"Calix, where's Conner?" I asked, weary as my eyes scanned the room. There were plenty of the council, all of the advisors, most of the guards and a great handful of the other girls here, but Conner was nowhere to be seen.
"He's busy," he replied coolly. I turned away so he added, "Don't stray far."
I took half a step away from him, but the motion stopped of its own accord when I reassessed the room. Calix wasn't taking any chances here. There were two guards at every door, and I could always feel at least one pair of eyes on me.
This was just one of those spaces in his calendar where every one of the girls he'd changed could come and see him. Every royal had someone else who was destined to be theirs. Some just had to search longer than others to find them. As far as I was aware, Calix was the only royal who didn't have his soul mate yet; something that I found slightly humorous, but mainly annoying. If he'd found this girl before he'd met me, he could have left me alone. When he found someone he suspected was the right girl, he did something to them - the something that I couldn't remember. It was some kind of test; a test that everyone else seemed to remember with perfect clarity . All I knew was that this person was not me, nor was it any of the other girls he'd ever looked at - the ones loitering around the hall right now. And that everyone who took the test and failed couldn't be away from him for long. I never came to these gatherings, I just found the whole thing demeaning. But it didn't look as if I would be leaving in the near future.
Without even Conner here, I was totally lost. Even if there were secrets we had to keep from everyone else here, it was clear to everyone that he was one person I wouldn't treat the same. I leaned back against the cool wall, frowning, and attempted to ignore the girls who were still throwing themselves at Calix after all this time. It didn't bother me by envy, the way it irritated everyone else; I just found it pitiful. What I did hate was that he still loved the attention.
"Hey Ashlyn," Stacy said, bouncing to my side. The others followed her although they weren't quite as forward about it. "I'm surprised to see you here."
"So am I," I told her, glaring at Calix for a moment. No-one paid me any attention. Except him. He glanced at me and held my gaze for a steady moment. When he turned back to the girls around him at that moment, everything seemed fine; until I noticed the way his hand had unconsciously moved towards his pocket; the one which currently contained the slip of paper he'd shown me earlier.
I wanted to leave. I wanted so much to head outside, and just sit in the sunlight - just for the fresh air. The space in here was so stuffed. It wasn't a comfortable feeling either, it was plain overcrowded. Even if I couldn't get outside, I would have given almost anything just to get out of the room.
"How was your movie this morning?" I asked vaguely. "Enjoy it?"
"Oh, we didn't do it in the end," she confessed.
"How come?" My immediate thoughts would be that it was because I'd walked out, but they'd put up with me long enough to know that it happened regularly; just as I knew that they didn't cancel plans because of me. Then again, I'd thought I'd known that I could trust them not to bring me up as a subject in conversation, but that had backfired.
"Oh, you know...we just didn't feel like it," she shrugged. Her tone caught my attention and when I looked to her she let her gaze glide over to Calix. "And we didn't really-"
"He put you up to that," I realised. She looked sheepish and the others actually backed away a little. "Didn't he? Calix put you up to that!"
"Well..." Stacy admitted uncomfortably, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
"So all that time you were quizzing me, you were only doing it because he said so?" I asked. She opened her mouth to say something, but it was clear from her expression that it would be a lie. "Did you plan it all out or something?"
