“Your mother wanted you to dowhat?”
I’m laughing in that guilty, “I shouldn’t be laughing and I’m going to hell for this,” way, but I can’t stop.
“It’s my Da’s birthday, yeah?” Liam is shoveling eggs into his mouth as he talks. “So, Ma wanted to spread some of his ashes around this big tree where they met or some shite, so I said ‘sure, of course.’ We get to the place and it’s next to a pub - no fuckin’ surprise there - and she’s got the urn and nothing else.”
“And then what?” Tatiana’s fork is forgotten in her hand, hovering over her plate.
“So I open the damn thing and it’s just a dusty plastic bag inside and I’m lookin’ for a scoop or something and then I realize there isn’t one but my ma is already crying something fierce so I just… stick my hand in the urn.”
“Eww!” The entire table chorused, and I wonder how a group of people who are as bloodthirsty as this crew can be squeamish about ashes. For god’s sake, Meiying and Jun blocked the exits and set fire to a bunker full of soldiers from a Triad thatassassinated one of their uncles, and they both have their hands over their mouths like they’re going to hurl their breakfast.
Liam finishes a slice of toast and continues. “I grab a big fistful of Da-”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Athena gags a little, grabbing her napkin.
“...and start spreading the ashes around the tree and the wind is blowing and it’s a big fuckin’ mess,” Liam continues. “Ma’s not finished havin’ her moment so I grab another handful and this goes on until she’s feelin’ good about it. And I drive home with my hand out the window because I’ve got him under my fingernails.”
I’m laughing so hard that I don’t see Konstantin and Lucca sit down at the other end of the table until Tatiana nudges me. Kon never looks up from his food after the waiter bustles over with his ridiculously large breakfast. He has a lot of nerve, pretending he has no idea I’m here when he was thoroughly inspecting my pussy not forty-eight hours earlier.
“Oy! Turgenev!” Liam shouts down the table, “Took you long enough to get back to the Academy, ya lazy bastard!” Liam’s the second son from the O’Neill Irish mob, and he’s in the Warriors division here. His family has some mysterious alliance with the Turgenev Bratva. All I know is that it didn’t involve marrying off their children.
That must be nice,I think bitterly.
The dining hall at the Ares Academy looks less school cafeteria and more five-star restaurant. It’s rumored that Dean Christie stole the head chef fromDisfrutarin Barcelona, which was ranked the best dining experience in Europe a few years back. This room is my favorite at the Academy. There are glorious windows that give a spectacular view of the ocean, a blaze alwaysroaring in a fireplace big enough to roast three oxen, and a shining mahogany bar at the end of the room. Yes, a full bar service in a student dining hall.
I’m jostled when Meiying and Jun Chen pull two chairs over from another table.“Zaoshang hao,good morning,” Meiying says, “when did you all get in?”
“Late last night,” Tatiana said, leaning behind me to hug her. “How about you two?”
The Chen twins are the heirs to a Chinese Triad dynasty with a terrifying reputation. Even in a world as bloody as ours, people shudder when their names are mentioned.
“Yesterday,” Jun says. “Early enough to notice something.”
“Notice what?” I frown. His usual characteristic smirk is absent.
“Look around the dining room,” he said, “does anything seem different?”
I scan the tables, the students eating and laughing, the white-coated servers. “Everyone was supposed to be back by last night, right? It should be crowded.”
“Exactly,” Jun points his fork at me, “There should be an influx of shiny new faces for the freshman class. And I don’t see Miguel Herrera from the Leader’s Division.”
“Or Hana Aikawa,” I said, “she was a Sophomore in the Spy Division with me.”
Tatiana and Meiying lean in. “You’re right,” Tati says, concerned, “there are at least ten upperclassmen that I know that are missing. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Jun says slowly, “but no one willingly drops out of the Ares Academy.”
Some of our questions are answered when Dean Christie calls us all to the Grand Hall in the main building, which is magnificent. It’s built in the Gothic architectural style - like all the Ares Academy - with arched stained-glass windows, spires, and towers on all four corners as if even the building is always watching for danger. Ancient, intricate, frescoes on the walls have kept their vivid colors. There are dozens of banners hung here, some dating back nearly three hundred years.
The Academy was built on the isolated, windswept Inis Mor in the Aran Islands off the coast of Ireland. We’re bordered on one side by the sheer, steep cliffs the islands are famous for, and the other three sides with next to no trees, so the sightline for defense is perfect, no attacker can catch the guards by surprise.
However, what I learned last year was that the enemy could already be within these high stone walls.
“Good morning, students.”
The Dean is standing on the raised dais, and her voice is strong enough with the hall’s acoustics to be heard clearly, even in the back. “Welcome back to another school year.” There’s polite applause and she smiles blandly before her expression turns cold. “You might have noticed some of your classmates are missing. Fourteen of our upperclassmen died under mysterious circumstances, or in direct attacks over the last two months. Some of you here…” her gaze darts to us briefly and moves on, “survived an offensive of your own. We are happy to see you back.”
She puts a hand up, and all the concerned murmuring seeping through the hall stops instantly as I smother a grin. Dean Christie looks a lot like the “fun aunt” who comes back from world travels and always brings gifts to the nieces and nephews. She is short, shoulder-length brown and grey hair and prefersto dress in dark suits clearly designed for comfort over fashion. When you see the Dean in action, though, the “fun” part is very much missing. She is very fond of her power tools, which she used to cut the hands off four students last year who tried to rape Tatiana. There is not a soul in this hall who isn’t afraid of her.
