My eyes darted from one person to the other, from the Queen to her brother, waiting for them to start laughing, to tell me that they were just playing some sick prank on me, that all that they had been wanting to see, was whether or not I had a sense of humour. But no. Even I knew that I was foolish for hoping that that would happen, because the energy in the room, the expressions on their faces, and the way that they were openly cutting me out of the conversation, was more than enough to tell me that this wasn’t a laughing matter.
“She’s a what?”
I looked towards the Queens’ brother—Alaric?—just in time to see him turn to me, to see the way his eyes had widened, to notice the change in the way that he was looking at me. I could see so many questions in his eyes, see th
