Lady Of The Courts

Chapter Four

Aphria got very little sleep that night.

Perhaps it was the paranoia she had about the Blackthorns disliking her because she was here and Mark and  Helen weren’t, or maybe it was caused by her dreams the previous night. All she could think about were all the possible meanings that her dreams could possess.

It was a common belief in her father’s court---and the Seelie Court, itself---that every dream had a hidden message. Aphria was always quite sceptical of this belief. When she was younger, she used to have rather odd dreams of each of her half-siblings being eaten and kicked to death a herd of cannibalistic zebras. There was hardly a hidden meaning for that---not that any sane person could discern, anyway.

She was up early, which was rather unsurprising. Never before had she gotten so much sleep as she had the past few nights. Nobody else was up though she expected Dru---the second youngest Blackthorn---was awake. She could hear faint screams coming from her room; Emma had told her that Dru was a big fan of horror movies.

After grabbing an apple from the kitchen---Los Angeles had delicious apples---Aphria made her way outside and walked to the boardwalk she often visited with Emma and Cristina. The ice cream van they usually visited was parked in its normal place by the bicycle stand. The pimply man who owned it eyed her distrustfully; he was the ice cream guy Aphria had been rude to.

Aphria sat down on one of the benches. The boardwalk was empty but that was understandable; the sun was barely rising in the sky. It was weird for the ice cream guy to even be there.

Most Shadowhunters wore runes so that mundanes wouldn’t see them. Aphria didn’t have any of those runes. Not this morning. Partially because she was too lazy and partially due to the fact her ability to draw runes was . . . poor, to say the least. She did not have an artists hand like Cristina.

‘Is that natural?’

She jumped in her seat as she felt a hand touch a strand of her hair. Aphria turned her head around.

A boy---or man?---stood behind the bench she was sitting on. He was around Aphria’s age, by the looks of it. The man-boy had dark hair swept to the side. He had brown eyes, too, and a jaw that didn’t look fully developed yet. He was a mundane, Aphria was sure of it.

Aphria chuckled awkwardly and brushed the strand of hair he had touched behind her ear. ‘Unfortunately, yes. It is a common trait many of my family share.’

‘That’s awesome,’ he said, climbing over the back of the bench and into the seat beside Aphria. ‘My name’s Jonathan but everyone calls me John.’

‘I’m’---Aphria paused; her name wasn’t a conventional mundane name---‘Ria.’

‘You seem a bit unsure,’ he said, grinning. ‘Are you a native to L.A.?’

‘No,’ answered Aphria, shaking her head. ‘I moved here about a month ago.’ That was technically true, wasn’t it?

‘I’m here on holiday,’ said John, ‘with my mum and dad. It’s a lot warmer here than it is in England, let me tell you that.’ He paused for a second as he stretched his arms up in the air. ‘So, where’re you from if you’re not from here?’

‘The C- The Czech Republic.’ Aphria had very nearly said the Chameleon Court.

‘Again, you sound a bit uncertain,’ he said. ‘How do I know you’re not lying to me?’

‘You have my word that I am not?’ replied Aphria unsurely. They laughed.

‘Is there any reason why you’re up the same time as that guy’---he nodded at the guy in the ice cream van, who was currently glowering in her direction as he scrubbed a glass angrily---‘who is always here at least six hours before anyone else is up?’