Brittany finds me sitting in the stairwell between the second and third floors, crying so hard I've given myself the hiccups.
She doesn't say anything at first. Just sits down on the step beside me and waits.
"Felix," I manage. "The bad luck—all of it was him. The whole time he was fucking with me, using his chaos magic to give me bad luck."
"I know."
I lift my head. "Youknew?"
"I suspected. Tumult doesn't do anything without a reason, and he was spending way too much time with you for it to be some kind of genuine offer of friendship." She pulls a pack of tissues from her jacket—black, with little skulls on them—and holds them out. "I figured you'd put it together yourself. You're not stupid."
"Then why didn't youwarnme?"
"Because if I told you, you'd think I was paranoid. Now you've seen it with your own eyes." Her voice is matter-of-fact, but not unkind. "Now you know what they are. All of them."
I blow my nose. It's ugly and loud and I don't care.
"He asked about my family, Brittany. He asked me what it was like being the only one with magic, and he looked at me like he actually—" I can't finish.
"Yeah." She's quiet for a second. "Felix is so charming that you can’t even tell when he’s being mean. That part is the shittiest."
We sit there for a while. The stairwell smells like old stone and someone's burnt coffee, and the fluorescent light flickers in a way that's either a wiring problem or a ghost. At Nyxhaven, it could be either. As far as I know ghosts are real, after all.
"Brittany?"
"What."
"You're the only person here who's been honest with me."
She wrinkles her nose. "Don't make it weird."
"I'm serious."
"And I'm seriously telling you not to make it weird." She stands, brushes off her black jeans. "Come on. You look like shit and I have leftover pizza."
I follow her back to our room, shaking off my hurt. Feet bare on the mattress and legs crossed, I eat cold pepperoni on my bed while doom metal rattles the windows. Herbert peeks out from under Brittany's bed, his beady eyes fixed on me.
"Your spider is staring at me."
"He's concerned."
"About what?"
"The crying into pizza. It's undignified."
I laugh. Soggy and broken, but real. Herbert retreats under the bed, apparently satisfied.
Three presidents. Three tests. Three different methods: intimidation, violence, manipulation.
I don't know yet what Ren Ashford has in store. But I'm done being surprised.
I finish my pizza, pull out my homework, and start studying. Because that's what I do. I get knocked down, I cry about it, and then I get back up to face the day.
They're all so focused on what I am that none of them have stopped to think aboutwhoI am.
That's going to be their mistake.
Chapter 5: Everly
