The Half-Class by Kayvion Lewis

Chapter Ten

The moment I awoke the next evening, I slipped away onto my reading ledge.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and I didn’t want to get stuck doing work whenever the prince arrived. A hundred emotions swirled inside me. I was engaged, but it didn’t feel magical like in all the books. It felt heavy and constricting. Maybe the dread building inside me would go away when juxtaposed with the prince.

The prince.

Surely nothing would happen tonight. Even if something did happen, I just had to remind myself: it wasn’t real. I didn’t even have to think about it after it happened. How often did Kat or Sammy think about patrons after they were done with them? Probably not at all. If I were a smarter girl, I would have asked them for advice on how to handle tonight. But I’d foolishly indulged my desire for solitude instead. Now the night was about to begin, and I was on my own.

I forced myself to read while the first stream of patrons found their way into the barn. I was almost done with volume twenty of Taliver, and the more I read, the more I’d have to talk with Cass about. But I couldn’t entirely escape into the story. My eyes kept flitting down to the increasingly full barn floor. When was he going to arrive?

The final few pages, if none of the others, were able to grab the majority of my attention. The climax of every Taliver volume was always the most enthralling part, and this one was no exception. Taliver and his companions, through a clever game of two truths and a lie, tricked the witch of hearts into revealing where she’d hidden her own heart, which they stole and ran off with, only to be captured by the witch’s sister, the notorious Sky Queen, on the last page.

I returned the book to the top of my stack. I was itching to read more and might have, but I didn’t have the next copy. Even if the Southside bookstore where I bought all of my books had the next volume, who knew if they too had complied with the new shop restrictions. I’d have to ask Kat or Luke to venture out with me the next time I went.

A new thought twisted my heart. Perhaps I could ask the prince to bring me a copy. Then he’d have to return another night. It’s what Gilow would tell me to do.

Deciding that was a decent enough way to settle my claws in him, I devoted all my attention to the floor below. It swelled with patrons, just like the night before, but we hadn’t reached our peak yet. Auntie Jen rushed about behind the bar as Christa ushered a scrawny-looking fellow up the stairs, and Samantha snuggled by the fire with Mister Archie. My gaze softened on them. Sammy curled up on Mr. Archie’s lap, the two of them barely fitting into the armchair sofa they shared. He held her waist while she whispered to him. Even at a distance, his beam was unmistakable. He held her hand to his chest and whispered something back. Sammy giggled and dropped her head onto his shoulder, only to kiss him a second later. It was a long, passionate embrace. His hands didn’t wander, and Sammy didn’t drop her hands from his cheeks. It was so pure.

Mister Archie must have really loved her. But seeing the way Sammy grinned as she wiped her lip paint from his dark lips, I had to wonder—did she love him, too?

A fair man passed by Sammy and Mister Archie, tearing my attention away. His ink-black hair was too distinct to mistake. Cass was here.

I hurried out of my reading nook and made my way toward the barn. Pacing down the hall, I fluffed my curls and wiped my hands on my dress. Should I have worn something different? I could have chosen one of Kat’s more revealing pieces, a dress dripping in lace and ribbon that clung to my chest. No, I winced just imagining that. It was too late to change now, just like it was too late to go back into the apartment. I was out in my fairly modest burgundy dress, and I couldn’t turn back now.

Before I knew it, I was amidst the buzz of the main floor. Cass couldn’t have gone far in the time it took me to get down here. So, where was he?

The staircase, the sofas, the fireplace, the bar--

The bar—there. He lingered awkwardly at the edge of it, caught in a conversation with a girl standing dangerously close to him. Her golden tresses glowed like fire.

Kat?

Dammit. She did say she wanted to find the prince.

I strode over to the pair. Cass took a relieved breath as he saw me. He relaxed the grip on a satchel bag crossing his body.

“Kitty Kat.” I stopped at Cass’s side. Kat’s perfect smile faded, and she took a step back. “I see you’ve met my new friend Cass.” I slipped my arm through his, hoping I wasn’t being too touchy with him. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Your friend?” Kat’s gaze jumped from me to the prince. “You didn’t tell me you knew my little cousin.”

“I barely had a moment to,” Cass said.

Kat blushed. Or perhaps it was a tinge of fiery red anger that came over her. Whatever it was, it made me feel guilty for not working out the time to tell her about this before.

“I didn’t even know she had a cousin,” Cass said.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I winked.

He grinned, and I felt even worse.

“Perhaps we can all be friends,” Kat said.

Why couldn’t she take a hint? God knows what she must be thinking, but the best thing to do, no matter what conclusion she had drawn, was to walk away.

“Let’s get some drinks—on the house” She placed her hand on Cass’s chest. He tensed. Damn her and all the little tricks I’d yet to learn.

She turned to the bar, stretched to her tip-toes, and waved down Julian.

“Actually, I think Cass and I are going to go upstairs,” I said. Her head flipped back to us. “We’ve got some very serious, very important matters to discuss. Right, Cass?”

He nodded. “Most certainly. Perhaps another time,” he back to Kat. I prayed she had enough restraint not to ask to come with us.

“Promise?” she asked, batting her golden lashes.

Cass hesitated. “Sure.”

Before any more awkwardness could ensue, I pulled Cass away. He seemed just as eager to get off the floor as I was. I let go of his arm when we passed into the hallway.

“Sorry if Kat was haggling you,” I said. “When she sees someone she likes, she has a hard time being told no.”

“It’s fine.” He ran a hand through his thick hair. “I just…I sort of thought that it was the man who did the requesting. Not the other way around. I wasn’t quite expecting that.” A light red tinted Cass’s face. Was he blushing?

I giggled, partly because his nerves were cute and partly because of my own quickening pulse.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” I stopped at our apartment door. Before I even reached for the key, I tried the door handle. Of course, I had left it unlocked. I shut the door after Cass. “You don’t strike me as the type of person who frequents these places.”

“I told you, I only came here the other night because of Jasper.”

I eased into one of our sofas, and Cass sank into the adjacent armchair. At least he didn’t seem to mind the ripped upholstery slipping out of the brass bolts at the edge of the armrest. He slipped off the bag crossing his chest.

“And now you’re here because of me.” A lighter red flushed over his face this time, and a tinge of heat tickled my cheeks as well.

His fingers plucked the strap of his leather bag.

“What’s in your satchel?” I leaned over the edge of my sofa to get a better look at whatever he held.

Cass’s face lit up, and he immediately flipped open the leather flap and rummaged inside. “Volume Twenty-One. You mentioned the other night that you usually have to wait to buy the next volume, so—”

“You brought me the next one?” I snatched the book from his hands. I couldn’t help myself. My fingers brushed over the sapphire blue fabric of the cover.

He chuckled. “So, I take it you didn’t already get volume twenty-one?”

It felt like a heavy block, formed of cement and guilt, dropped on my shoulders. I was going to ask for this, but he’d already considered that I’d want it.

So much for my plan to manipulate him with the book.

I tried to shrug it off and smiled instead. “Cass, if I’d already had volume twenty-one, I’d still be upstairs reading, and you’d still be at the bar with Kat.”

He sunk back into the armchair. “I was a little worried about embarrassing myself by bringing you a copy you already had.”

“As a general rule, if you’re ever in doubt as to whether you should bring me more Taliver, the answer will always be yes.”

“Noted.” He sighed a smile. “Tell me what you thought of the last book. The first time I finished volume twenty, I was furious.”

“Furious?” I tossed the new volume onto the cushion beside me. “How could you possibly have been anything but ecstatic?”

And just like, that we fell into a new conversation. It was even easier than last night. Cass moved to the edge of his seat, and I leaned over the arm of my sofa as we debated all the reasons one should or shouldn’t be excited about Taliver falling yet again into the clutches of the Sky Queen. Like the other night, he tried to tip-toe around the plot twists I hadn’t gotten to yet, but a few slipped through his smiles.

Maybe Cass wasn’t the prince. He was so easy to talk to.

Cass rubbed his chin as he locked eyes with me. “You might be right not to trust Taliver’s long lost brother—"

“No spoilers.” I put my hands up. “You’re getting me way too excited to read future volumes when I haven’t even started this one yet.”

He dropped his hand. “I haven’t said anything about future volumes.”

“No, but you grin and stare dead at me every time I hint at something that’s going to happen.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. It’s your tell, and I’m going to remember it the next time we play cards together.”

“In that case, I’ll just have to figure out your tell so we’ll be even.”

I laughed. “You can try, but I assure you I don’t have one.”

“Everyone has a tell, or so Donnie mentioned once.”

“Even if that’s true…” I folded my legs under me and perched at the edge of the sofa. Somewhere in the barn, someone shouted, and glass shattered.

I bit my lip as it drew Cass’s attention, but I pulled it back to me. “How are you going to find mine?”

His eyes scanned over me for a brief second. Warmth rushed down my spine. “Let’s play two truths and a lie,” he said.

“Like in volume twenty?”

He nodded.

I shifted ever so slightly. “Alright. You first.”

He propped his elbows over his knees and laced his fingers under his chin. “First, I was born in Aurell. Second, I hate anything with blueberries in it. Third, my name is Cass, but it’s actually short for Cassandra.” He smiled and looked dead at me, and I burst into chuckles.

“Are you sure those aren’t all true, Cassandra?”

"You’re right, my mistake,” he said. “Your turn.”

I composed myself and tried to think of my truths and lie. “Well, I was born in Morra but not in Bexbury. My favorite food is salted sweet potatoes, and when I was a little girl, I wanted to be a traveling horse racer."

“A traveling racer? Really?”

“Maybe. You tell me.”

He narrowed his green eyes, taking in every inch of my face. My breath quickened. The rest of the room—and all the muffled voices and movement from outside—faded away.

He only nodded gently, not taking his eyes off me. “That part was true,” he decided.

“Lucky guess. And the others?”

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love salted sweet potatoes, so I have to deduce that you were, in fact, born here in Bexbury.”

I grinned. “So close to perfect, but not quite.”

He frowned. “No?”

“Sorry to surprise you, but I detest salted sweet potatoes. And I was born in Fossfield, not Bexbury.”

“Fossfield—that’s further south. How did you end up here?”

I pulled my hands back to my lap, twisting my fingers. “I came to live with my aunt.” A slight pause settled over us, and he thankfully didn’t ask anything further.

“My turn,” he said. “First, I don’t have any siblings, although I’ve always wanted one. Second, I absolutely hate the Tales of Taliver,” I tried to smile at his obvious lie. “And third,” his eyes flickered down for a moment. “My mother died when I was seven.”

My heart froze. Our eyes met. So, he had put the pieces together about my parents. Perhaps he saw it in my eyes. But instead of ignoring it, he chose to tell me the same about himself. He didn’t have to, but he did. It wasn’t the response I thought I wanted, but oddly enough, I was grateful for it. It made me feel...not alone.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Then we both are. Your turn.”

Footsteps and muffled laughter came from the hall. The doorknob rattled.

“Duck.” I pulled Cass down by the shoulder then dipped down into my own sofa. He peered curiously at me but stayed down. I brought a finger up to my lip.

The apartment door flung open, and a pair of footsteps clattered in. The door slammed shut.

“Where you going, sweetheart?” a slurred man’s voice asked. “The bed’s over here.”

“Not ours, handsome,” Kat replied in her most alluring voice. “This way.”

I stared at Cass. My face must have been as bright red as his. Maybe that’s what was so funny. I pressed my hand to my mouth as a lifetime of laughter threatened to pour out. Cass struggled to keep it together too.

“Angel, you’re driving me crazy,” the man said.

Kat didn’t miss a beat. “Then come up to heaven with me and let me relieve that tension.”

I pressed my hand harder over my mouth, and Cass pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.

“Come on, you devil,” Kat said. Her boots trotted up the stairs, and the man’s heavier footsteps followed. Cass and I stayed concealed behind our furniture, trying desperately to control ourselves until the bedroom door clapped shut. We instantly burst into laughter.

“He called her angel, so she said she’d take him to heaven.” Each word was its own giggle.

Cass took a second to get his words together. “I’m trying— to understand—" he wheezed, “where ‘devil’ came from?”

I collapsed to the floor, giggling over the patchwork living room rug, and he fell down beside me in a similar state.

“Do you get to witness moments like that often?” he asked.

“Every now and then. But they usually don’t tickle me so much.”

He shook his head. “Why were we even hiding?”

“Why? Did you want us to get caught up in that interaction Cass? They might have tried to turn that devilish duo into a fiery foursome.”

Cass laughed again, so hard this time that he had to hold his stomach. This wasn’t exactly where I planned to end up with the prince, but it felt like it was right where I was supposed to be. It felt almost like I was just having a regular visit with an enjoyable friend. But was that in alignment or contrary to what I was supposed to be doing?

“Is this how you spend every night?” He turned his head to look at me. “Reading Taliver and listening to your cousin...entertain people?”

“More or less. That or work the bar.”

He paused for a moment, and we both stared up at the rafters above. “You don’t work like your cousin does?” He trod carefully over the words like I might snap at him.

I mulled over an answer. If I were going to really seduce Cass, admitting that I wasn’t a pleasure girl might hinder that plan. Or at least, prevent an easy way to get close to him. From what I could tell about Cass so far, he wasn’t looking for that sort of thing. I had a feeling he’d never even been in a brothel before the other night. Pretending to be a working girl might make him think less of me. All Gilow told me to do was get close to him, and I was doing fine at that by just being myself. Why start faking now?

“No,” I admitted. “I don’t do that. My aunt won’t make me until I’m eighteen.”

“And right now, you’re?”

“Seventeen.”

“You said your aunt will...make you?”

“A figure of speech,” I assured him. “What I really mean is she’s going to kick me out if I don’t start earning money by then.”

“But she’s your aunt.” Cass sat up. His brow furrowed. He stared down at me. “Who is she to give you an ultimatum like that?”

“My thoughts exactly. But it’s her place, and as I was recently told, she doesn’t owe me anything.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve better,” he said.

I sat up beside him. Was he just telling me what I wanted to hear?

“Auntie’s just being realistic. What else am I going to do?” I bit my tongue right after the words came out. I was supposed to be eliciting adoration, not pity.

Cass’s eyes cut to his lap. “Because you’re an artificial.”

“You can say half-class. It won’t offend me. Half-class has more ring to it than artificial light anyway.” I smiled softly, trying to lift the dampening mood. Maybe I should have nixed this conversation altogether. If I thought too much about who Cass really was, I might have gotten angry.

“Has it been harder since the king arrived?” he asked.

He said king, not father. It fully dawned on me that Cass never told me he was the prince, and apparently, he assumed I didn’t know. Maybe he liked keeping his secret. I’d let him have it. My seduction would be stronger if he didn’t have reason to think I was after him for his title.

“It’s always been hard,” I said. “But the past couple of weeks have been particularly taxing, and I assume it’s only going to get worse.”

Cass sighed. “I don’t disagree.”

A fire flamed in my stomach. Why would he bring this up if he weren’t going to tell me something useful?

I clenched my jaw. “I don’t understand what King Dreux has against us. Our country was functioning just fine without a class system. We could have just kept doing as we were—paid our tribute and been on our merry way. It all feels unnecessary.”

“From an economic standpoint,” Cass said, “but it’s more than that, I think. The old religion is very specific about separate classes and—” he paused, “keeping bloodlines pure. It wouldn’t make sense to honor the religion back home but ignore it in the territories.”

I took a small breath. If I said anything else, I might start screaming.

“Perhaps it strokes his ego to keep the light-class on top, too,” Cass murmured. Why would he admit that to me? Did it stroke his too?

Time to change the subject.

I cleared my throat. “What do you do, Cass?”

He shrugged. “I do a lot of things. I read, eat, visit friends.”

I rolled my eyes. “What do you do for money? I’ve been guessing in my head since the other night. I had you pegged as a scholar’s apprentice.”

His eyes darted to that special place people look when trying to come up with something. Would he still lie when given an opportunity to reveal the truth?

“In another life, maybe I would’ve been a scholar, but in this one, I’ve been fortunate enough to land in an affluent family. Working, in the conventional sense, isn’t a requirement.”

It was almost impressive how skilled he was at dancing around the truth without technically lying. But I was in no position to judge him for being deceitful.

“And you?” he asked. “Since you don’t work—"

“Mostly just tips from the bar and sporadic gambling downstairs. Sometimes Kat will take pity on me and loan me some silver if I really want a new book or to go to the races.”

“Races?”

Oh damn, why had I said that? I hadn’t thought of the night races in weeks, but they popped to mind and out of my mouth before I could stop to wonder why.

“Horse races. People gather together for them every Sunday night. Some people race, others gamble. Some go to meet up with their lovers. That sort of thing. I haven’t been in a while, but when I go, I race and bet on myself. I usually come back with a decent amount of silver.”

“So that’s where your desire to be a traveling rider went.”

I scratched my cheek to hide the hint of a blush I wasn’t expecting. “Maybe the dream’s not as far behind me as I thought.”

He glanced down. “It’s Saturday today—tonight. If you’re up for it, we could go tomorrow.”

Was that worry in his voice? Did he think I’d say no? I might have to. What I didn’t mention about the races was that, like the barn, it was sort of a watering hole for half-classes and the like. A few of the lovers who went there to meet were of opposite classes. The races were one of the few places where it was an unspoken rule not to say anything.

“Cass, the races aren’t exactly the most lawful of places. And there are going to be a lot of people like me there.”

He frowned. “Do you think that would bother me?”

Only then did I realize how close we were. My heart skipped. We were very, very close. The little details I had taken for granted sparkled to life in front of me: his delicate honey scent, a barely visible freckle on the side of his nose, the lighter specks of green near the rim of his irises, a curious purple mark by the edge of his ear, and a tiny faded scar just below his bottom lip.

His lips were only a breath away from mine.

“Does it?” I whispered.

“No.”

My heart pattered like crazy in my chest. We lingered there, nearly upon each other but still excruciatingly apart.

Was he going to do something? Was I supposed to? Despite the debauchery that had surrounded me for the last twelve years, I was ashamed to say that I’d never kissed anyone before. I’d seen plenty of kisses and had more opportunities than I could count, but I never took any of them. I just assumed when the right moment presented itself, I would feel it. Maybe that’s why neither of us moved. It wasn’t the right moment, even for this charade.

“Then it’s a date.” We awkwardly separated, and I tried to carry on like nothing happened. My heart felt like someone had just released it from a clenching grasp. “How good are you at following directions?”

“Decent enough.”

I hopped up from the floor. My skirt was dotted with dust and little bits of fabric. Lucky for Cass, whatever smooth fabric comprised his pants and shirt seemed to repel any speck of dust that might have wanted to cling to him.

I slapped my skirt a couple times while I made my way over to Auntie’s dresser. She always kept pen and paper handy. I picked up a pencil from the few scattered across her dresser and penned a little list of directions onto a small scrap of paper from the stack at the edge of her dresser.

I didn’t want to give away that I knew Cass was staying at the castle, so I began my directions at the square. I blew over the ink and folded the paper in half.

Cass waited between the door and the stairs as if he were stopped by some invisible wall dividing the half of our apartment that served as the living room from the half that was Auntie’s room.

“Follow these, and you won’t get lost. Probably.” I handed him the paper.

“Will you come look for me if I do? It’s what Taliver would do.”

“Oh, most certainly. I’ll set off on a grand quest to find you. After I assemble my crew of misfits, we’ll venture through every land and even cross the great sea to find you,” I said.

“Only to realize that I was among your ranks the entire time.”

“I which case I’ll have to kill you—which is what Taliver should have done to Arzel after he wasted half of volume twelve looking for that dunce.”

His eyes narrowed. “But he did warn him before his so-called disappearance that he would always be with him. Who knew he meant literally and not just in spirit?”

I rolled my eyes. “How about we avoid all that frustration ourselves, and you don’t get lost?”

Cass smirked, and a second later, the bedroom door above creaked open. Cass and I hurried toward the door.

“That was quicker than expected,” I said, pulling the door open.

“And they say heaven is eternal.”

I dissolved into laughter. Cass and I all but fell into the hallway. He closed the door behind us, and we ran down the hallway.

“I should leave you to your reading,” Cass said.

The echoes of the barn floor pull us ahead. “Taliver is probably a much more interesting person to spend time with than me.”

“That’s true, but you’re working your way up to a close second.” He smiled. “Let me walk you out before Kat spots us and tries to steal you away.” I took his arm, and together, we went happily into the main floor. I didn’t think I’d ever laughed so much in one night.

The barn was stuffed with patrons, so it was unlikely Kat would spot up in this. Still, I wanted to get my prince out before she had the chance.

We weaved through the gaggle of patrons, slipping alongside the bar for a spell. Just as we passed the last stool, I recognized a familiar figure leaning against the adjacent wall. It was a shadowy part of the floor, but his silver eyes seemed to pop out from the darkness. I averted my eyes from him. He couldn’t be serious. Why the hell was he here?

I hastened my pace, hoping Cass wouldn’t notice how quickly I shoved and twisted our way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, and we were at the sliding door on the other side of the main room in no time.

“This is where I leave you, friend. I promise I’ll try to read at least half of twenty-one before tomorrow.”

“Only half? I expect you to devour the entire thing before the night’s over.”

I could feel Luke’s eyes beating into me.Don’t turn around.

“I’m just trying to hold onto your book for as long as I can,” I said.

“It will be well missed, but I hope you have many opportunities to return it in the future.”

I bit my lip and glanced at the floor. Success. My mission for tonight was over. “Good night Cass. Until tomorrow?”

He nodded. “Tomorrow.” He dipped his head and slipped out into the night. The door slid shut behind him.

I exhaled a deep breath and turned around. There went my fake beau. Now to deal with the real one.