Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,17

a week, so the Dress Code doesn’t suck as much as it could,” Muirin said. “They hate you wearing makeup, though.”

“That isn’t true,” Addie said. “Light makeup is okay. They just don’t want you Gothing out during school hours. Now. Breakfast is seven to eight, lunch is noon to one, dinner is six to seven. You can have food in your room, but not junk food, of course.”

“They check,” said Muirin mournfully. “You can kiss any idea of privacy you ever had good-bye, so if you used to keep a diary? Don’t. The only thing they let you get away with is soda, but they ration it. You can have all the bottled tea and juice and water and health drinks you want, but they only let you have seven cans of soda a week.”

Seven cans a week? Spirit made a face. She had the feeling she was going to go through serious Diet Pepsi withdrawal.

“Well, popcorn,” Adelaide amended. “You can have popcorn.”

“Lights out at eleven,” Muirin said, taking over from Addie. You weren’t supposed to be outside the dorm after ten, but the way that Muirin said “supposed to” made Spirit pretty sure that there were ways around that. Like, if you wanted to meet a boy.

No more than two people (besides you) in a dorm room except by special arrangement. “We’re supposed to use the lounges for more than two, so people in their rooms can study,” Addie said. “Otherwise, there might be too much noise. But the lounges are really nice.”

And apparently there was a lot to study—magic stuff (Grammery, Spirit tried to remember they called it here) along with the regular high school courses. And everyone was supposed to have at least one sport they did regularly.

“Don’t you have time for any fun?” she asked, feeling desperate.

Adelaide and Muirin exchanged amused looks. “You’ll get used to it,” said Adelaide, as they reached the dining room. People were already filing in the now-open doors. “Oh, is that the guy you came in with?”

With a feeling of relief, Spirit saw Loch standing with a tall, broad-shouldered guy who practically looked like two of him. Loch spotted her at the same time and lifted a hand.

“Yeah—” she began, when Muirin interrupted.

“Oh good, he’s with Burke! We can all sit together and you can introduce us.” She grinned. “He’s cute. And new. We can keep him to ourselves.”

So Spirit found herself sitting between the tall guy—whose name was Burke Hallows, and who was brown-haired, brown-eyed, and cute in a Boy Scout way—and Muirin, feeling just a bit intimidated. There hadn’t been more than a handful of times in her whole life that she’d sat at a table with a white linen tablecloth, white linen napkins, porcelain plates, and real silverware made of real silver. And never had she had as many kinds of silverware as there were here. Her folks’ idea of a restaurant generally involved a buffet.

Burke saw her confusion. “You work from the outside in,” he said, kindly. “Don’t worry too much about it.”

Spirit said, frustrated, “Only rich people eat like this. . . .”

Burke shrugged. “You aren’t the only one here who’s not rich,” he replied. “We’re supposed to get used to this, though. Doctor Ambrosius expects us to be movers and shakers out there.” He waved his hand vaguely as if to indicate the world outside the walls. “Just relax, nobody’s grading you on eating. It’s probably the only thing they don’t grade us on,” he added in an undertone, and Spirit wondered if she’d been meant to hear that.

It was hard to relax when people in uniforms were serving you. She felt awkward and uncomfortable, and very out of place. It didn’t help her feel any better that Loch was casual and comfortable, asking questions, even making jokes. Still, it was hard not to notice that the food, like the snacks in the plane, was light-years beyond any school cafeteria or even family-night-out restaurant food she’d ever had. It was all so fancy, though, that she found the meal exhausting. Nothing was familiar: the lettuce in the salad wasn’t regular lettuce and tasted odd, the mashed potatoes weren’t exactly mashed potatoes, she had no idea what kind of roast bird she’d been served—except that it wasn’t either turkey or chicken—and even dessert had looked like chocolate pudding but turned out not to be.

She would have been perfectly ready to go back to her room and just collapse after that, but the other four insisted she