Anabel canted her head. That calculating expression still sat on her face, like Pru was a black market book buyer whose tab didn’t add up. “Why are you saying all this to me like it’s a question?”
Pru shrugged, carefully blasé. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears. “I told you, I don’t remember exactly how everything happened. I think I might have passed out. Don’t freak out,” she added, seeing the way Anabel’s mouth pursed. “Essay deadlines in European Lit have been kicking my ass. You know I haven’t been eating or sleeping enough. I’ve been living on all-nighters, dude.”
“And dreaming about wyverns, apparently.”
“Dragons,” corrected Pru again, before she could stop herself, and winced. Like she needed more help sounding totally nuts.
Anabel leaned forward and asked, without any inflection at all, “How many uppers did you stick in your coffee this morning?”
Pru’s head jerked up. “You think I forgot how I got back into the city because I was too hyped?”
Anabel’s answering gaze was opaque, coolly measured in that way that was probably taught to all of Cornelius Park’s descendants at birth. “It wouldn’t be weird, for you to take uppers. Dumb as hell, on a day you’re waltzing off into Incorporated territory. But not weird. I mean, Jules O’Brien from my fourth period can’t do multivariable calc without at least one upper mixed into his soda.”
“Holy hell, Park!” snapped Pru. “Let’s unpack everything you’ve said for, like, half a second, okay? One, the last time I boosted my coffee with uppers, I thought I was having a heart attack at the ripe old age of seventeen, and almost failed a pop quiz in Pre- Partition History III. No thanks. And two, it’s not like I was exactly planning to make the drop-off by myself. I’d have taken a wingman—or, you know, wingwoman—if she hadn’t double-booked our smuggling job for some cagey study date with that tight-assed pretty boy.”
“Wow, okay, aggressive. Point taken, apologies reiterated.” Anabel’s mouth twitched, like it was trying to contain a grin. “Wait, pretty boy? Tight-ass? You don’t mean Alex, do you?”
Pru flung her arms out, gesturing in exasperation at the clean white walls enclosing the study. “Yeah, the jerk who kicked me out when I came here to meet you about the drop-off. Where’d he go, anyway? I assumed you booked this space to get your Modern Politics II flirt on.”
“No, I booked this space to work on a perfectly respectable Modern Politics II project, which will determine, like, a third of my grade. Lucky I landed the partner I did, am I right?” Her eyes narrowed at the blank expression sitting on Pru’s face. “Wait. You do know who Alex is, don’t you?”
“Uh.” Pru searched her—apparently faulty, thanks a lot, brain—memory. “He said his surname was Santos, Santana, something?”
“Oh my god.” Disbelieving glee lit up Anabel’s entire face. “You really don’t know!”
“You sound way too excited about this.”
“Pru,” exclaimed Anabel. “Santiago was his mother’s maiden name. He uses it on the school records to avoid trading on his dad’s family as best he can, but he’s not really fooling anyone. His proper name is Alexandre Santiago Lamarque.”
Pru blinked. “Shit.”
“Yes.”
“You mean.”
“Yup.”
“Lamarque, as in Head Representative Gabriel Lamarque of the Barricade Coalition.” No wonder pretty boy had seemed so familiar. He wasn’t one of Mama’s brooding romantic leads after all. He was something far worse.
“Alex is his nephew, yeah,” confirmed Anabel, who looked a bit like a cat who’d caught a particularly delectable canary. “Kind of see the family resemblance in hindsight, right? They’ve totally got the same ass—uh, arms.”
Pru wasn’t fully paying attention, trapped as she was inside her own one-girl horror show. “Lamarque, as in the family that pretty much single-handedly won independence for Barricaders during the Partition Wars.”
“Yup.”
“Those Lamarques. The political royalty of the Northern Front. The ones who beat back Incorporated war mechs from the walls of New Columbia. Who beat back actual wyverns.”
“Indeed,” agreed Anabel cheerfully.
“Lamarque University was on the top-choice matriculation list I gave to my university admissions counselor. I cross-registered for a history elective there once. I got an A-minus!”
“You should tell Alex. I’m sure he’d be impressed.”
“Shit.” Pru groaned and buried her head in her hands. “I was so rude to him.”
Anabel patted her shoulder in a motherly sort of way. “If it’s any comfort, he probably found it refreshing that you were a jerk to him instead of, like, proposing marriage or something.”
“What the hell were you doing, planning a school project with a Lamarque?”
“Passing Modern Politics II with flying colors, hopefully. Oh, don’t give me that look,” Anabel added. “Alex and I are friends. My parents know his uncle from some boring-as-death Northerners’ socialite network. Poor guy needed to partner with somebody in class, and it might as well be someone who won’t sit starstruck the whole time.”
“You’ve never mentioned him before!”
Anabel shrugged delicately. “You’ve never asked. Besides, it’s not like he’s around much. He takes most of his course requirements from home, with tutors and stuff. I think campus life makes him anxious or something.”
“Yeah, welcome to the club,” said Pru acidly. “So what’s this big project you ditched our drop-off for anyway?”
A coy look entered Anabel’s eyes. She blinked a few times, grin spreading. “Now, that,” she said with relish, “I was hoping you’d ask. What are your plans tonight?”
“Studying. Sleeping. Stressing. I don’t know, why?”
“Boring, boring, and boring. Come to the school auditorium with me instead, around seven P.M. or so.”
Pru narrowed her eyes at Anabel, whose expression, as usual, gave absolutely nothing away. “Park. What are you planning?”
Anabel winked. “A Modern Politics II project that will put your little run-in with the police right out of your head.”
“Park!”
“I swear you’ll like it.”
Pru pulled her chin in. “It’s a school night, and I’ve already been almost arrested once today. I don’t need more trouble.”