Chapter 48
"I don't care about the ceremony," Rowena said, though her voice had gone thin and shaky now, some of her usual composed cruelty finally cracking under genuine shock. "She actually hit me."
"This is unacceptable," her father said, voice shaking with fury now as he rounded on Callie, still held firm between the two guards. "Completely unacceptable. Do you have any idea what you've just done? Any idea how this looks, days before the most important ceremony this family has hosted in years?"
"She provoked me," Callie said, though even to her own ears the words sounded hollow now, insufficient against the reality of what she had actually done.
"Provoked you," her father repeated, disbelief and fury tangled together in his voice. "So you decided violence was the appropriate respon
