Enough silence passed that I finally said, “I’m sorry, Vanya.”
Her reddened eyes flicked to mine. “Don’t you want to know why?”
I shrugged. I had shameful things I didn’t want to admit, especially to the people at this school—my father’s addiction to gambling that had ruined my family, my brother who’d joined agangto try to rise out of the gutter, or the night I’d slept on the street. If Vanya had that kind of secret, I didn’t want to pry into that space. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
She sniffed again. “I think I need to tell someone. The fact that no one knows makes it feel like I’m going to explode, every day, all the time.” Her words nicked at me a little as I thought of the truths I was hiding from her, the things I was never planning to tell her. “About a year ago, a wealthy man from my country came forward to marry me.” She swabbed her cheeks with the back of her sleeve. “But I…fell for his declarations of love and was with him before the wedding. The next morning, he rejected me, Ari, publicly. And I have to live with that. I was seventeen and scared, and now no one will ever have me because I’ve brought too much shame on my family to ever be…desired again.”
I struggled not to gawk at her as she spoke. Suddenly, my cheeks heated, not because of what she’d said, but because I’d felt so burdened by my own difficulties. In comparison to Vanya’s story, one night on the sidewalk didn’t sound so bad.
Finally, I said, “I’m glad you told me. I…” Struggling to find the right words, I trailed off. Finally, I settled on speaking what I knew was true. “You are beautiful, and the kindest person here. I bet half the boys here are in love with you.”
Vanya offered me a small smile below glistening eyes. “Thanks, Ar.”
My lips quirked. “That’s what my brother calls me.”
“You have a brother?” She sat up straighter, eager to talk about me, it seemed.
After what she’d told me, telling her about my family was much easier than I’d thought. I talked about Bennett, about howhe’d let the anger over our father’s poor choices drive him to an even worse path. I told her about Evie, how I wanted my sister to have everything she could ever want. I was careful to avoid the word bottomsider, though, since Fairfax needed the people here to assume I was his blood relative whose family had fallen into difficult circumstances. Absently, I rubbed at my chest, where a knot that had been lodged there for far too long seemed to loosen a fraction.
I was now sitting on Vanya’s bed beside her, leaning against the wall. “I’m afraid Ben will die, too,” I said, thinking of my brother’s hardened look, his pistol that he’d shot at Myth, and the tattoo on his neck.
Vanya patted my upraised knee. “But because you’re here, you can change everything for your family. Graduating from Cardan Lott will place you in a position to provide for them for the rest of your lives.”
Fiddling with the hem of my shirt, I said, “I’m not sure I’ll graduate. Fairfax only said he’d sponsor me for one year.”
“What?” Vanya sat forward, peering over at me. “Why?”
“I guess even Fairfax knows they’ll kick me out when they learn who I really am.”
This truth hurt worse than all the shameful facts about my family I’d just shared. Fairfax never planned for me to graduate, never assumed I could last among the nobility. He needed me to be here, to train and ride and put up a decent fight in that final race, but only so I could find out how the Covingtons always won. I pinched my eyes closed. With classes and late nights in the lair with Rush, I’d forgotten about digging up answers to Fairfax’s questions.
Vanya drew a sharp inhale and covered her mouth. “I don’t believe that. He’s given you a chance, Ari.”
I shrugged. “Maybe so, but if he withdraws his sponsorship, I’ll never be able to afford this school.”
She slapped her palms against her thighs. “It just means you have to work harder to prove you do belong here.”
I blinked at her for a moment. “The rebel princess,” I whispered.
She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’m hardly a princess anymore, not to my own people anyway.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “We’ll just have to make sure everyone here sees that you deserve to stay here. He won’t withdraw his sponsorship if you win the year-end race; I’m certain of it.” She laughed. “I mean it, Ari—you have to race to win.”
My heart galloped in my chest as I nodded. “That’s what Fairfax wants, too. But I—I’m not as good as you, or Prescott, or Rush.”
Vanya grinned. “Shep thinks you’re good. When I asked him, he said you and Myth did some advanced maneuvers the other night. What?” She swatted my knee as I gawked at her. “Of course I asked him about it.Youcertainly didn’t give me enough details.”
As I lay in bed that night, the memory of Myth’s golden-flecked scales and bright eyes filled my mind. Flying with him on the hunt had awoken in me a fire I didn’t know I had. A fire that said maybe Icouldwin. But to win, I had to find out how Covington’s father planned to ensure his son won. Find out, and then ruin it.
Maybe it was a good thing I was spending so much time with Covington. His secrets all seemed to be buried in that journal of his. If I could get my hands on it, I might be able to discover, finally, the answers Fairfax wanted.
The weekof school before winter break, the deep green of the pines and spruce in the forest did little to brighten the otherwise gray day outside as Vanya and I hurried from the lair to the school building. An icy wind had made everyone eager to finish their chores at the lair and head inside to warm themselves by a roaring fire.
“I’m going to check the post,” I said, turning left as Vanya turned right toward our house.
When I checked the post room adjacent to the front atrium, I spotted a letter with my name on it. My false name, which I’d grown accustomed to after two months of seeing it written on my papers.Miss Arivelle Miro.
I ducked into a windowed alcove off the atrium and tore into the letter.
Arivelle,
