The Shadow Prince (23 page)

“I know you chose me so you could make Rowan look stupid in front of the Court.”

His answer rings somewhat true, but it’s not what I was dreading he would say. Maybe he has no idea what I did, after all?

“In a way,” I say, trying to hide my relief.

Garrick looks away. “But you didn’t think about what that would mean for me, did you? You didn’t stop to think how Rowan might decide to take that out on me when we return. My life might have seemed
pitiful
to you before, but it’s nothing compared to what it will be like when we get back. Rowan will make sure of that.”

No, I hadn’t stopped to consider that. Just like I hadn’t considered the consequences of another decision I’d made concerning him several years ago. Both had been impulsive choices.…

I don’t know what to say, so I sit and watch the woman with the glasses as she picks up the receiver of a large beige-colored phone.

“You always do what you want for your own benefit,” he says, “and don’t think about what that would mean for anyone else.”

That shameful feeling eats at me again. Maybe he really
does
know.

I don’t get a chance to consider asking because the woman with the glasses waves at us. “One of you can go into Mr. Drol’s office now.” She points to the door we’re supposed to enter.

I rise from my chair. Garrick sinks farther into his seat.

“Stay,” I say to him, making very certain that he can tell it’s an order, not a request.

I open the door, expecting to find another feeble human whom I have to appease, but my jaw pops open when I see who is sitting behind the desk in the counselor’s room. “So, honey, how was your first day of school?” he asks.

“What are you doing here?” I ask as I quickly shut the door behind me.

“I thought you’d be happier to see your new guidance counselor,” Dax says. He’s wearing a light yellow sweater with brown patches on the elbows and sucking on the end of a …

“Is that a pipe?”

He nods. “Not lit, of course. No smoking allowed on campus. I thought it made me look older. What do you think?”

“I think you’re addled. What are you doing here? What if this Mr. Drol comes back?”

“I am Mr. Drol,” he says, raising his eyebrows and biting the end of his pipe. “I am too old to pose as a student like you and Garrick, but I didn’t want to dump you here all on your own, so Simon got me a job instead. His powers of persuasion were quite effective on the administration.”

I nod.

“But the part I didn’t tell him is that this arrangement will give us better opportunities to talk in private. I think I might be recommending twice-weekly counseling sessions for you.” He smiles around the stem of his pipe. “You’re looking quite emotionally disturbed.”

“I feel emotionally disturbed,” I say, sinking into the seat across the desk from him. “You were right; this place is torturous.”

“So what’s this about you picking fights? Do I need to suspend you?”

“Funny,” I say. “But I didn’t do anything. It was some hotheaded kid. Just came out of nowhere and tried to pick a fight.”

“Unprovoked?”

“Yes, but it must have had something to do with Daphne. I saw her with him on Saturday.”

“Aha.”

“She tried to get in the middle of the fight, you know?”

“Nice!” He taps his pipe on his desk. “I told you I liked this girl.”

“She definitely doesn’t like me. She accused me of stalking her!”

“But you are stalking her, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but she’s not supposed to
know
that.” I throw my hands up. “This girl makes no sense. First, she calls me a perv and a creep, but then she tries to stop her friend from beating me up? And two seconds later, she’s calling me a stalker. How does that make any sense? And I don’t think being mean to her is working at all.”

“Wait, why are you trying to be mean to her?”

“Because I’m trying to get her to like me, as you said I should. This Web site said that girls like guys who are mean to them, so—”

“What? Haden, I thought I told you not to ask the Internet for dating advice!”

“You forget that I don’t even know what dating is!”

“Oh no, no, no, no, no,” Dax says, rocking back in his chair. “How mean were you?”

“I implied her virginity in front of our entire humanities class,” I say sheepishly.

“Oh harpies, we’re going to have to do some major damage control now.”

“I am all for suggestions.”

Dax chews on the end of his pipe for a moment and I can barely resist the urge to rip it away from him.

“That’s not helping,” I say.

“Oh, hmm. You don’t know something she’s really interested in, do you? Something you could get involved in to show a common interest?”

“Music. I think she’s in the music program,” I say, though I have no idea how I am supposed to use music to get close to Daphne when I know even less about it than love.

Dax cringes. “It had to be that,” he mumbles under his breath. “I’ll see what strings I can pull from my end, and if all else fails, I’ll call on Simon—though I’d like to avoid that as much as possible.” He moves a stack of papers around and then stands up, with his pipe. “Now, perhaps you should scamper off to class, young Master Lord. No more fighting, you scallywag,” he says with a British accent. “I think Mr. Drol should be from Yorkshire, don’t you?”

I shrug. “One more thing … The guy I got in a fight with … He gave me this look that made it seem almost as if he might know
who
I am.”

Dax drops his pipe and it plinks across the table. “He what? How? Who was this kid? What did he look like?”

“Short. Part Asian. Japanese, I think. Wears a stupid hat.”

“Hmm, doesn’t ring a bell,” Dax says, but a dark look crosses his face. He walks me to the door. “I’ve changed my mind. You shouldn’t go back to class. I’m suspending you for the rest of the week. Go home and lie low.”

“Dax, you can’t do that. I’m just getting started!”

“I mean it. Let’s let this kid simmer down for a few days while we think about what to do next. It’ll probably take me a couple of days to arrange this music program business anyway.”

Waiting. More waiting. I think I might go insane.

Dax ushers me out the door just as that Tobin guy and his mother exit the other office with the man I assume is the vice
principal. “I trust we won’t have any more issues with you after your suspension,” the vice principal is in the middle of saying to Tobin. “I would hate to tell Mr. Morgan that he needs to recast your part in the musical.”

The mother barely even gives me a glance as they pass us, but Tobin seems to look right through me—as if he’s trying to get a better look at Dax, who stands behind my shoulder in the doorway. Tobin comes to a complete stop, his face white as ash. Dax steps back into his office and closes the door.

“Are you okay, Toby?” his mother asks.

Tobin turns away. “Yeah. Whatever. I’m fine.” But I can tell from his tone that he’s clearly not.

I watch them pass by the glass windows of the office, fighting the urge to follow them. Instead, I turn toward the chairs where I left Garrick, to find that he’s already gone. I can only hope he isn’t getting himself into more trouble.

That’s the last thing any of us needs right now.

chapter twenty-four

The landline phone in my room rings. I can hear it from my private bathroom, where I stand in front of the large, oval, Swarovski crystal–encrusted mirror that hangs over the marble-countered vanity. I’m not used to having my own bathroom—there was only one in the bungalow that I shared with my mom and the varied guests or strays we occasionally had staying with us—let alone one so opulent. If I were in a better mood, I might be tempted to pretend I am some sort of diva in my dressing room before a big show. Instead, I am inspecting the faint red mark that stretches across my right cheekbone. It almost looks like I’d merely gone too heavy with my blush, but the pain that pulses under my skin reminds me of a burn. It is almost exactly the same as the marks left on my arm when Haden had tried to grab me in the grove.

The strangest thing is that I didn’t think the boy, who I assume is Haden’s cousin, based on Bridgette’s description, had actually touched me. Haden had stopped him before his fist collided with my face—and yet, I had felt a burning heat slap against my face. I guess it is possible he’d grazed me with his fist after all, but it had happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure.

The phone starts ringing for the fifth time since I got home.
I’m in no hurry to answer it. I am home alone, and it is most likely someone for Joe—probably a reporter trying to get a statement about his new musical endeavor with the high school—and I am in no mood to talk about it. I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face. When I look up in the mirror again, the mark is gone, but my skin still stings. I prod at my cheek with the tip of my finger, suddenly wondering if I’d imagined the mark there in the first place.

I’d never had to question if I was just imagining things back in Ellis.

Something weird is definitely going on in this place.

Maybe Olympus Hills is dumping hallucinogens into their water supply. Maybe that was the big theory Tobin had wanted to share with me
. I laugh at the mirror.
Yeah, right
.

The phone finally stops ringing, and I assume the call has gone to voice mail.
It’s probably better to let Marta get Joe’s messages anyway
, I think as I wander back into my bedroom and sit on the edge of my plush bed.

The phone starts ringing again. The sound echoes in my large, lonely room. That has to be a reporter. Nobody I know would be that persistent.

I realize it could possibly be CeCe. I’d left her three messages since I’d gotten here, telling her to call me back on this number.

I reach for the phone, and another possibility hits me. Another person might know this number. Someone who might have picked up my bag in the grove and who now has my cell phone—and all my contact listings—in their possession …

The phone’s shrill ring makes me jump. Despite my better judgment, I pick up the receiver.

“Hello?” I ask tentatively.

“Daphne?” says a male voice on the other end, and my shoulders relax so much at the syncopated, friendly tone that accompanies it that I almost forget I’m mad at him.

“Tobin,” I say, trying not to show too much relief in my voice.

“You’re a hard bird to get ahold of,” he says. “I would have come by your house to see you in person, but I’m kind of grounded. Also, I was worried you might slam the door in my face.”

“You deserve both the grounding and the door slamming,” I tell him.

“Yeah. I know.” He’s quiet for a moment. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” I say, brushing my hand over my cheek. “But I might hang up on you if you don’t tell me what you thought you were doing in the cafeteria. That Haden guy might be dangerous. Why would you try to take him on like that?”

I would never have confided in him that I think Haden Lord is the guy from the grove if I’d thought that would cause Tobin to go after him. It hadn’t crossed my mind that a guy like Tobin would try to pick a fight. I might expect something like that from a stereotypical jock or something, but starting a confrontation seemed so against Tobin’s nature. But then again, I’d known him for only a couple of days. I’d assumed he was like CeCe because they share a similar inner song, but maybe I don’t know as much about his nature as I thought.

And the fact that this Haden guy hadn’t even tried to fight back when Tobin attacked made me question—ever so slightly—if my assumptions about him had been incorrect, too.

“I’m sorry,” Tobin says. “I wasn’t planning on starting anything with him, but it’s like I saw him and something came over me.” I hear strange notes coming off him—the same low, cold tone I’d
noticed in music class. Right before he was about to confide in me.

“Does this have something to do with what you were going to tell me before?” I ask him.

“Yes. It’s just that …” Tobin trails off, and I hear someone else’s voice in the background. “Yeah, Mom. In a minute,” he says away from the receiver. “I’ve got to go, Daph. I’m not supposed to be on the phone.”

“It’s just what?” I ask before he can hang up, my curiosity edging into my voice. “You can’t say something like that and not finish.
Again
.”

“You’re still coming to the party Friday night?” he asks.

For half a second, I don’t know what he’s talking about, and then I remember that he was in the middle of inviting me to a party for the music department when we discovered Pear Perkins in the lake. “Stop trying to change the subject.”

“I’m not. Are you still coming?”

“Your mom is still having the party?” I thought she might cancel, considering what had happened to one of the invitees.

“She’s even more determined to throw it after what happened to Pear. She thinks it will be nice for the music department to come together and collectively send their goodwill vibes to Pear. That and she already paid the caterer. Besides, she wants to meet my costar.”

“I don’t know.…” The last thing I feel like doing is celebrating my part in the play, and considering Tobin is the only one in the music department who is willing to talk to me, I’m pretty sure everyone else probably feels the same way. But then again, since Tobin is the only one of them still acknowledging my existence, it might not be the best idea to alienate him by not accepting his invitation.