by Jayla Kane
“Tell me,” I said, frowning. I’d never heard any of this; my impression of the Game Master was that they were more like a Court Jester for the Council, someone that they used to keep the administration in check—someone that would, I suppose, do exactly what Raven was describing if the Council bid it.
“Years and years ago, the Rose Parade was a big deal—do you remember?” I nodded. There were pictures of my family attending it, some of them almost a century old. “The Rose Parade was a tradition in Ashwood, and people would come from everywhere to watch them walk up and down Rose Avenue, I guess—not much of a parade, but I think there was a fair, and the Institute was open, in the beginning at least, for people to explore the grounds. Anyway, they stopped having them in the 1960s, at least partly because the Game Master—no known real name—orchestrated a riot. That’s what people think, anyway; nobody knows who threw the first bottle or whatever, but the parade was attacked, basically, and the tents in the fair ended up getting burned. Nobody died,” she said, shrugging, “but they cancelled the parade after that. There was a lot of unrest in the student body about the fact that only white guys were allowed to go to the Institute. And supposedly the Game Master, the guy who did it, was punishing the Institute for refusing to change with the times.”
“The Third Circle was pro-integration and pro-women?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “Now that definitely sounds like a fairy tale, little bird.”
She shrugged at me again. “It was a big enough deal that papers wrote about it, there were a couple interviews with the Song.”
“Huh.” I leaned back and put my hands behind my head. “So. I can start riots—check. What else?”
“In the older records the Game Master actually was in charge of the fair,” she said. “But they called it a Summer Carnival, and it happened the first weekend of school. Was all about the harvest.”
“When you say older records what do you mean?”
“The 1920s, 1910s.”
I thought for a minute. “When was the Institute founded?”
“In 1723.”
“So between then and the 1910s there were no harvests?”
“No, wise ass,” she said, and I gave her a sharp look. “Master. There were Summer Carnivals here and there, but they weren’t consistently held in Ashwood until after the Civil War.”
“Huh.” I thought for a moment. “So I can throw a party, and I can fuck a party up. I’m not sure I needed a fancy fucking title to tell anybody that.” She started to say something, then stopped herself, but I waved my hand. “Come on.”
“I think the power of the Game Master is more that… He can be wielded by the Council to disrupt the powers that be, and occasionally he’ll disrupt the Council itself.” Raven was still thinking hard. “I mean, I’m kind of reading between the lines, but the Master of Games is really… He can do nothing but organize keggers, a lot of them do that. Or he can set up a bunch of dominos and change the history of the school. It’s all about the moment, and who he is as a person.” She blinked, seeming to remember herself all of a sudden, and glanced up at me before watching a space on the floor, her thoughts still swirling. “Master,” she added, a quick afterthought.
There she is, I thought, and was glad she wasn’t watching me, lost in her own clever index of ideas so I could gaze at that beautiful face in peace. There’s the girl I loved. Raven wasn’t just smart—lots of people are smart. Lots. They’re good at algebra or at making you believe they care about you, or maybe they’ve got a real bead on where to find the best weed or they just can bake cupcakes or whatever. Lots of things will make you smart.
Raven Keller was brilliant.
She had a hard time with math, and she hated public speaking; she didn’t like anything repetitive, like type-writing, but was surprisingly quick on her feet and had a mean three-point throw. She had a sweet tooth and she stayed awake too late at night reading and was a grump when she woke up. She worked her ass off. And she could find patterns and meaning in things that to anyone else would be the mental equivalent of a tangled ball of yarn.
Raven was staring at me now, her eyes—a blue so dark I’d never seen them anywhere else, ever—trained on mine. I held her gaze and wondered what she saw on my face; did the fact that I hated her and loved her seem obvious? Did she know how much of my life had been spent just thinking about her—how many minutes, hours, days?
“Um, Master?” She bit her lip, and I shifted my legs so she wouldn’t notice what it did to me. “Did you want to talk about tonight a little bit?” She sounded nervous; that was the only reason she was being deferential.
Strategy. Well, that was my specialty. “I don’t know why they want us there, but I want you to stay close to me. Physically, Bird—I don’t want anyone to think there’s any space between us at all.”
“You don’t think it might be to your advantage to… To let people see we don’t get along?” How demure. “If you have an enemy, I’d be a good way to get to you. If they think we don’t like each other—”
“Aw, Bird, who would think that?”
“If they think we don’t like each other,” she continued, exasperated, “that might flush them out—they might approach me, thinking I’d align with them against you.” That’s so cute; she phrased it as if she wouldn’t. Charming.
“You’re not wrong,” I said, “but I don’t think we have to work at it to make that impression. I think there’s a chance that’s why you were picked in the first place.”
“You picked me,” she said, and I shrugged.
“I knew which lump on the ground was Raven Keller, but what if they think I’m dumb and lucky?” She raised a silky black eyebrow and I bit back a laugh. “I know, right? Absurd. All the same. The way they introduced us told me there were a couple possibilities: they might have been trying to protect you from me—to make it harder for me to choose you. Or they might have wanted to see if I could tell somehow… If we were connected enough for me to find you.”
“Do you think Percy… He’s the Song,” she said, thinking out loud. “He wouldn’t have been trying to help me—”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Bird,” I said, and pretended to stifle a yawn. “Percy didn’t know who you were until I wrote your name in the book.”
“Then who knew about our history and is on the Council?” She was puzzled. “The only other people that could know would have to have gone to high school with us. They’d be other freshmen.”
“I don’t think there are any other freshmen on the Council.” I wasn’t guessing; Hunter and I were watching the Vault twenty four hours a day, and so far we’d managed to identify two other people on the Council and name seven in the Society as a whole, and all but Percy and another junior named Titus Devereaux were underlings. The few I’d seen in person had attended my signing ritual—and, by default, Raven’s—but never went near the Vault or appeared anywhere else we could identify them. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
“And furthermore, why would someone who was already going to school here give a shit about our rivalry in the first place?” She scowled, thinking it over. “Seriously. I don’t think that had anything to do with me. I think they must have just been trying to mess with your mind. Make you do exactly what you’re doing now.”
“Maybe,” I said, watching her think. I enjoyed that almost as much as I enjoyed watching her—
No. I needed to shut that down right now. “Ja—Master, I think the Tanglewood angle is better.” She was focusing on me now, her dark eyes glittering. “I think maybe, if he wasn’t such a great guy, there was someone who’s on the Council now that was using him for something—the way the Council typically uses the Master of Games. There must’ve been something he was doing for them, that they wanted him to keep doing.” She stared at me. “They’re going to ask you to do it too, whatever it is. And it’s probably kind of fucked up, if it had anything to do with the reason he got expelled.”
“He’s a rapist, that’s why he got ex
pelled,” I said, and she narrowed her eyes at me.
“How do you know?”
“Because he raped the older sister of a young lady that took a shine to me,” I said carefully, “and contrary to what you must think, I generally don’t like a guy who can’t hear no.” She flushed from her neck to her cheeks; her breasts were probably a pale pink right now. I swallowed the thought and kept the sharpness in my voice. “I found a friendly officer of the law I know and threw him at Tanglewood, claws out.”
“You acted like a Game’s Master, then,” she said quietly, and I shrugged. I guess I had. I certainly stepped right into the vacancy he left. My attention snagged on her when she coughed quietly, her cheeks still bright red. “I don’t… I’m not surprised,” she said, her voice so low I had to strain to hear her. “I don’t think you’re anything like Tanglewood.”
A part of me uncoiled. Not the desperate, feverish part that still wanted to pound her, to make her moan and sob with desire and pain. No… This was in my chest. And it was a little bit relieved.
“I’m not,” I said, and I could hear the strain in my voice. “But I… I don’t usually act that way,” I told her, and abruptly stopped. This was dangerously civil. “Certainly not with women who make a habit of lying to me.”
“Well, trust me when I say you’re an asshole who ruins everything,” she snapped, and I grinned at her even though my chest clenched. “About tonight.” Raven crossed her arms and glared at me. “I’m not going to stay—”
“Yes, you are,” I said, the darkness tinging my voice making her sit upright, her cheeks draining of color. “You are mine, as I explained. And you’re not a pawn for anyone else. Sorry, Bird. You’re stuck with me.”
“I think you’re really—”
“I like that you’re so fucking good at reading books, Raven, I really do,” I told her, enjoying the way her nostrils flared. “But this is life. Life is different. It’s more about people, and their nature, then it is about fairy tales.”
“Books are about people, you stup—”
“And in this instance, all of the history books in the world aren’t going to explain to you how fucked up a group of shitty rich kids run rampant on a campus that takes itself too fucking seriously in the middle of nowhere will be. But I know,” I told her, leaning forward, “because I’m one of them. And you’re not leaving my sight. Not for a goddamn thing. You better piss while we’re here and pray it’s over quick.”
“What? My trip to the bathroom, Master?” She was furious, her anger radiating off of her in waves.
“Yeah, Bird—no, goddamnit!” I rolled my eyes at her. “The meeting with the Council of Brats.”
“You seem to have forgotten all about my high school experience,” she snapped at me. “I think I know how to deal with a group of shitty rich kids, actually—maybe even better than you do, considering I was the one you were tormenting.”
“That was child’s play compared to what they’ll do to you if you piss them off, Bird, and you know it. You think you’re transferring to Harvard once you xerox all the pages in all the dusty books you want from that Vault? Think again. They will ruin that for you—easily. That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I said, and from the look on her face I knew I finally hit home. “Their parents know all the deans, their older brothers are all graduating from the Business School. It’ll take a phone call to take all that away from you, and it will cost them nothing.” She stared at me, finally realizing what I was saying. “They don’t care, Raven,” I said, worried I’d scared her off, suddenly, that she would leave now for sure. Just when I… “If you don’t give them a reason to notice you, they won’t. Guaranteed. So stay close to me. Don’t talk unless they ask you something. Don’t go interrogating sleazy upper classmen in dark rooms in frat houses.” That made her quirk her mouth at me, and I smiled back at her. “Say you understand.”
“I understand.” I raised my eyebrows. “Master.”
“Good. Let’s get dressed.” It’d been too long since I saw her naked anyway, I thought, and cracked my knuckles as I stood up. “The robes are over here.”
“Should I…” She hesitantly stood up, swallowing as if she didn’t want to finish the sentence. I stared at her, waiting, and she finally huffed out a breath. “Should I really go to the bathroom?”
“Yes,” I said, and grinned at her. “Because you won’t be leaving my side, right? Because you understand I will put an actual leash on your neck if you try?”
“Jesus,” she muttered, and turned on her heel. I watched her ass as she almost left the room, and then she spun around at the last second. “Give me the robe,” she said, her hand outstretched. I shook my head at her. “Please, Ja—Master. Please?” Her face was strained. Maybe she didn’t—had I read her wrong? Was— “I just want to throw up in peace and come back and not talk any more,” she blurted out. “I just want it over.”
Well, that changed the mood, certainly. I threw her the robe and sat back in my chair, rubbing my chin.
I hadn’t imagined what she meant, earlier, had I? When she said that she knew I was different from Tanglewood? I didn’t even know if—no, I cut myself off, biting my lip so hard it bled. I sucked on it and thought. I’m not capable of doing something to a woman that she doesn’t want, no matter how much… How much I hate her. I hate her. I hate her, I reminded myself, and that same twisted part of me sneered and demanded I make her pay in trade for what she’d done. What she continued to do, by refusing to just fucking tell me the truth.
I threw my robes on in a hurry, snatching the masks off of the floor and stuffing my clothes in a backpack that I wore underneath the giant black gown; it was undetectable, Hunter had assured me. By the time she got back from the bathroom, I was furious. I’m sure I seemed like an actual psychopath, but I could barely look at that beautiful face, the pale skin, the bead of sweat on her upper lip, the dark eyes. Maybe she really did throw up. Good, I thought viciously; she took my threat seriously. For a moment, I regretted it—she would look damn good on the end of a leash. But I wordlessly pointed to the door after shoving her clothes in with mine, and we moved into the night, the black fabric blowing around us like a storm cloud as we descended the stairs.
Chapter Seventeen
Jake
The campus was an easy place to walk around in wearing ridiculous costume, partly because there were so many places to hide--nooks and crannies and crevices and whatever other creeper shit the people who built it added for just such nefarious purposes--but the other reason was that the Society itself had given several actual robes out to freshmen to wear around Campus as a gag. Two drunk kids pledging with the Omegas staggered in our path, the robes stained with beer and sweat; they were kind of a joke, really, although the real joke was that actual members of the Society could walk around in our creepy gear, unnoticed.
I’d believed this must have been a recent idea—something one of the preceding Game Masters must have thought up—but after talking to Raven… I’d been so blinded by the possibility of ensnaring her as my Sineater that I hadn’t really thought about much else when I got the letter; I was definitely guilty of what I’d accused her of. It was beautiful, calligraphy and everything—much fancier than a Facebook page. I think that was deliberate, though; I got the feeling more and more that the Sineater was supposed to be degraded, to absorb the worst of the energy of the Institute, the Game Master, certainly, and even the campus maybe. Anybody could see that stupid Facebook page. It basically gave you a hit-list of ambitious freshmen, girls and boys who wanted a leg up in life and were too poor to get notice any other way. Knowing who would be willing to risk humiliation or worse in order to feel included and superior was a powerful gift for a certain kind of person—a person like me, for example. Hunter was watching all of the other potential Sineaters to see if any of them had a grudge against Raven, but so far we were in the clear. Two of them were definitely members of the Society, but they were low level grunts. I didn’t know either of them from
high school.
Something about the way the Council had tried to trick me into choosing someone besides Raven was what bothered me, stuck with me, made me suspicious. Why?
Tanglewood was very clear. He hated me with a passion, which I appreciated; it made it even more enjoyable to surprise him with a visit to his apartment in downtown Providence, the shock on his face worth a million dollars. He was a hungry, blunt edges kind of guy. He didn’t have the finesse to lie convincingly, and he told me I was supposed to pick the Sineater up from class—it was a way to remind the professors where they stood with the Society too, I thought, and to subtly announce ourselves to the student body. The Sineater was a public figure like the Song, in one sense—particularly because of the way they had to broadcast their intentions across the internet—but they didn’t have anonymity in the same way. They didn’t interact with the Press, but there were at least three times in recent memory when Sineaters were dragged to jail because of suspected Society activity. Stealing something from the Ashwood mayor’s house… And there’d been a fire set in the church on Thorn. I didn’t know the specifics of whatever happened the third time, but Raven would. So she knew the Sineater ate the sins of the entire Society, even if she was my special pet; even if the Song stood up and declared that they’d never heard of that person, the one that got blamed for everything, and they denied it themselves… Even if the police couldn’t prove anything and had to let them go… They still suffered the punishment. They still got dragged to jail, blamed, derided, ridiculed.
It was twisted.
And the reward for this, supposedly, was secret knowledge—that’s what the fancy letter said. I thought it was networking opportunities for brats who burned all their other bridges, but okay. Special knowledge, I knew, was exactly what Raven wanted—she didn’t understand the benefit of networking, as such. She told people what she thought whether it was a good idea or not. “Hey,” I said, suddenly reaching out and grabbing her shoulder. I turned her towards me, and we looked at one another through the slits in our masks; I’d chosen bland plastic ones that obscured our features, no slick movie stars for us. My voice was muffled. “I’m serious about shutting up, Raven. Okay? Don’t talk, don’t fucking do anything unless I tell you to do it—nobody else, remember, you’re on the Council too and you’re only beholden to me—so stay in my pocket. Got me?”