Abaddon's Mark

Chapter Twenty

Four days of nothing, and then Naena showed up to dinner with AfLugh?

Maeno just completely ignored all the signs and went to sit at her table. AfLugh looked up, mouth open and fork almost to it as his eyebrows raised to meet his hairline. Maeno sat across from him with a thump, then looked around at the other students, who stared at them in stunned silence.

"Yeah, yeah, the street rats are eating together," he said loudly. "Go back to your meals, you freaking lapdogs."

"Lapdogs?" AfLugh asked.

"What was your first name again?" Maeno asked.

"Doesn't work," Naena said. "I tried."

"What was your name again?" Maeno asked, jabbing his fork at her. "Nina? Oh, Nae, that's right."

"Call me Nae again, and I won't need magic to skin you alive," she said with a welcoming smile and acidic tone.

"Like, never need magic again?" Maeno asked.

Because he knew it was a coded message of some sort and his mind automatically went to a permanent binding.

"Honey, seven of you couldn't take me if I didn't have magic," she countered.

She was without magic for seven somethings. Considering the lack of stabbing and hiding, Maeno guessed days, seven days until she could use magic again.

"Well—anyway," Maeno looked over his shoulder as Nendan stepped up behind him.

The Lugh heir sort of grunted and then sat at their table. He shot Maeno a look and then gave AfLugh the same look before giving Naena the barest attempt of a smile.

"Graydon assigned him to follow me," Naena said, motioning to AfLugh with her fork, which had a little cabbage attached to the end of it before she stuck the fork into her mouth and yanked the cabbage off with her teeth. "You know, so I don't stub my toe?"

She only ate like that when she was angry and worried at the same time. Maeno had learned not to get too close when she ate like that. Get too close without announcing oneself, and she'd hit before she looked.

"Talk like that, and you'll end up choking," Nendan said. "It's happened to me before, it's not pretty, and then you need to be saved by the putz protecting you."

"I'm not a putz," AfLugh said.

"No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you're a putz. It's just she thinks you're one. You know that I know you're better than that. Where's your ego? Never mind, we'll talk about it later. Before you demand loudly, Naena, a putz is a complete incompetent member of the Seven who you assign to stupid jobs like guarding vases."

"I'm not a vase," Naena said.

"Glad you noticed," Nendan responded. "Graydon probably thought you'd try to slip off and ditch your Seven assignment, so he gave you AfLugh. Have you tried to ditch him?"

Naena cast AfLugh a guilty look, then glanced at Nendan before she focused quite suddenly on her plate.

"How about after dinner, we break curfew and go up to the observatory?" Nendan asked Naena before he turned his look to AfLugh. "I can override him, right?"

"I just agree with people higher in the pecking order than me," AfLugh said before he focused resolutely on his plate.

"I'm super behind on everything," Naena said.

"You did miss a lot," Nendan said. "There's the—wait, you know that. Well, in—nope, you know that too. Is there anything you don't know?"

"What you're talking about?" Naena asked. "Besides. I have to be reintroduced to physical activity."