" I asked innocently, watching her swirl the broken glass around behind her in a dangerous tornado of pointed shrapnel.

"I was supposed to be Queen!" she screamed and a glass dagger broke from her whirlwind and flew at me. I ducked out of the way just in time, and the shard slammed into the brick wall behind me where my head had been, shattering into a million tiny pieces.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I screamed in fear. I didn't know how to act. I could take her down with my magic, but I also felt that she had a right to be mad. I didn't hate her the way she hated me. Just because she was willing to kill me, didn't mean I could do the same.

"Kiran was mine and you took him from me!" she accused and sent another glass dagger soaring through the air, this time at my leg. I moved out of the way, but not soon enough and the glass sliced my thigh before breaking against the brick wall. Hot, crimson blood soaked through my white tights and plaid skirt in seconds before I could use my magic to stop the bleeding.

"Please, Seraphina," I held up my hands, surrendering. "Kiran is not mine. This was Lucan's decision." I believed my answer, but apparently Seraphina did not, because another glass dagger came flying across the room, narrowly missing my throat.

The spinning cyclone of glass moved faster and with more force. I pressed myself against the brick wall afraid of the dangerous weapon Seraphina was feeding her magic, but more afraid of the hateful look darkening the eyes that controlled it.

"No," she said calmly, but the tempest of shrapnel behind her betrayed her true emotion. "You did this. All of this. And now it's my turn to take back what's mine."

"Seraphina stop!" Avalon burst through the bathroom door, and with one meaningful look and burst of his magic, he dropped the glass pieces to the floor.

Seraphina, too, fell to the floor, sobbing hysterically. Avalon grabbed me by the arm, pulling me from the bathroom roughly.

"Are you crazy?" he half shouted, half whispered at me. "Were you just going to let her kill you?" He spun me around in the hallway, making me face him.

"No, of course not!" I answered back with the same conviction.

"Then what the hell were you doing in there?" he yelled, staring me down. His emerald green eyes demanded answers.

"I.... I don't know...." I stumbled, "I just felt like, I don't know, that.... I just felt bad." I hung my head, realizing I had been punishing myself. I felt responsible for Seraphina. I felt responsible for my family. I had wanted someone to take their hate out on me, because I felt like I deserved it.

"You don't," Avalon answered the thoughts in my head. "You haven't done anything wrong."

He pulled me into a hug, wrapping his huge arms around me and comforting me. My head was pressed against his chest and I could see the faint outlines of his tattoos underneath the long sleeved white uniform shirt.

I started to cry. I didn't deserve Avalon's forgiveness, or his compassion. A marriage to Kiran was not Avalon's answer to the problem with the Monarchy. Avalon wanted the Monarchy destroyed completely and the entire Kendrick line wiped out. I was another roadblock now, another obstacle in the way of Avalon's perfect dream for our society.

"I've ruined everything," I cried into his shirt, my voice muffled against his chest.

"Well, Ok, that's true," I could hear the smile in his voice, "But that doesn't mean you deserve to be punished." He patted me on the head, like I was a small child and I felt comforted.

I'm sorry. I said inside of our heads, hoping he could feel the sincerity behind it.

"All right, that's enough. No more feeling sorry for yourself," Avalon pushed me away playfully, grinning at me. "Go find Amory, he'll let you call someone to come pick you up. I don't think it's a good idea for you to be at school today."

"Ugh. You're probably right," I started walking backwards to the stairwell. "What are you going to go do?" I called out, curious why he wasn't coming with me.

"I'm going to go deal with the train-wreck in the bathroom," he smiled mischievously. "Do you think?" his expression turned serious, "Do you think it's too soon to ask her out?"

"Oh, Avalon," I gasped, appalled at his twisted sense of humor.

"What? It is too soon, isn't it?" he turned to the bathroom, "How long then? A week? Two weeks?"

"There is something wrong with you," I called out before turning around and running down the stairs.

I sprinted out of the English and Arts building and across campus to the Administration building. I flew through the doors and up to the second-floor teacher's lounge before Mrs. Truance could stop me. There were no teachers upstairs, but I could see the light on in Amory's office at the end of the hall. I walked the rest of the way slowly, trying to catch my breath and a little afraid to fill Amory in on Seraphina's nervous breakdown in the bathroom.

I knocked on his door politely, waiting for Amory to invite me in. He looked up at me from an older-looking document on his desk and smiled.

"And what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked from his deep, melodic voice.

"One of your students just took a serious ride on the crazy train," I replied glibly, taking a seat in one of his leather chairs.

"What do you mean?" Concern flickered in his eyes.

"Seraphina just tried to stab me to death in the girl's bathroom," I answered, more put together than my shaking hands believed I was.

"Oh, Eden," Amory gasped. He walked around to the second leather chair, sat down and took my hand. "Are you all right?" he asked, his eyes finding the crimson stain marring my skirt.