“Half an hour.” I withdrew my hands, the magic feeling more like a mask of ice frozen to her face than real skin to me. Hopefully, the guards weren’t artists and wouldn’t notice.
Then she was gone, tearing through the garden with a grin on her face and no care at all in her strides. She tore through a thicket, snagging a few branches, and didn’t look back. I tugged at her dress, her life an odd fit, and scratched at the satin against my skin. Didn’t rub but slipped, prettier and smoother than anything I’d ever worn.
“I can do this,” I said, checking my hair. “Please don’t get arrested before you even leave.”
Emilie had felt like a friend when we were talking. I knew what it was like to feel broken and out of place because of what the world told you to want. Desires were complicated, living in a world full of contradicting ones doubly so.
“I belong. I can do this,” I repeated.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of her dress, fingers crinkling over paper in one, and pulled it out, desperate to distract myself from this mess.
“A response to Mademoiselle Estrel Charron on The Price of Clarity: The Effects of Divination on the Mortal Form from a Healing Arts Perspective.” I traced the spiky signature at the bottom. “Laurence du Montimer, premier prince du sang, duc des Monts Lance, Chevalier of the Noonday Arts, and Physician of the First Order.”
What an ass. Estrel Charron was the only bearable artist from the higher ranks because she was common born and kinder for it. She’d tried studying at the university, and they’d made her a hack for the noble artists, content to waste her powers until she’d showed them she was too good to be ignored. She’d divined sieges and storms and spies. She’d written books foretelling the futures of Demeine—for noble perusing only, of course. A pearl amongst grit, they called her.
I could be too.
I tucked the paper away and pushed through the firs to a stone path. For all this fancy gardening, there wasn’t a marker in sight. The path Emilie must’ve wandered off was stone, cut through with swatches of bright green moss, and I followed it eastward up a small incline. Around a bend of more orange trees, a pond of blue thyme, with yellow primrose spotted through like fish, rippled in the breeze. I skimmed my fingers along every flower and leaf as I walked, everything green and living, and pulled a poppy from a patch of red. We’d only enough land to grow what we needed in Vaser.
Winding closer to the academy, the observatory a great unblinking eye of glass glaring down at me through the holes in the treetops, I touched an orange. My stomach rumbled against my ribs. Most of the land around Vaser was too dry to produce such extravagance.
This was why Laurel was gaining so much ground—nobles wasting money on things like this.
“Pretend you’re Estrel Charron,” I whispered. “A winter, soft enough to be wanted and threatening enough to be feared.”
If she could do it, maybe I could too.
“It would be best if you did not touch things you have not been told are safe to touch,” a gentle voice behind me said. “It is not a good way to start your first day, Emilie des Marais.”
I froze. The person behind me laughed.
“Turn, please. I prefer to see what I have to work with in its natural habitat, and your mother said you were quite the wild child.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I swallowed, turned, and straightened my back. Time to be a comtesse. “I’m sorry. It was real pretty.”
“Don’t worry, dear. I’m Vivienne Gardinier, and I’m here to help you.” She was an older white woman, craggy lines like ice crevasses set deep into her skin, and clean brows shaped like snowcapped peaks brightened her forget-me-not eyes. Strands of curled white hair, escaping from the smooth knot at the back of her head just so, rustled against the shoulders of her pale-green dress. A scar split her pink lips from bow to chin. “Come—it is a normal day of instruction for the other girls, but your roommates have arrived, and I would prefer you acquaint yourselves with one another before attending classes. And don’t worry, you’re not in trouble.”
I lifted my skirts and took her arm, the expensive beading of her dress rustling against mine. It made my stomach clench in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. “Yes, ma’am.”
She swept up the path. “Mademoiselle when necessary. Here you may call me Vivienne. Only soldiers and sailors say ma’am, and you must remember to enunciate. Your accent will find nothing but scorn in Serre, I am sorry to say. You sound quite harsh, but it is a sad lesson we must all learn. People with power can be particular, can’t they?”
As if she didn’t have any power. Nobles were the ones who talked differently, snipping the ends off words with nasally sighs.
“Yes, Mademoiselle,” I said. “They can be.”
She patted my hand. She was warm, and this close, smelled of roses. “Your mother says you’re very particular about your magic?”
“I won’t use a hack.” I swallowed. The building loomed above us, only a thin screen of trees separating us. “My magic’s all me.”
I was my own.
“An artist after mine and Estrel’s hearts, I see.” She smiled and pointed to one of the towers far above us. “Your mother said you took no joy from the midnight arts, but even so, I imagine someone so dedicated to their studies would appreciate a meeting with Mademoiselle Charron?”
Black smoke leaked from a half-closed window far above us, storm smeared against the sea of sky. I reached for it with my magic, and a teeth-chattering shudder ran through me.
Power—raw and ready.
“Yes,” I whispered, feet moving on their own. “I would.”
“Then I am very pleased to welcome you to my school, Emilie.” We rounded a bend, and she paused before an open door taller than two of me and drenched in silver etchings of stars encircling the moon, white rabbits on onyx skies, and a brazenly gilded sun and moon. Most of the manors along the Verglas had been built to withstand sieges, and it showed. The doors were thick as my thigh, the locks an intricate web of metal gears and magic. Beyond, a hall of white marble and light wood stood empty. The muffled sounds of distant voices echoed through it.
Rivers of silver spilled through the marble and wood, slashes of metal so bright, they looked like they still flowed, and I couldn’t bring myself to take a single step inside.
They’d know. They’d know I was all dirt and failure, a Vaser girl with ill-formed dreams. They’d know I didn’t belong.
“Classes will begin for new students tomorrow, and one of the older girls will show you where to go in the morning.” Mademoiselle Gardinier led me through the open doors. “Today is for settling in.”
How could someone settle into this?
The entry was brilliant. The silver-seamed floor split into two hallways to the left and right, the floors shifting from marble to hardwood polished until it glowed in the light filtering through the tall, glass windows. A staircase of wood rose from the center and split into the two that spiraled away from each other, leading into the heavens of the school, and a rug of white with silver threads, impossibly clean, covered the steps. Silver gilded the edges of the furniture and sparkled in the portrait of the first King of Demeine hanging at the top of the first flight of stairs. Steel chains that ended in small candleholders hung above us, the blue candles unlit. Crystal drops dangled beneath them like rain.
There was no dirt anywhere but on me, and an army of servants must’ve been waiting in the wings. The very idea of keeping this place clean and running made my skin crawl.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Mademoiselle Gardinier asked.
I jerked. “It is.”
“Come, let us introduce you to your new roommates, so you have time to speak before supper.” She took me upstairs, past tapestries and wall hangings laced with gold and silver, past doors painted with alchemistry, so that only when I was right before them could I read the names
of the three girls inside, and to a room at the end of a hall in the easternmost edge of the third floor. It was cracked open, the soft patter of tapping toes against plush carpet leaking through. She rapped on the doorjamb.
“Girls?” she asked, face impassive. She glanced away from me to rap again. “Emilie has arrived.”
I checked my face to see if I was squinting. There was too much glitter and gilding, too much…everything.
The door opened wide. I couldn’t help but peer in, the room full of gilded wallpaper and silk screens and fine silver. The rich girl I’d seen in town, the one with gold hair and a taste for sweets, leaned against the wall with one arm. She was distractingly pretty—full cheeks and lips, a slope of a nose dotted with too few freckles to be natural, moon-round eyes the same shade as clouds after a storm, and blond hair tumbling down her shoulders in tight curls. A single black beauty mark stood out against the tanned white skin beneath her right eye.
I’d never looked at someone and been attracted to them, but sometimes people would pass through Vaser who were so beautiful or interesting that looking at them was like staring at a painting, each glance revealing another exquisite detail. This girl was that sort of pretty.
“Coline, what have I said about your posture?” Mademoiselle Gardinier said evenly.
Coline let her arm slide down the wall, slowly, and straightened her back. “I try not to hold to negative comments made about me,” she said. “It’s bad for my esteem, and what if thinking about it makes me miss my beauty rest?”
“Then we will all suffer for your decline in beauty.” Mademoiselle Gardinier removed her arm from mine. “Emilie, please allow me to introduce to you Coline Arden from Monts Lance. Coline, this is the daughter of the late Monsieur des Marais, Emilie.”
“A pleasure,” Coline said. She curtsied and kept her head bowed. The back of her neck was bared to me, and I couldn’t help but feel she hated it. “My apologies, but I’m still a little uncertain—if she is the daughter of a late comte, doesn’t that mean she inherits the title?”
Mademoiselle Gardinier did raise one eyebrow at that. “No politics unless you’re in class. You are to be allies. You must learn to trust one another regardless of standing—a bond, when formed, creates power. This is the first rule of alchemistry, and it must be the first rule here.”
“Of course, Vivienne,” said Coline. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Madame Emilie des Marais.”
Looking at Coline was like looking at a sword in a fancy sheath. Beautiful and vaguely threatening.
“You too,” I said, curtsying instead of dropping to my knees and pressing my face to the dirt as I would’ve when I was Annette Boucher. “A pleasure, Coline.”
Arden was a northern place of forests and hills in the Segance province, and it bordered the shores of the Pinch, where our island of Demeine came closest to touching our neighbor Kalthorne. My papaw still remembered when the last king made everyone pick family names and nearly everyone picked places. He hadn’t wanted to be the fifth Jean Vaser, so the old Deme word for butcher had become our name instead.
“Propriety after breakfast.” Mademoiselle Gardinier patted my arm and shooed Coline from the doorway, so we could enter.
All the money in the room—the walls, the portraits, the floors, the girls, their dresses, their damned skin even, so clear and clean—gave me a stomachache. The room was huge, and it was separated into three small sections with only paper screens between them. Each section had a bed, wardrobe, desk, and chair. A pile of clothes in bright reds and sunny golds covered the bed on the left. The middle bed was empty.
“It’s a pleasure, Madame,” said a girl with curly hair the same shade of ruddy brown as Papa’s chopping board. Her slicked-back hair, so perfectly ordered, glittered in the light.
Mademoiselle Gardinier gestured to her. “And Emilie, let me introduce Isabelle Choquet from Courmers.”
I nodded to her too, and she dropped into a perfect curtsy.
Courmers was one of those coastal cities out west. I’d always dreamed of seeing those oceans. Isabelle looked like she missed it, her fingers rubbing against the soft, blue-green dress that had been darned and reworked one too many times. Her brown eyes caught mine, and she blushed.
Coline was pretty, but Isabelle was interesting, from the purple paint stains beneath her nails to the single green and black earring in the shell of her left ear.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Thank you for introducing us, Mademoiselle.”
I nodded my head to Mademoiselle Gardinier. That was polite no matter the standing, right?
“Vivienne,” she said. “Call me Vivienne, dear.”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “Vivienne.”
Behind her, Coline crinkled her nose and raised her top lip, mouth a crooked hourglass of amusement.
“Now,” Vivienne said. “I do not wish to hover. Supper will be delivered to your room tonight. It won’t be as of tomorrow. Meals are taken with the other girls, but I know so many new people can be overwhelming. If you are up to it, introduce yourselves to your neighbors and enjoy the evening learning about one another. Classes begin tomorrow.”
She looked at each of us in turn, as if the phrase were threatening, but I couldn’t imagine being rich enough to think an education a threat.
“I placed you together because each of you has distinct strengths and weaknesses that are in need of extra attention.” She did frown at that, the first ungainly expression I had seen on her. “It is my hope that you find comfort in one another and learn to become outstanding ladies of Demeine.”
We were problems.
Of course Emilie was.
Vivienne left. Coline shut the door, her steps a fencer’s glide.
“If we are to be allies—a bold choice of words to be sure for a woman preparing us for life at court, but not wholly unwarranted given some of the people there—let us know what we are getting into.” Coline’s stormy gaze slipped from Isabelle’s paste-and-glue hairpins to my rough hands. She threw herself onto the middle bed and patted the spot next to her. “We’re the failures, aren’t we?”
Isabelle huffed. “I’m not—”
“Sorry,” Coline said. “But you’re poor and female, so the nobles of court will consider you a failure. To them, it’s simply another category like scribe or servant or beneath notice. Trust me, they will call you that whether you can hear them or not.”
I sat on the middle bed, on the other side from Coline. “How do you know?”
“Because I have met nobles.” Coline shrugged and stretched out, flinging her skirts back till her legs were bare all the way up to her knees. A knife was strapped in her left boot. A knife. “That’s why I’m here—to be less of an embarrassment. Or it’s a punishment. I wasn’t listening when my father explained.”
“Explains more than it doesn’t,” Isabelle mumbled. She sat back on her bed and pulled a leather-bound journal into her lap. The pages were thick with dog-ears and oil paint stains. “How do you know so much about court?”
“My family’s fortune is from timber, and you know how it is, the only way to advance is to marry up or kill someone important.” Coline picked at her nails. “There is a chance I was part of the group who attempted to free Segance from His Majesty’s purview, and sending me here was a way to limit the rumors of my involvement with Madame Royale’s attempted revolt with Laurel.”
“She did what?” I asked. The little news Vaser got of His Majesty’s only child was the priest asking us to pray for Madame Royale Nicole du Rand since she was misguided and going against the current. “Last I heard, she had promised to let Laurel and folks have seats at court.”
“Their own ruling body. My aunt called it atrocious,” Isabelle said. “She was trying to set it up with Laurel when her father caught her.”
“A guard tipped off her father, who had most of those invol
ved with the attempted revolt killed.” Coline shrugged, teeth clenched. “She challenged her father to a duel, he refused, and she got locked away in Serre. It cost me an unimaginable amount to get the story from the guard who betrayed her, but it was worth it. Laurel found him soon after anyway and decided playing nicely was over.”
Isabelle rolled her lips together. “Why would you pay for that story?”
“Because information is the only honest currency,” said Coline. “I grew up in Segance. Many of those arrested and killed were my friends, and you cannot deny that something is very wrong in Demeine.”
“I didn’t know any of that,” I muttered. “I’m like a baby.”
Coline laughed. “People love babies, so I’m sure you’ll be fine. What sort of trouble did you get into?”
“I wanted to be a physician and study the noonday arts.” Emilie had left me with so little, it’d be a miracle if I weren’t caught by breakfast. “At least here, I still get to study.”
“A physician?” said Coline, but she smiled and it was kind…ish. “That’s very untraditional.”
I snorted. “I’m not a traditional student.”
“None of us are, my pearl.” Coline smiled and sat up. “We’re about to meet dozens of traditional students from traditional families, noble and wealthy, and Vivienne and her staff are going to teach us how to run an estate, divine the weather, and hold political conversations without being too passionate. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but is it what any of us want?”
I swallowed. I wouldn’t mind—the money that came with being a lady of standing could fix most things.
“I want to be a governess,” Isabelle said quickly. “I like teaching, but I got removed from my last school.”
Coline turned slowly to her, eyes wide. “What on earth could you have done to deserve that?”
“My aunt says I’m too petty.” Isabelle blushed, sketching in her journal with a nub of charcoal. “One of the other students said something rude about hacks, and my brother’s a hack, so I dyed her hair green. They said I would never be a governess with that sort of behavior, but Vivienne said I’m not hopeless, just rash and passionate.” Her shoulders slumped. “I had to take out a loan to attend, though.”
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