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"You're standing too close." I stepped between them, and Mia flinched a little, possibly still
worried I might break her arm. "And hey at least the queen knew her name, which is more than
I can say for you and your wannabe-royal act. Or your parents.”
I could see the pain that caused her. Man, she wanted to be royal so badly. "At least I see my
parents," she retorted. "At least I know who they both are. God only knows who your father is.
And your mom's one of the most famous guardians around, but she couldn't care less about you
either. Everyone knows she never visits. Probably was glad when you were gone. If she even
noticed.”
That hurt. I clenched my teeth. "Yeah, well, at least she's famous. She really does advise royals
and nobles. She doesn't clean up after them.”
I heard one of her friends snicker behind her. Mia opened her mouth, no doubt to unleash one
of the many retorts she'd had to accumulate since the story started going around, when the
lightbulb suddenly went off in her head.
"It was you," she said, eyes wide. "Someone told me Jesse'd started it, but he couldn't have
known anything about me. He got it from you. When you slept with him.”
Now she was really starting to piss me off. "I didn't sleep with him.”
Mia pointed at Lissa and glared back at me. "So that's it, huh? You do her dirty work because
she's too pathetic to do it herself. You aren't always going to be able to protect her," she
warned. "You aren't safe either.”
Empty threats. I leaned forward, making my voice as menacing as possible. In my current
mood, it wasn't difficult. "Yeah? Try and touch me now and find out.”
I hoped she would. I wanted her to. We didn't need her messed-up vendetta in our lives just
now. She was a distraction—one I very much wanted to punch right now.
Looking past her, I saw Dimitri move out into the garden, eyes searching for something—or
someone. I had a pretty good idea who it was. When he saw me, he strode forward, shifting his
attention when he noticed the crowd gathered around us. Guardians can smell a fight a mile
away. Of course, a six-year-old could have smelled this fight.