8

The weekends at Bluestone are the sort of days to dream of. They are the sort of days I thought I would have when I first came to the school.

Sometimes, I let myself wonder what it would have been like for me if my magic wasn’t dormant.

If, when I turned thirteen, my magic showed itself, and Dray saw that, would we have walked the halls of Bluestone hand in hand? Would our unofficial engagement have become official?

We were intended for each other. Went through our early youth thinking that we would marry. It made sense for us to play together, to hold hands, to become friends.

And we were.

Would that have changed at Bluestone if I was a true witch?

How quickly would we have gotten tired of each other, or simply decided that—like the other betrotheds—we should explore other people while free from marriage?

The thought of it churns my stomach.

I have this sudden image of myself and Serena of all people. Probably my best friend from back then. And we stand in the atrium, Courtney passes us by, we linger our distasteful glares over her for a moment before we share a small, cruel smile with one another.

That is what would have happened if I hadn’t been a dormant witch. I would have been just like them.

A Snake.

But life is twisted, it is unpredictable for the likes of me, and my reprieve here at the academy is that we have weekends.

I slide under the radar on the weekends.

The Snakes are too busy enjoying themselves to bother with me. Between the sports they participate in and the slopes open and the gondolas running, then all the parties that spread out throughout the school, and some assignments to rush through, none of them seem to have a moment to spare on little old me.

That bottles up for the school days.

Boredom breeds hate?

The point is, on Saturdays, I’m safe.

Landon and Dray will be in snow-rugby with Mildred, Oliver in ice-hockey, Serena tied up with her figure skating, and Asta practically lives at the witching village for the out-of-bounds snowball fights, the sort that are banned from school grounds.

Then there is skiing and snowboarding, study hall and a whole lot of hangovers.

It makes for a quiet morning in the mess hall.

The ease of it lights me up.

I feel the small smile that’s stubbornly painted on my face as I tuck into my porridge. The delight of the weekend reflects in my chosen meal. No bacon in sight, no eggs or grease or butter or bread. All fruits and a banana smoothie, my porridge, and black coffee.

Mother would be pleased.

Courtney flicks through an old copy of the school newsletter. The paper is yellowed with age, ink smeared over the pages. “What time are the gondolas on?”

“Nine,” James says. With a glance at the clock nearest our table, he adds, “In a few minutes.”

Courtney releases the pages, then leans back in her chair and scans the mess hall. Empty, for the most part. Only two teachers at the faculty table, a cleaner who loiters around the buffet, bored out of her wits, a few first years, a junior, and a handful of other students.

The hall is so empty, so quiet that the mere clang of a fork on a plate echoes more than it should, and—distantly—I am aware of the dry coughs that come from a lanky boy.

Saturday morning is not often busy in the mess hall.

The games are on. Ice-hockey in one of the basement rinks of the East Quarter, the part not flooded. And snow-rugby will be happening in the field near the abandoned cabin.

Most of the students go to watch one of the games.

The three of us never do.

Courtney looks up as a knitted throng of about a dozen seniors pour in from the doorway.

I glance at them, their blushed faces, noses red, smiles wide, hair windswept. Must have come from the snow-rugby game outside. They have fresh alps air written all over them.

Courtney sighs. “Think there will be a long queue?”

I watch the seniors head to the buffet, a lot of nudging, hair ruffling, laughter. I shake my head. “No, we have time. If we go to the gondolas quick, we might be first in line.”

James drops a charcoal stick to the table, then blows a gentle, grazing breath over the dusted page of his sketchbook.

I lift my chin and peer into his private art.

He draws a face.

Not one I recognise, since it’s so clearly far from being anywhere near finished, but I do recognise the rough outlines of a jaw, the arch of brows, the creases at the edges of eyes.

“Well let’s finish up.” Courtney nudges him, shoulder to shoulder. “Are you coming with us?”

James grunts again, and I’m not all that certain he’s actually listening to his sister. He blows a final breath over the charcoal dust on thick parchment, then he gently closes the book over.

He sets it aside, then starts to wipe his stained fingertips on a cloth napkin. “Going skiing,” he says. “I booked a lesson for ten o’clock.”

Courtney’s eyes widen, the same as mine, and we both take in his scrawny, speckled appearance. He’s somewhere between an autumn weed and skinny tree whose roots never quite took to the soil.

“You’re going skiing?” A laugh bubbles up inside of me. I swallow it back down with a mouthful of fluffy porridge. “Good luck with that.”

“I want to learn,” he says, and the glare he throws me is nothing short of moody.

I am unafraid.

His mouth takes a pout. “I’ve been at this academy for ten years.” He shakes his head. “Ten years,” he echoes, and frown forms behind the rim of his glasses. “First year through to sixth year, then a junior, two years a sophomore, a senior now—and I don’t know the first thing about skiing.” He emphasises a bewildered look, as though I am the one who’s lost their damn mind. “I should know how to handle myself on the slopes. I should have something to show for almost a decade here.”

I mean, I don’t know, I can’t relate.

I’m not that great of a skier myself, and snowboards have me on my backend more than upright. Though I do have a mean arm—so I am pretty damn brilliant at darts and pool and archery and even netball.

Still, I avoid sports when I can. Even though there’s a part of me that would kill for a body like Serena’s, lean and firm, as opposed to my slim and soft, but while I would kill for it… I wouldn’t exercise for it. That’s a whole other thing.

“Well, why should you?” Courtney shoots him a tired, withering look. “We live in a city—when are we ever going to go skiing in Scotland?”

“Scotland has plenty of snow,” I put in. “The highlands are loaded with ski resorts, you know. My family owns a cabin in—”

“Of course, they do,” she cuts me off, sharp. “And in France, and in Spain—”

“We have a chateau in France,” I mutter, a light correction, “and an apartment in Spain.” I leave the rest of the list out.

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the hex-bag this morning. And it sure wasn’t me.

“ We don’t have property all around Europe,” she says, then turns her concerned look on her twin. “So I don’t see any reason you need to learn skiing, James. When are you ever going to ski after we graduate?”

He shrugs, his gaze downcast, as if he dares not look at his scolding sister. She’s got on her nine-minutes-older witch hat.

Oliver does that to me, sometimes. Pulls the whole ‘I was born first’ card. Most of the twin witches do, and there are a lot of twin witches. Sort of a thing among our kind. Even Landon had a twin once, but he died in infancy. That, also, is a thing among our kind.

Fleetingly, I wonder if—with my dormant magic—I will have twins? That will be something to smile about. Deadblood, yes, but having twins is the mark of a good witch.

It’s my duty, or it will be my duty as a wife, to provide two offsprings. An heir, like Oliver, and a pawn, like me. One of each.

At least if I had them both at the same time, it’s a one-and-done deal.

Mother had Oliver and I in the one pregnancy. She never tried for more after that.

But then, there are the witches like Amelia. Dray’s mother. I do have a bud of affection for her, however overbearing and overstepping she might be sometimes. That bloom aches for her, just a little, when I think of her lost children.

She was unlucky.

Dray was her first. Her strongest.

Every attempt after him failed in-womb.

She tried for a few years, but the last time I remember seeing a swell of her belly was when I was around eight or nine years old. Guess one has to stop trying at some point.

Oliver used to say that Dray sucked all the magic out of his mother’s womb, and that’s why there wasn’t any left for another child.

I wondered if he did that to me.

James shatters my spiralling thoughts with a psst .

I blink at him. “What?”

“Why is he staring at you?”

Courtney looks up at the door.

I trace her gaze to the aristos pouring into the mess hall. All sheathed in black and white striped snow-rugby gear, tugging off their gloves, padding strapped to their knees and elbows.

Dray is in the middle, smacked fondly on the back, Mildred shouldering into him with a grin on her face. They won, but I care little about that, I care fondly that they don’t look at me.

I watch them split off, some for the buffet, others for the Snakes go-to table. Landon boots some younger students out of their chairs, students who dared sit at an empty, unofficially claimed table.

The kids are quick to scramble out of the way.

I roll my eyes before I finish off my coffee. It’s cold now, not lukewarm, cold . My face wrinkles.

“Not them,” says James. “Eric Harling.”

My eyes cut to the faculty table, fast.

Eric sits with a few other masters and administrative staff. A blush creeps hotly over my cheeks as we lock eyes.

He looks away as quickly as though our connected gazes burned him.

My mouth twists.

Courtney turns to her brother. “Are you sure you won’t come to the village with us?”

He sags with a loosened breath, one tinged with regret. “I’ll meet you there after my lesson. It’s too late to cancel it now,” he adds with a shrug.

The anxieties shine in the gloss of his lenses. Tucking his chin to his shoulder, he looks over at the table of Snakes for a beat, then, turning his back on Landon’s lured gaze, pulls off his glasses and wipes at the lenses with a napkin.

My gaze flickers to Landon.

He leans back in his chair. Running his hand through his tousled dark curls, he spares another moment on his stare aimed at the back of James’s head—and my throat balls with a sudden surge of anxiety for James.

He might not have the safest of trials on the slopes today. Maybe he was hoping the Snakes would be tied up with their games longer.

Courtney sweeps her tray off the table and takes it to the bin.

Without a word, James starts to tidy his own tray up.

“You don’t have to go,” I tell him, soft.

He lifts his frown to me.

“If you’re worried about the cancellation fee, I can put it on my account.” The offer is a weak one. The Home of the Misplaced will cover the expense. But it’s all I can think to say.

James forces a tight smile, then stands, taking his tray with him, his sketchbook tucked under his arm. “It’s not that.”

It’s all he says before he leaves me at the table, alone. I abandon my tray, then start for the doors.

Courtney loiters near them, waiting for me.

As I pass the table of aristos, my muscles seize under my skin, anticipation clinging to my gut, writhing. But the Snakes don’t throw any cruelties my way.

Dray only glances at me before he turns back to Serena and leans into her, listening closely as she whispers through a wicked half-grin. His glance is so small and fleeting, it’s as though I’m not his greatest enemy and directly in his line of sight. Not that I’m complaining.

I make it out it in one piece, no breakfast drenching me or wasp stings covering me, no frozen muscles or tears to stain my cheeks.

His team must have won in snow-rugby. His mood is light, too victorious to seek extra wins in my tortures.

And that means I get to continue my weekend, unblemished. That, I will say, is a good start to the morning.

The little village of VeVille is nestled between two high reaches of the mountain. It is the last stop on the gondola.

If anyone wanted to run away, they just have to make it down here from Bluestone, then take the veil to Edinburgh, and freedom is theirs.

I know because I tried once, twice, maybe thrice.

The problem is the school security that patrols the village.

They used blackout dust on me one time I tried to flee.

I’m not trying to make a run for it today.

Today, I have those rare sorts of moments, akin to contentment, a false bubble of security that could pop at any instant.

“I have the concept,” Courtney murmurs behind me, and I get the sense she’s talking aloud to herself more than she’s intentionally speaking to me, “but not the plan, you know?”

“Uh-huh.” My monotonous response is noncommittal.

But no, I don’t know.

I am listening to her, sort of, but I’m also wildly more intrigued by these books she dragged me to than I expected to be. So I’m only half-listening, I suppose.

In the danker, dustier section of the bookstore, I pick through the old, musty tomes and little mouldy pocketbooks.

Even the shelves are rotted wood, neglected over time.

It’s a barren section at the rear of the bookstore, and most of what’s back here seems to be out-dated theories disproven over the centuries, and some books about my lot, the ancient bloodlines. Only, according to these old books, we are referenced as the sacred bloodlines, not ancient.

A bit telling, really.

But those sentiments towards the half-breeds and the made ones, they aren’t exactly extinct. Just quieter. Softer whispers heard in the borders between the class systems.

It’s not like I have never noticed that there are no made ones in aristos. Their wealth has failed to reach that high. Whether they aren’t born with those sorts of wealth-forming prints, or it’s the elites of the Videralli who keep them in the lower systems, I don’t know.

I dismiss the ancient nonsense and shove the breedist book back onto the shelf. The spine shines with the faint spelling of ‘ PROTECTING THE SACRED LINES’ .

Dust clouds around my face. I cough through it and reach for a leather-bound tome whose silvery letters are peeling on the spine.

“The concept,” Courtney goes on behind me, rifling through old newspapers, “is to write something that no one writes about. But within the smaller frame of the academy.”

I nod, but my focus on the book. “Mm.”

To say I’m not falling over myself to hear every voiced thought she has about those articles she writes for the school newsletter, it’s an understatement.

“I need it to have punch ,” she says, and I can almost hear her fist move through the air as she imitates. “I need it to score me that extra credit. If I don’t get it… I don’t graduate with a High Distinction.”

I turn the book over in my hands. It’s small and slight, so I think it more of a pocket-sized read than a sturdy tome for back in a time when people considered this to be entertaining literature.

“Another Distinction will tank me,” Courtney says. “There are four other witches with the artificer print in our year alone,” she sighs. “I need to stand out if I want a decent career worth my time.”

“Yeah,” I say, then chew on the inside of my cheek.

I flip open the book to the introduction page. There, the title is printed in faded ink.

‘THE IMPACT OF DEADBLOODS’.

I drop my gaze to the subtitle.

‘The ethics of euthanising deadbloods: What are they and where do they come from?’

I slam the book shut, then hug it to my chest.

“I can’t write about the violence on the slopes again,” she says, her voice softened into a murmur.

I turn around to lean my back on the shelves. The hard wood digs into my spine, but I take the bites of pain and look over at her.

Mousy hair falling over her face, the blemishes on her chin are redder and angrier than they were in the gondola just an hour ago. She must be scratching at them.

“Ready?” I prompt.

She sags with a heavy breath, then snatches up the newspapers.

I watch as she folds them neatly before she sets them back on the archive shelves.

Courtney doesn’t buy anything. Didn’t find the angle for her article.

I buy the small pocketbook and tuck it into my dainty shoulder bag.

Can’t have prying eyes spotting the book—I might be a deadblood, but it’s something of a taboo, still. To openly carry around that book won’t do.

I keep it stowed away for another day, then drag Courtney through the sludgy streets of the village.

I lure her with me to the pub down the way.

It’s quieter than the inn, because at the pub one must be of age to be allowed entry. That cuts out about three quarters of the student body and leaves the pub to the juniors, sophomores and seniors. The inn is always too boisterous, too busy, and almost always impossible to find a table.

Here, we find a table quickly.

As soon as my boots are on the other side of the door, I take a hard left for the smooth blackwood table by the window. Two chairs are tucked under it.

But we need a third, since—sometime around noon—James should be joining us.

Courtney parks herself at the table before I wander to the larger one tucked against the wall.

I snatch a chair from under it, then drag it back to our table.

As I go, I pass Mikal, and I spare him a glower.

He doesn’t notice.

Loitering near the roaring fireplace, he casts a glance over his shoulder at the rest of the pub, scans the faces of the early comers, then turns back to Teddy.

Another senior, a gentry. Friends with Eric, and even prettier. But the mischief in his eyes reminds me too much of Dray, and so I never lingered too long a look over him.

Even now, that mischief dances in the dark blues of his ocean eyes. He lacks the cruelty of Dray’s glass gaze, but he wears it in the smile that dances on his lips.

It holds my attention for a beat, and I hesitate, chair sagging in my grip.

I watch as his hand meets Mikal’s.

An exchange of cash—and a phial.

Teddy rolls the phial of black glitter between his fingers, then stuffs it deep into his parka pocket.

I recognise blackout dust anywhere, even if it’s such a small amount in a tiny glass jar, no bigger than my own pinkie finger.

I have much experience with blackout dust.

That stuff incapacitates in the strangest of ways. It steals sight and sound. My eyes work, but the dust masks what is around me. My hearing is sharp, but the dust deafens sound. Someone could scream in my face, and I wouldn’t hear or see a thing. But I would feel the air disturb around me, a gentle breeze of flapping hands in my face.

Blackout dust is a favourite at Bluestone.

No one knows when it will strike, or who orchestrates it.

Mikal sells it, apparently.

Didn’t know that.

But one tiny phial, that’s not enough to blackout the entire school. That sort of attack needs a cauldron or more of the dust.

Even the Snakes might not be capable of the full scale siege on the academy. Every room, every corridor, the nooks and crannies of basements, everything and everyone—blinded. Chaos without sound.

That’s usually when the best of the pranks are set into motion. By the time the blackout has faded, which usually only takes a few hours, the colours bleed down the wall, the tables and chairs are glued to the ceilings, teachers are trapped in robes enchanted to bind around their heads, the classic pants-down-in-the-snow, and my favourite was when the headmaster was hexed to do roly-polys through the halls.

I almost peed myself laughing at that one. Could hardly breathe through the wheezes.

Guess it’s always a bit funnier when someone else is the target, and the pranks are more harmless than malicious.

Another reason I doubt that it is the Snakes behind the annual blackouts. Their pranks wouldn’t be so light-hearted.

I turn my cheek to the trade going on by the fireplace, then drag the chair to the table by the window.

The glass has a thick smear of condensation, which obscures the street on the other side, but I make out the faint shadowy silhouettes of students moving through the foggy village.

More will come now.

So close to midday, the games will be wrapped up, and students will be piling into the gondolas. James might be a while, what with all the traffic.

I don’t buy him a drink.

It’ll be cold and filmy by the time he gets here.

So I buy for just Courtney and I before we settle in at the table, and the senior students start pouring in.

I pick my way through a magazine for a while, and down a latte and a hot chocolate before the tired skiers started to invade the pub. They all wear red cheeks and noses, as if painted, and peel off their gloves and goggles.

I spot Dray among them before the fresh crowd parts for him and the other Snakes. He wasn’t on the slopes.

I can tell that much by the smooth hue of his sunkissed complexion, no blotchy red streaks on his high cheekbones, no snowburn on the tip of his nose.

The collar of his black cable-knit creeps up to his neck, something of a half-turtleneck. The deep hues of the cashmere look soft to the touch, not unlike the tan slacks he wears.

He looks put together—and so I guess he spent the handful of time after his snow-rugby game resting up to refuel for the weekend, eating, showering, napping.

That’s good news for James.

No Dray on the slopes.

But bad news for me, since the glass shards of his eyes cut to me, instantly, and I hate that he has some instinctual sensor for my presence seemingly built into his fucking soul.

My face pinches into something ugly.

I turn back to my magazine that’s mostly made up of fragrance adverts than articles. Something from the krum world, left behind by a half-breed maybe.

Courtney reads from the pages of a brew magazine, one hand loosely cupping at now-lukewarm copper mug of tea.

We sit a while in comfortable quiet.

Even as the atmosphere of the pub starts to pick up into shouts and laughter, mugs smacking down on tables, glasses clinking together, we stay sat—and silent.

Then I finish the magazine.

Stretching my arms above my head, I look up at the clock above the fireplace.

12.30PM.

James isn’t here yet.

He wasn’t among the skiers who poured into the crammed pub—at least, it’s crammed now . The annoyance of it shows in my pout as I look over my shoulder at the bar.

It’s packed, full. People reaching over shoulders to wave down the bartender, shouts calling overhead for friends to order on their behalf, and a whole lot of spilled drinks.

Not teas, coffees or cocoas.

The liquor is coming out now.

Vodka, whisky, the kind that warms the body inside out.

I turn to Courtney, her nose buried in the magazine. “Want to head back now?”

Raucous energy always puts me a bit on edge.

Not a mystery why.

She only lifts her brown eyes from the pages for a fleeting heartbeat before she shakes her head. “We’ll pass James on the gondolas. It’s easier to wait—we can go back together.”

I nod because it makes sense.

But I bite down on the insides of my cheeks because, over at the couches and coffee table that hug the fireplace, laughter suddenly booms much too loudly, and I recognise the sound of Landon teetering on drunk. He made quick work of it.

If I am going to be stuck here for another moment, I will enjoy a drink of my own. Just one. Can’t let down my defences around the Snakes.

I wait until most of the invaders have gotten their orders from the bar and dispersed before I get up to join the remains of the queue.

I lean into the edge of the bar, the soft wood biting into my ribs. Still, I push further into it to better lean over enough that I can make out the beers and ciders and sweet canned pops in the fridges under the liquor shelves.

It’s not a place to order a nice wine, or to expect the best ale on the market. Standard stock, and I trust what comes in cans better than what comes out of the bottles above them.

The barkeep, Jim, is quick to find me.

“Two watermelon pops,” I order. But the uncertainty of my decision is in the slow enunciation as I eye up the treats on offer. A peppermint chocolate cake in the glass stand, tucked beside the old, dusty till that rings and rattles too loudly for my liking.

Jim looks over his shoulder—traces my stare to the peppermint cake.

I shouldn’t.

I was good this morning at breakfast.

One little cake wouldn’t hurt… but then it might.

I don’t want to return home to Mother’s passive comments on my wider waistline, like I did last year and the year before. She sends me off to take more ballet classes whenever I gain a few.

I don’t gain a lot.

I just like cake.

Jim arches his brow at me.

I shake my head. “Just the drinks.”

He nods, but before he can push from the bar and move for the small fridges, a familiar ice-drawl snakes over my head—

“On my tab. And a bottle of single malt.”

I don’t look over my shoulder at Dray. I feel him advance. Feel the frosty warmth of his presence coming up behind me.

I wait for my order, face like I sucked and fucked a lemon.

This , this is what I despise about our world, our snub-nosed elite bullshit.

Hatred sees him pushing me over when no one’s around, but if I tripped on my own, among our kind, our rules expect that he helps me up.

He will order for me, buy my drinks, but spike them with a brew to make me ill, he will compliment my dresses but ruin them with chewing gum or whatever concoction he dreams up.

It’s all veils and masks with the aristos, and all slights have to be done in the right way at the right moment, and no other time or else it defies propriety.

I always thought it silly.

Growing up, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

To stab a man in a room of people is a terrible thing. A great crime, an atrocity. You will be judged.

But, then, to stab that same man in a dark room, with no witnesses, then to appeal for help?

Well that is different.

He got what was coming to him.

He will disappear.

No one will ever know.

Took me too long to learn that all terrible things are allowed, if they are done properly. If they are done in way that allows blind eyes, turned cheeks and, of course, the classic coverup.

But we are in the business of coverups, the Videralli, and most of all the aristos. We have the cleanest of dirty hands—and the dirtiest of clean hands.

Suppose it makes sense that all this sneaky, whispering backstabbing bullshit happens within the circles, too.

I outstretch my hand just as Jim slides the cans across the bar to me. The cold metal presses to my palm.

I snatch them both up before I draw in a deep breath, as though it’ll somehow help me turn to face Dray.

Doesn’t.

The tension is still tight on my jaw as I turn to him, and the flurry is still fluttering in my belly.

I barely look him in the eyes before he moves for me. I flinch.

But all he does is reach for me—and brush his fingers down my hair.

I jerk back with a hiss.

Unfazed, he lets his fingertips graze down to my shoulder. His eyes trace his movements to a thread tugged free from my white knit.

“Why do you never come to the games?” His pink mouth moves over the murmured question.

I blink, once, twice, then, “What?”

His gaze lifts, and it’s like the cut of a glass shard swiping at me from under long lashes. “You heard me fine, Little Life.”

Little Life.

My upper lip twitches with a snarl. “Don’t you call me that,” I spit at him and hit out. I whack his wrist, smacking his hand from my shoulder. “Don’t you dare call me that.”

Behind me, Jim sets down the whisky bottle.

Dray doesn’t so much as glance at it. “Answer me.”

“I… Why would I?” I frown at him. “I don’t care about your stupid games, your stupid teams. Why would I spend my weekends watching assholes like you—”

“Careful,” he whispers a warning, and though his voice is soft, it prickles the hair up the back of my neck. “I would hate for you to sour my mood with that ugly tongue of yours.”

My mouth crumples at the insult.

He leans in. His hand comes down on the bench, his body inching closer, manoeuvring me around until my back presses into the bar.

My gaze swerves to Courtney across the pub.

She stares out the window with a frown, though I don’t know why, it’s so condensed and frosted that it’s impossible to recognise the faces of anyone out there.

I swallow, thick, and lift my gaze to cutting diamonds.

Dray’s lashes lower over gleaming eyes. He looks down his fine nose at me. “Fortunate for you, my spirits are still light.”

I arch a brow. “Then let me pass.”

His sandy hair falls into his face. “Are you going to thank me?”

“For what?”

“The drinks.”

“Maybe you have had enough of those.”

His mouth quirks at the corner. A ghosted whisper of a smile, pink and full—but dark and malicious. “Enjoy.”

That’s all he says before he snatches the bottle from the bar, then pushes away from me.

His ‘favourable’ mood spares me.

And he heads back to his area, his people, once my people.

I suck the insides of my cheeks as I watch him go. But only when he’s dropped into the leather armchair and uncorking the bottle do I feel safe enough to leave the bar.

I hit the cans on the table.

Courtney flinches and blinks at me.

“We should be quick.” I drop into my chair. “Before this place gets a little out of hand.”

She thins her mouth, then gives a curt nod. Her gaze cuts to the window again, but she takes the can in her grip.

She sips.

I drink faster. Fast enough that little bubbles crawl up my throat. Then my shoulders jerk with a fright as a cackle splits the air.

Ugh, Mildred.

She’s so annoying with her loud, obnoxious voice, booming above most of the others. Her only match in noise is Landon, and he is matching her, with his constant laughs that make me want to rip out his throat in his sleep.

“—went down like a stack of cauldrons,” she’s shouting over the laughter, a grin in her own voice. “Dray knocked him out, like that.”

My mouth twists. I drink some more, the weight in my hand lessening, and I think it’s almost finished.

“He must not be coming,” Courtney says right before Mildred jumps up on the coffee table.

“And he took a swing, like that—”

I glance over at her.

She gestures the move, swinging her elbow through the air, an imitation of a strike.

“Or he is still at his lesson,” I say, but I watch Mildred as she switches up her performance into an imitation of a falling rugby player, and it’s definitely an exaggeration because no one falls with their arms waving about the place.

“For almost four hours?” Courtney scoffs.

“Uh, yeah, it’s skiing.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Those lessons can go on all day.”

Mildred jumps off the coffee table with her fists raised in the air. Some scattered cheers come from her audience of aristos and gentry alike, seniors and sophomores who huddle around the fireplace.

My mouth twists even more, a sour look that I shift to the armchair. The one Dray sits in.

Bet he’s loving this—all the praise, the attention.

Disgusting.

But when I look, my insides go cold all over.

He isn’t even paying attention to Mildred, to anything she says. His mouth is on Melody Green.

Melody, not quite straddled, is perched on his lap, her legs tucked up and her fingers trailing down his sweater.

Dray’s hand grips the meat of her thigh, as though he can graze the softness of her skin through the denim.

Melody bites his bottom lip, a gentle bite that she drags over the flesh, then releases with a wicked, triumphant grin.

He doesn’t mirror it.

From beneath long dark lashes, the crushed glass blue of his eyes cut to me—and there, they stay.

On me.

Lips just parted, the soft pink of his mouth brushes against hers. Her tongue flicks gently, teasingly, over his. Noses grazing, her hand pushing up against the front of his sweater, then sliding along the smooth neck of his sunkissed skin.

Still, he watches me.

Those blue eyes scrape over me, like shards of glass pressing too firmly against my skin, scraping along the bone of my exposed clavicle, flickering over the hemline of my skirt, dragging across my mouth—

And my breath is pinned to my throat.

A hot flush steals me, fast, like I am the direct line of the fireplace and the flames roar violently in the hearth, roasting me.

But that heat is coming from elsewhere.

His mouth moves with hers, his lips grazing hers, his grip flexes on her thigh, but his eyes…

I swallow, thick, then wrench my gaze away.

I turn my hot cheek to his stare. “Let’s go.”

Courtney nods. She leaves the canned booze on the table, only some sips gone from it.

I’m quick to scramble out of the chair and snatch up my bag from the table.

I rush out of there like my ass is on fire.