‘No,’ she said. But instead of opening the salve, she put it back on the shelf. She would attend to Carmine’s itchy shoulder later.
‘Hi, Carmine,’ Felix said. He climbed up two slats of the stall door and leaned to stroke the dragon’s red neck. Carmine flinched and shuffled away. ‘Oh, excuse me, Your Majesty.’
‘He’s in a mood,’ Asta said.
Felix eyed Asta, a smirk playing on his lips. ‘Not the only one, from what I hear.’
Asta scowled. ‘I swear, this school is more gossipy than my grandma’s hair salon.’
‘You okay?’
‘I have had it up to here with Pikki,’ Asta said, gesturing to her forehead. ‘She acts like she’s the freaking queen of racing, but she’s nobody.’ There it was, again. Pillar was turning Asta into a real snob, and she didn’t like it.
Asta looked around for something else to do in the stall. She couldn’t think of anything, so she left, swinging the door open and shut with Felix still standing on it. ‘I don’t know why you’re even friends with her.’
Felix shrugged and hopped down. ‘She’s not always like that.’
‘Not to you. Because she wants something from you.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ This was his new tactic whenever Asta talked about Pikki. Totally noncommittal, so she couldn’t get mad at him.
Asta put her hands in her pockets and looked hard at Felix. ‘Did you hear what she said to me?’
‘Ignore her. All that matters is the rankings.’
Asta bristled. ‘People will think I don’t belong here.’
‘Don’t be an idiot. If you don’t belong here, no one does. Come on,’ Felix said, linking his arm through hers like an old-fashioned gentleman. His touch and the warmth of his body so close to hers sent shivers through Asta. She felt a prickle of sweat in the small of her back. ‘I think you need a field trip.’
‘A field trip? Pretty sure learning time is over, bucko.’
‘Trust me.’
‘The last time I trusted you, you tied me up with your magic string,’ she teased. Felix grinned, and the creases at the corner of his mouth nearly knocked Asta sideways.
He walked her out of the stables into the late afternoon sun. She unlinked her arm from his, worried that someone might see.
They walked uphill toward the gazebo. In the daylight, the little structure looked so plain and unassuming, with lichen on its roof and weathered benches, the wood slightly warped by years of exposure to sunlight and rain. She expected him to turn in so they could sit and have one of their talks.
But Felix continued up the walk past the gazebo toward the administration building, a stately manor house that sat like a sentinel at the highest point of the Pillar School campus. Asta had always assumed that the name of the school came from this building, because of the four large columns that ran across the front of it. The pillars were two stories tall, supporting a balcony above and sheltering a paved veranda below.
Asta started humming the school song, and Felix laughed. When she got to the chorus, she started singing aloud, ‘O, make us pillars of truth, pillars of knowledge, pillars of fire.’ She pointed to each pillar in turn as she sang. ‘What’s the fourth one?’
‘The secret fourth pillar!’ Felix gasped. ‘Maybe we only find out when we graduate.’
‘It’s probably the pillar of privilege. The pillar of nepotism?’
‘Ha ha,’ Felix said wryly. He guided her around the side of the manor house and, rounding a large rhododendron bush, cut in toward a small side door that sat slightly lower than ground level, with two mossy steps leading down to it. Felix drew a key from his pocket.
‘What are you doing? How do you have a key?’
Felix lowered his voice dramatically. ‘I have my ways.’
Playing along, Asta looked back and forth like a spy in a movie. ‘Are we supposed to be here?’
‘Well, no,’ Felix answered in his normal voice. ‘But you never enjoy yourself unless you’re breaking some rules.’
Asta was practically vibrating with excitement. All that ugliness with Pikki was streaming away from her like smoke in the wind.
