moon. Most of the manors along the Verglas had been built to withstand sieges, and it showed. The doors were thick as my thigh, the locks an intricate web of metal gears and magic. Beyond, a hall of white marble and light wood stood empty. The muffled sounds of distant voices echoed through it.
Rivers of silver spilled through the marble and wood, slashes of metal so bright, they looked like they still flowed, and I couldn’t bring myself to take a single step inside.
They’d know. They’d know I was all dirt and failure, a Vaser girl with ill-formed dreams. They’d know I didn’t belong.
“Classes will begin for new students tomorrow, and one of the older girls will show you where to go in the morning.” Mademoiselle Gardinier led me through the open doors. “Today is for settling in.”
How could someone settle into this?
The entry was brilliant. The silver-seamed floor split into two hallways to the left and right, the floors shifting from marble to hardwood polished until it glowed in the light filtering through the tall, glass windows. A staircase of wood rose from the center and split into the two that spiraled away from each other, leading into the heavens of the school, and a rug of white with silver threads, impossibly clean, covered the steps. Silver gilded the edges of the furniture and sparkled in the portrait of the first King of Demeine hanging at the top of the first flight of stairs. Steel chains that ended in small candleholders hung above us, the blue candles unlit. Crystal drops dangled beneath them like rain.
There was no dirt anywhere but on me, and an army of servants must’ve been waiting in the wings. The very idea of keeping this place clean and running made my skin crawl.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Mademoiselle Gardinier asked.
I jerked. “It is.”
“Come, let us introduce you to your new roommates, so you have time to speak before supper.” She took me upstairs, past tapestries and wall hangings laced with gold and silver, past doors painted with alchemistry, so that only when I was right before them could I read the names of the three girls inside, and to a room at the end of a hall in the easternmost edge of the third floor. It was cracked open, the soft patter of tapping toes against plush carpet leaking through. She rapped on the doorjamb.
“Girls?” she asked, face impassive. She glanced away from me to rap again. “Emilie has arrived.”
I checked my face to see if I was squinting. There was too much glitter and gilding, too much…everything.
The door opened wide. I couldn’t help but peer in, the room full of gilded wallpaper and silk screens and fine silver. The rich girl I’d seen in town, the one with gold hair and a taste for sweets, leaned against the wall with one arm. She was distractingly pretty—full cheeks and lips, a slope of a nose dotted with too few freckles to be natural, moon-round eyes the same shade as clouds after a storm, and blond hair tumbling down her shoulders in tight curls. A single black beauty mark stood out against the tanned white skin beneath her right eye.
I’d never looked at someone and been attracted to them, but sometimes people would pass through Vaser who were so beautiful or interesting that looking at them was like staring at a painting, each glance revealing another exquisite detail. This girl was that sort of pretty.
“Coline, what have I said about your posture?” Mademoiselle Gardinier said evenly.
Coline let her arm slide down the wall, slowly, and straightened her back. “I try not to hold to negative comments made about me,” she said. “It’s bad for my esteem, and what if thinking about it makes me miss my beauty rest?”
“Then we will all suffer for your decline in beauty.” Mademoiselle Gardinier removed her arm from mine. “Emilie, please allow me to introduce to you Coline Arden from Monts Lance. Coline, this is the daughter of the late Monsieur des Marais, Emilie.”
“A pleasure,” Coline said. She curtsied and kept her head bowed. The back of her neck was bared to me, and I couldn’t help but feel she hated it. “My apologies, but I’m still a little uncertain—if she is the daughter of a late comte, doesn’t that mean she inherits the title?”
Mademoiselle Gardinier did raise one eyebrow at that. “No politics unless you’re in class. You are to be allies. You must learn to trust one another regardless