anything, not even my mother’s name. I have no pictures. I have nothing at all.”
I frown, considering that.
“Did your parents—the Grays, I mean. Did they go to Kingmakers?”
“Yes, but decades ago. They’re old. They spent a long time trying to have their own children.”
I’m wondering if the envelope could have been from one of their acceptance letters. People don’t always clean out their drawers.
Perceiving this, Hedeon says, defensively, “The envelope didn’t look that old.”
I’m not sure how accurately one can discern the age of paper, but I don’t want to argue with Hedeon. So I only say, “Maybe they know someone who works at the school. Maybe a teacher wrote to them . . .”
“You don’t think a student could have gotten pregnant?” Hedeon demands, in an undertone so no one around us can possibly overhear. “People sneak off to fuck all the time around here . . .”
That hits a little too close to home. I have to pretend to be very interested in the blueberries on my oatmeal.
“Hard to hide something like that,” I say, quietly. “Besides, you know what mafia families are like. They might be mad about an accidental pregnancy, but at the end of the day, if two kids fucked up, the parents would still want the grandchild . . .”
“You don’t know that,” Hedeon hisses back at me.
He’s angry and impatient, not wanting to hear any arguments against his only lead.
I take a breath, mulling it over.
“You’re right,” I say, after a moment. “I don’t know anything for certain. I’m just making guesses. And that’s not really helpful.”
Hedeon’s shoulders drop as he lets go of some of his frustration, but also some of his conviction.
“All I have is guesses,” he says, unhappily. “I want them to have gone here. Because then I’d be where they were. I’d feel like I knew them a little.”
His hands clench on the table. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbow, and I can see a long, twisted scar running up his forearm. Most mafia children have scars. Hedeon’s aren’t normal—they’re too numerous and too strange. There’s nothing accidental about them.
“Does Silas know anything?” I ask.
“No,” Hedeon says. “And he doesn’t care.”
Silas has never struck me as having much curiosity or much feeling.
Hedeon, while equally ill-tempered, does have flashes of kindness and humor.
I don’t blame him for his bitterness. It’s clear that his upbringing among the Grays was far from pleasant.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help,” I say.
Hedeon sighs.
“Just . . . don’t tell anyone,” he says.
I squirm guiltily in my seat.
“I won’t,” I lie.
The universe seeks balance in all things.
Now that Dean has stopped tormenting me between classes, restricting his dominance to our nightly sessions, it seems that Lola Fischer is determined to fill the void.
She and Dixie have been steadily ramping up their harassment, so that Rakel and I can barely step foot outside our dorm room door without one of the southern belles slamming us into the wall.
Rakel wants to poison them, or at bare minimum sneak into their room in the middle of the night and steal all their clothes.
“No,” I say flatly. “I’m not interested in escalating.”
I’ve already experienced the sickening dread that comes from breaking the worst rule at Kingmakers. I got away with it once, and I have no interest in tempting fate again.
“But we’re not doing anything at all!” Rakel cries, infuriated. “We’re acting like weak little bitches!”
“I don’t care,” I say. “I’ve got enough on my plate with the Quartum Bellum and first term exams.”
The first challenge of the Quartum Bellum takes place the following Friday.
Kade Petrov was chosen as Captain for the Freshman team. He’s extremely popular amongst the Freshman students, who of course hope that he’s the second iteration of the record-setting champion Adrik Petrov.
However, Kade seems to have drawn the ire of several upperclassmen including Bodashka Kushnir and Vanya Antonov. I saw them get into some kind of confrontation in the dining hall, before Dean and Bram intervened.
I didn’t quite understand what I was seeing. After all, Dean and Bodashka used to be good friends. I have to assume Dean was motivated by his hatred of Vanya, because he’s not usually a defender of younger students. If anything, Dean’s usually the one bullying them.
It was all very strange, and I’d like to ask Dean about it, but we don’t spend much time talking. As soon as I step foot into the Bell Tower, I become his little pet. My orders are to obey, not to question.