17
Miles
I’m in the Prison Tower, in the cell next to Ozzy.
Rocco Prince is on my other side. Dax and Jasper in the cell next to him.
The girls aren’t being disciplined. All accounts agreed that they were not voluntary participants in the fight.
For Rocco, Dax, Jasper, and me, the punishment is seven days without food, and only 500 mL of water.
The torment is extreme. The starvation I could deal with, but the thirst is constant torture. My lips are cracked and parched. My throat and tongue so swollen I can barely speak. My skin gritty with salt.
I’m filthy. We have no extra water to bathe. I can’t sleep because I dream of cool, flowing faucets, and I wake up gasping.
Yet none of this compares to the anguish of knowing that my best friend is about to be executed.
Many rules at Kingmakers can be bent. Some can even be broken. The one irreversible decree is the Rule of Recompense.
An eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Death for a death.
Ozzy has already been sentenced.
Tomorrow he dies.
“Take a look at that sunset,” Rocco hisses from his cell. “It’s your last one.”
Ozzy doesn’t reply. He stopped talking two days ago.
It’s me who responds.
“I will fucking kill you for this, Rocco. I will strip your flesh off, and stab your eyes out . . .”
I can’t finish my threat because my throat is too dry to speak. It ends in an impotent rasp.
Wade’s parents arrived this morning. I saw their ship come in, through the tiny window in my cell.
They haven’t taken his body home. They’re staying to witness the execution.
I would do anything, anything to save Ozzy.
I’ve tried to think of a way out of this. Day and night I racked my brains until I was delirious.
There’s nothing I can do.
As our cells grow dark once more, I whisper, “I’m sorry, Ozzy.”
I don’t expect him to answer.
But after a long pause, he says, “It’s not your fault, Miles. You stopped . . . I didn’t.”
18
Cat
They force the whole school to attend the execution.
I don’t want to go.
I try to hide in the bathrooms of the Undercroft, but Saul Turner finds me and says, “You better get up there. The Chancellor’s not exactly in a good mood.”
I’m already crying as I take my seat in the Grand Hall. My guts are churning, and I think I might vomit. I don’t want to watch Ozzy die.
Rocco, Dax, Jasper, and Miles are forced to sit in the front row, bound to their chairs. They look ragged and filthy, skinny from their week of starvation and wild-eyed from lack of water. Rocco is the least affected, though his face is now lean to the point of emaciation. Miles looks like a completely different person—no hint of his former swagger. He’s beaten and broken.
Zoe is pale as a ghost. I don’t think she ate this week either. She stumbles and almost falls as we take our seats. Leo has to help support her. Anna already has her arm around Chay. Silent tears run down Chay’s face, as they have in a continual flow every time I’ve seen her. Her arms are raw where she’s dug her fingernails into the skin.
A rigid tension runs through Leo, Ares, and even Hedeon, as if they want to mount an attack—break Ozzy and Miles free, help them escape.
We all know how impossible that would be. Even if we could overwhelm the professors and the staff, the grounds crew who double as security, and the Chancellor himself, it would all be pointless. Every family who sends a student to this school signs a contract in blood. Ozzy’s sentence has been passed. A hundred mafia families would ensure that it was carried out—on him, and anyone who tried to help him.
The silence in the Grand Hall is an oppressive weight. No whispers, no fidgeting, no creak of chairs. Once the students are seated, you could hear an eyelash fall.
Even the cavernous hearth is silent, no fire burning in the grate.
The banners of the founding houses hang limp without a breeze to stir them. I look up at those banners, hating every single one. Hating the cruel and merciless power they represent. Hating this way of life where we’re driven to extremes, then punished when we overstep the bounds.
Luther Hugo sits in a high-backed chair, facing the students.
He wears a black double-breasted suit, his long, dark hair combed straight back from his forehead, his pointed brows like inverted Vs over those glittering beetle-black eyes. He stares at the accused and then at the rest of us, his eyes piercing each student in turn. There’s no enjoyment in his expression and no pity, either.
I wonder how many times he’s done this.
Mr. and Mrs. Dyer sit to the left of the Chancellor. Wade’s parents are as blond and beautiful as their son. I hate them, too, and feel no pity for their loss. They raised a garbage son. Even in death, he hasn’t stopped hurting people. It’s his fault we’re all sitting here today. His fault, and Rocco’s most of all. But only Ozzy will pay the ultimate price. He’ll die to satisfy the Dyer’s bloodlust.
To the right of the Chancellor sits a plain, dark-haired woman wearing a blue dress. Her face is pale and sober. I wonder if she might be the Chancellor’s wife—I never heard if he was married. She’s younger than him by twenty years at least. That’s common amongst the mafiosi. My stepmother is twenty-two years younger than my father.
The professors stand sentinel around the perimeter of the Hall, along with a dozen other Kingmakers staff. I realize how stupid I was to think that these burly stone-faced men were here simply for menial tasks like building the obstacle course and tending the grounds. I see them for what they are, now—soldiers.
Even the professors in their dark suits remind me of their former professions as mercenaries, assassins, torturers, and criminals. I see no tears in Professor Lyon’s eyes, or even Professor Howell’s. I fell into the pleasant fiction that these were my teachers, this was my school. I forgot why I was so terrified to come here in the first place.
At least Miss Robin stayed away. I couldn’t bear to see her standing by, emotionless, like the rest of them.
The Chancellor stands in one, quick, sweeping motion. With all the impressive feats I’ve witnessed from Leo and Ares and Miles, it’s easy to forget the difference between a man of twenty and one fully grown. The power that only comes from long experience—the difference between a sapling and hardened oak.
The Chancellor is massive, rough-hewn, lines etched in his face as deep as hatchet strokes. His visage is that of an ancient god, his voice thunder as he says, “A student was killed on our grounds. Wade Dyer died at the hand of Ozzy Duncan. Our laws are simple—a life for a life. The debt was incurred. Now it must be paid.”
His voice echoes around the Hall long after he stops speaking.
The faces of my fellow students are sickened, stricken, but no one so much as dares to cry audibly. Not even me.
The Chancellor nods toward the double doors at the end of the hall. Professor Holland and Professor Knox shift from their military positions to pull them open.
Ozzy is led into the Hall by Professor Penmark, so weighed down with chains that he can barely walk. His hair is lank and unwashed, his face as hollow as Miles’. His hands are bound behind his back, and his chains make a horrible clanking sound with every step. His walk seems endless—perhaps he’s moving slowly because he knows these moments are his last.