Read Online The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) by Madeline Claire Franklin - Free Book Online Page A

knick-knacks, anxiously playing with my necklace.
    “That's a cool pendant,” Andy says, surprising me. He hands me my drink.
    “Oh, thanks.” It's just a bronzy piece of hammered metal with archaic inscriptions on it that my mother gave me when I was young. Supposedly, it’s an amulet for protection.
    “Those are runes, right?” His green eyes move between my pendant and my face.
    I cock my head. “Yeah. Kind of.” It's not impossible that he would know about runes, but unlikely.
    “Kind of?” He peers at the necklace. “Glyphs?”
    “Sort of.” I narrow my eyes at him and take a casual sip of my drink.
    He laughs. “I'm just curious. I love ancient cultures—my parents are both anthropologists, you know. I was raised on stories about extinct cultures instead of fairy tales. My picture books were ancient grimoires and shamanic cosmologies.” He hesitates. “I've even studied what there is to study about gypsies.”
    I clench my jaw and turn away, taking a long drink from my cup. It burns going down, both from too much alcohol and too much compensatory sweetness. Curious and charming Andy might be, but a mixologist he is not.
    I nod and look at the pink liquid in my cup. “You know, some people are offended by the use of the word ‘gypsy.’ They consider it a slur.”
    Andy’s eyebrows rise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it as a slur. I had no idea.”
    I shrug, feeling like I have no right to discuss the subject anyway because I’m not Romani, and I’m not a gypsy, and, really, I’m nothing at all besides descended from people more interesting than myself. “So, what’s the deal? Are you setting me up for a prank?”
    “What?” Andy's brow furrows, then realization dawns on him. “Oh. No. No, I swear.” He sighs. “I know a lot of kids have used your heritage as an insult in the past. I get that you wouldn't trust my motives by bringing it up. But honestly, I'm just really curious about that culture. Besides...” He shrugs and glances back at the partygoers. “We're almost adults now. I think most of them realize it's not cool to mock someone else's culture.”
    I take a breath and almost roll my eyes, but I manage to laugh instead. There are a lot of things he's said that I could take to task, that I could dwell on and feel anxious about if I wanted. But I have learned over the years to pick the right time, place, and topics for my battles, and this conversation, here, tonight, doesn’t fit the bill.
    And anyways, at least he’s being nice—for the second time this weekend, even though he saw me soaked from head to toe and barefoot in the rain the night before. Maybe it's time to take Kyla's advice and open up to some of her friends.
    “Maybe some of them,” I agree, acting like I can forgive them if that's the truth. “But there will always be assholes who think that shit's hilarious.” I bite my lip, realizing how crude I sound next to him.
    “I've never been one of them,” Andy points out, big-eyed and earnest.
    That's true. Andy hasn’t got a single enemy in the world. “Yeah.” I nod. “Well, what do you want to know? I'm not really an expert or anything. I'm first generation gadje —I've never even met my clan. In fact—” I stop myself. He doesn't need to know about how they don't want me.
    “What's gadje?”
    “It's sort of like a ‘muggle,’ I guess. I think our clan—the Ouros—stole the word from the Romani people. It means something along the lines of outsider .” I shrug. “My father was gadje, and since my mother went rogue to be with him, that makes me one too.”
    “So…you're not actually a gypsy?” He says it with irony, referring to the insults hurled at me since I came to high school.
    “No, not really. Just my mother. Which makes using it as an insult doubly fucking insulting.” I frown and blush. Cursing again. Seriously, one drink and half a bottle of wine is all it takes these days?
    Andy chuckles, unfazed by my cursing. “What would