“Come on.” With a jerk of the chin, he gestures to the growing number of students starting to fill the grand parlour. “We need to get to the storeroom before all these assholes.”
My snowsuit rustles as I push up from the armchair, more enthused than the dull look I keep pulled onto my face.
Can’t afford to even look like I’m having the least bit of fun.
If I can withhold that from them, even if it’s the only part of it all I can control, then that in itself is a win, even if it’s small.
I shadow Landon out of the grand parlour, and I guess I’ll have to get used to the stares, because they follow us through the corridors.
The storeroom is just one hallway back from the atrium, and it’s crammed with locked cages.
I stick by the door as Landon marches inside.
Instinct keeps me here, rooted in the threshold, and not a step over. It would feel too blatantly idiotic to follow a Snake into this dimly lit room full of cages and locks, even for me in all these new alliances.
After a while of distant rattling, Landon returns with a sleek black snowboard tucked under one arm, and a pair of similar skis propped against his shoulder.
He shifts the snowboard into my arms. “Carry this, it’s lighter.”
I arch a brow. “All of a sudden a gentleman?”
His smirk is cold and curt before he leads the way out of the final corridor and into the atrium.
The air is abruptly colder, sharper, and the noise is a humming murmur from all the loitering students.
There’s always a breeze up here, always a whistle weaving through the mountaintops, but today is a disappointment—maybe a part of me was hoping the winds would be too strong for the gondolas to be running, for the slopes to be open.
Guess luck isn’t on my side.
The faces around the atrium are split with grins, shifting with laughter, bright with the excitement of the first Saturday of the semester.
I stick to Landon’s heels as he shoulders through the crowds gathering in our way—until he stops, and I almost knock my head off his back.
I tilt, peering around his arm, and find the obstructions.
Oliver’s gaze hooks mine first—and holds for a heartbeat before he flicks his gaze to Landon. “You’re going out?”
The air suddenly gets colder.
Dray tilts, just as I do, to look around the bulk of Landon’s form. And his brow arches the moment his gaze lands on me.
“Slopes,” Landon says. “We’re going to find out if Olivia can keep up with me.”
Those crushed glass eyes don’t wander from me, like Landon hasn’t spoken at all, like everything around us is just background noise.
Then, Dray’s mouth curves into a cold smile, and he straightens. “Be careful out there.”
It sounds nothing less than a threat.
And I don’t quite feel it’s aimed at me.
Still, Landon’s smile doesn’t falter. “Always.”
The cold touch of their gazes, like the tips of ice-swords pressing into my skin, follows us to the parted front doors.
I brace myself before my boot even flattens on the first step, prepared for the crisp breeze.
The shudder that rattles me is violent and swift, like my body needs a heartbeat to just process the shock of the temperature even with the aid of the snowsuit.
