Novels by Jumoke Modinat

I hid the journal inside my dress before we left the tower.Calista did not ask why. She only looked at the green leather corner pressing against my ribs, then at Joren's broad back on the stairs ahead of us, and she said nothing at all. I decided right then that I liked her.I also decided I could not trust her. Not yet. Not with this."The Alpha will want a report," Joren said at the bottom of the stairs."Dust," I said. "And a very old mug."He looked at me for a long moment. Then he shrugged. He was a guard, not a poet, and I was a villain. Nobody expected me to be honest.---By noon the whole castle knew about the tea.I could feel it. Servants stopped talking when I passed. A boy carrying firewood nearly dropped it. A cook made a small sign over her heart, which I took to be a very bad omen.

I did not drink the tea.I set the cup down so slowly that the silver did not click against the table. Then I sat very still and listened to my own heartbeat.Chapter nine. In the book, the woman in the gray dress had taken one sip, smiled, and complimented the honey. Three paragraphs later she was dead on the floor, and the story moved on without her.But chapter nine was supposed to happen weeks from now. And that woman was not supposed to be me."The script is moving," I whispered. "Someone is moving it."I looked at the tray. Bread. Cheese. Soup. All of it harmless, probably. All of it brought by a girl who would not meet my eyes.I pushed the tray away, walked to the door, and knocked."My lady?" a guard answered. It was the same deep voice from earlier, but it had lost its swagger. The Alpha's order had reached him.

The door would not open.I tried it twice. On the third try I pulled hard enough to hurt my shoulder. Nothing. Then a deep voice outside said, "Please step back, my lady."I stopped. "Who is that?""Orders from Miss Winslow. You are to wait here until the Council sends for you.""Miss Winslow does not give orders in this castle.""She does today, my lady."I leaned my forehead against the cold wood. A few hours ago I had been a woman with a plan. Now I was a woman in a locked room with a broken cup, a cruel rival, and a dying Alpha who would not let me go.I went to the window. Two guards in gray cloaks now stood on the lawn between the arch and the lake, arms crossed. A third paced the shore.Gideon had meant what he said.I sank onto the window seat and tried not to scream.They came for me at sunset.It was the maid from the morning, the one with the round face. Her eyes were still red. Behind her stood two guards who would not look at me."I am Calista, my lady," she whispered, pr

The hall did not break into noise until Gideon left.He went out through a side door with Silas, shoulders stiff, jaw tight. Before the door closed, he looked back at me once. It was a short look, but it said very clearly, do not run.Then the whole pack started whispering at once.I stood on the red carpet in my wet boots and gray cloak, with hundreds of eyes burning holes in my skin, and tried to remember how to breathe."Come with me," Tessa said softly. "I will show you somewhere to rest.""I already have a room.""Not a good one." She slipped her arm through mine like we were old friends. "Smile a little. They are watching."I smiled. It felt like a crack running across glass.She led me out through a side door and down a long corridor lined with narrow windows. Ahead, a woman in a pale green dress leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. I recognized her from the hall, the one who had smiled behind her hand. She had golden hair, red lips, and a beauty that looked sharpened

"I do not know what you mean," I said.It was the truth, and it sounded like the worst lie in the world.Gideon's face did not change. That was the scariest part. I had expected anger, or the cold cruelty from the book. Instead he stood there, still as stone, and watched me like a man waiting for a wound to start bleeding."You do not know," he repeated."I am sorry. I really do not.""You are sorry." He let out a short, dry breath that was not a laugh. "Five years, and that is what you have for me.""Gideon...""Walk with me.""I would rather not.""That was not a request."His hand closed around my elbow, careful of the bruises, but I knew I could not shake it loose. He turned me away from the arch and the lake and the only plan I had, and walked me back through the herb garden like a prisoner being escorted to court."Where are we going?""To finish what you started."My stomach dropped. "The great hall?""Yes.""Gideon, please. I do not want to do this in front of everyone."That

I did not go down the front stairs.Amelia Hartwell would have. She would have swept down them in her red dress with her chin high and her heart full of foolish hope. I was not Amelia Hartwell, and I had a lake to reach."My lady?" the servant called through the door. "The Alpha is waiting.""I am dressing," I called back. My voice shook, so I made it sharper. "Give me a moment."Her shoes shuffled away down the hall. I did not trust the quiet. In every book I had ever read, the quiet came right before something went wrong.I pulled the gray cloak over my head, tucked my wet hair inside, and slipped into the corridor. Somewhere far off, a crowd murmured like bees in a hive. I went the opposite way.The castle's layout came back to me in pieces. The book had described it in the chapter where Amelia sneaked out to meet a spy. Kitchen stairs, servants' door, herb garden, stone arch, lake.Left, then right, then down.I counted my steps the way I used to count bus stops. Forty-two to the