Algernon Black

(Chapter 126) Fate is Nothing

The ball was hosted in the grandest part of Attwood that was reserved all year for this one event. Algernon had felt the energy of the night building for weeks now amongst the students who were desperately sending away for custom gowns or suits to make absolutely sure they were in the latest fashion. He on the other hand just felt more drained the closer the dance loomed—for more than a few reasons. One of which was avoiding him in everything but his thoughts that had become overtaken by gray tear-filled eyes. And this might be the only place Lucy couldn't escape him, though the possibilities of her rejection gave him even more anxiety than the battle of socialization.

Algernon looked back to his greenhouse that he could just make out before he took the last step up towards the ballroom. He had come from there and his tailored suit sent by his mother for the dance was fragranced with a blend of all his flowers. The scent helped calm him down as he breathed in a heavy sigh to prepare for the mass mob, or diplomats as they liked to call themselves.

Algernon gave himself another few moments of preparation by traveling the overlooked staircase leading to a back hallway connecting the main corridor to the ballroom. Everyone tried to be seen as prominently as they could by strutting through the main hall, which led Algernon to believe that this one would be empty, but a voice slicing across the stone walls signaled the start of the night's battle.

"You really are so disappointing!" a man shouted. "Do you know how much money I spent sending you here with all those clothes and accessories and you haven't managed to get that boy's attention even once!"

"Father, I've tried," Pecilia whispered. Though Algernon didn't recognize her voice at first as it meeked out small and brittle—not at all the force of the girl he knew her to be. "He doesn't have any interest in anyone," Pecilia lied.

The distinct sound of a slap reverberated across the hallways, echoing off the cold marble before absorbing into freshly fallen snow. Pecilia cupped her cheek but didn't let out a single sound. "What other excuses are you going to use to justify your failure to your family?" her father scathed, his hand warmed from the hit.

Algernon stalked from around the corner, boring his black eyes into the man as he came between Pecilia and her father.

"Mr. Black." Conclaveman Row swallowed, his round face blaring red.

Algernon didn't address him back with anything but a revolted glare down his nose. Pecilia's father was many things, but he wasn't stupid, and he instantly apprehended Algernon's menace and saw himself off. Algernon stared down his shrinking back until he was out of sight. He had met the man many times before but only now did he look as small as he acted scurrying away.

Pecilia collected herself in the time her father left, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in her two-piece embellished ensemble. And as she did when she was feeling anything unwanted covered it up with sarcasm. "Is it foolishness or selfishness that has led you here?" she asked, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired.

Algernon looked sorrowfully at her cheek still flushing red. "An unforeseen amount of both."

Pecilia snickered.

Algernon scanned over her, seeing her in a light he had never tried to before and wondering how much of her sufferings he had failed to notice all these years while he only centered on his own.

"Pecilia," he said. "Thank you for all you've tried to do. And I'm sorry for any problems I have brought into your life."

Pecilia rolled her eyes, but it lacked its usual fieriness.

She knew it wasn't his fault. Even if it hadn't been Algernon, there would have been some other noble her parents would've pushed her on for his family's money, but Algernon came with more strings attached—dangerous ones that her parent's thought well worth trading their youngest child for if it meant power, and money for the rest of them. The saddest part of all was that no one in their society looked down upon her father for it. They thought him smart and savvy. And if any of them had the chance they would have done the same. It made Pecilia so unbearably angry, at times she wanted to scream or cry, but as usual, she endured.

"The reach of your destruction truly has no bounds," she said failing to mimic her usual severe sarcasm. "Just being around you is painful, but that is what you were made to do, ever since the day they gave you that curse." Pecilia signaled to his ring, the ever-constant reminder of the hazards that flocked and came from Algernon Black. "At least I'm aware of it though."

Algernon's jaw clenched, figuring of who she was insinuating.

"But I'm not angry with you." Pecilia sighed, toying with fixing the small crown her father had off centered with trembling fingers. "I understand you too well to be angry with you, Algernon." She only made it worse, and gave up, yanking the fake silver-plated crown free from her fake dyed hair. "Living with these suffocating pressures of problems you didn't cause but everyone puts on your shoulders to solve. Every decision you make watched and picked over by a thousand judging eyes. Knowing if you fail, you'll be failing everyone with not an ounce of sympathy for you." She searched Algernon's eyes, seeing all too well he knew exactly what she was saying. "I know that feeling more than anyone. And it's why I know the harm your presence causes, and why it's cruel and stupid of you to drag someone into that."

Algernon's eyes set with his determination. "I'm not going to let anything happen to her."

Pecilia pushed out a snort of laughter. She wasn't even surprised he had ignored her, just angry.

"You think that's a decision you can make by yourself?" she berated, wiping away the tears that started to form in her eyes when her father had slapped her and the ones forming now at her frustration.

Algernon's eyes narrowed, resolute by what he said. It made Pecilia livid.

"You think you are this great person that you are just not! This pinnacle warrior of strength and power that some rumors make you out to be! But words mean nothing! Especially not from these people! Of anyone you should know that."

Algernon stared back at her, defiant to her warning but open to the warranted insults.

"And you know why I know I'm right?" Pecilia asked, stepping into Algernon's space so that maybe he would pay more attention. "Because any person that takes the shallow compliments given to them by shallow people as confirmation of their strength is just getting tricked into believing the convenient ideas of others. You have no real power, and no control of how things turn out because your delusional way of rationalizing the situation holds as much substance as your egotistical evaluation of self-worth. The great Algernon Black only exists in rumors, and you're not half as powerful as everyone has led you to believe." Pecilia stared until she could see herself in the reflection of Algernon's stone black eyes and see the tears in her own. "You're nothing more than the sad little cold boy, you've always been."

Pecilia's words were harsh, but her eyes worse as they reflected only the truth as she saw it, the one Algernon couldn't accept.

"I don't care what others think of me. Who I am won't be formed from the ideas of others, but by my own choices. And I won't let others be in control of my fate any longer," Algernon said, like he'd been rehearsing the speech for days when really, he'd wanted to say it for years.

"Fate," Pecilia repeated the word, dejected and defeated. "Fate is nothing but the influence of others in our lives, and until you kill every single last person in this world you will always be subjected to it."

Algernon paused as he digested the weight of her words. And Pecilia left to let him, hoping that maybe once he would listen to reason over hope. But the realist within her that had formed from years of being Algernon's disregarded victim knew he was too far gone in his emotions to focus on anything other than hope, as self-destructive as that was going to be.