Who knows where I could be in another year? Or two or three?
I once pictured myself on graduation day, as strong and confident as a Senior like Saul Turner.
That no longer seems like an impossible fantasy.
“I’ll have to thank Miles,” I say to Zoe. “Though I don’t know how you can ever thank someone for something like that.”
“I know,” Zoe says. “I just can’t believe it.”
But she can. She absolutely believes it.
It takes me calling home to my father to be fully convinced. I phone him on Sunday, which is the day we’re permitted to use the old-fashioned bank of telephones in the ground floor of the Keep.
I never call my father, usually. He communicates via letters that I detest opening.
However, today he seems to be expecting my call.
“Hello, Catalina.”
He never calls me Cat. He never has.
“Hello, father.”
“I assume your sister told you the news.”
“She said you made a new deal with the Princes. A more advantageous arrangement.”
I’m trying to flatter him. I know my father’s pride. If he senses any hint of triumph in Zoe or me, he’ll be furious.
“I don’t expect you girls to understand the complexity of my business. But yes, you could say it is infinitely more advantageous,” he says, with pompous magnanimity.
“I—I’m very happy for you, father.”
“It’s an embarrassment for your sister to be cast off by her fiancé. She better hope the American is serious about pursuing her. I doubt anyone else will be interested after the way she’s behaved.”
“I think he’s very serious about her,” I say, quietly.
My father responds with a disgusted sniff.
“I hope you’ll never behave in such a whorish way, Catalina. I raised you to understand what a wife owes to her husband. A woman’s value is easily diluted. Like a bottle of wine, once the cork is popped—”
“I understand, father,” I say, quickly.
I’m seething with anger, my hand shaking around the receiver. How dare he talk about Zoe that way, when he’s never felt love or devotion in his life. He’s a hypocrite, a reptile, a slimy fucking—
“See that you do understand,” he says, shortly, hanging up the phone.
I slam the receiver down in return, wishing I’d had the courage to do it before him.
I hate him. I hate him so much.
I loathe the idea of going home this summer. I wish the school year would never end, a sentiment I never thought I’d feel, but now I embrace it wholeheartedly.
I prefer Kingmakers. I can say that now. For all its faults, for all the ways it terrifies me, at least this place is honest in its intentions. No one pretends to love me here, pretends to have my best interests at heart, while poisoning me from the inside out.
My father doesn’t know anything about who I am, not really.
I am a fucking Spy.
Luther Hugo made no mistake when he chose my division. He looked at my school transcripts. He noticed what my father never bothered to see. Nascent skills. Embryonic expertise.
I’ve been building those skills all year.
Now it’s time to put them into practice.
I’m tired of terror, tired of waiting for men to attack so I can fumble in reaction.
It’s time to face my last fear at this place.
Time to go hunting for Rocco Prince.
One of the few classes I enjoyed at Kingmakers, right from the beginning, is Stealth and Infiltration. In that class it’s an advantage to be small and insignificant, easy to overlook. Even Professor Burrows is a short and trim man, with a quiet, carefully cultivated British accent, and a plain, unremarkable face. The only thing memorable about him is his strangely tiny, baby-like teeth, that only reveal themselves on the rare occasion when he smirks at his own joke.
Professor Burrows has been teaching us how to stalk our quarry without being noticed.
“The first step is research,” he tells us. “You should have a good idea of where your subject is going before they ever leave the house. If your intent is to follow them to an unknown locale, keep your distance, monitor their position via indirect sources such as window reflections, and be prepared to alter your appearance en route. Caps, sunglasses, and reversible jackets can be of use.”
When I start following Rocco Prince on campus, I try to make use of all Professor Burrow’s tips. I borrow one of Rakel’s beanies to cover my hair, and I slip in and out of my academy jacket. I hide behind stacks of textbooks in the library and beefy Enforcers in the dining hall. I remember the Professor’s directive not to follow behind the subject at all times, but rather to walk on parallel or diagonal pathways, to sometimes overtake and sometimes pause out of sight.
Rocco is a predator with finely-honed instincts. If I even look at him too long, his head jerks up and his cold blue eyes sweep around, searching for the source of that prickling along the back of his neck, that sixth-sense that he’s being observed.
But he doesn’t see me. Because I’ve learned how to hide behind pillars and in the shadow of stairwells, how to sit perfectly still without flinching, my face turned down to a book, even while his gaze passes over me.
Everyone knows when Rocco learns of the dissolution of his engagement, because he destroys the dorm room he shares with Dax Volker. He smashes up the furniture, rips the mattresses apart, even throws a chair through his own window. For that little tantrum, his family is fined and he’s forced to suffer the humiliation of working on the grounds crew for two weeks.
I expect him to retaliate against Miles and Zoe immediately, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t so much as speak to Zoe, which she sees as a good sign.
“I know he’s pissed, but he has to abide by his parents’ decision,” Zoe says to me.
Zoe looks lovelier than I’ve ever seen: her skin glowing, her hair dark and lustrous, her eyes bright as spring clover. She’s still wearing her favorite trousers, but her blouse is partly unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up. A belt cinches her slim waist, showing her figure in a way she never would have done before.
She’s secure for the first time in her life, safe as if Miles’ arms are wrapped around her, even when he’s not actually in the room.
I don’t want to puncture that safety, not for a second. But I’m frightened for her, and I can’t seem to shake it.
“I just . . . don’t believe he’ll let you go so easy,” I say to Zoe.
“Fuck him,” Zoe says, tossing her head imperiously. “There’s no contract anymore. If he tries to hurt me at school, he’ll be punished. Outside of school, I’m staying with Miles. You can come with us too, Cat. Come to Chicago this summer. Father won’t care—he’ll be drowning in cash from this deal. Miles says it’s already running, it’s already working.”
She’s high on triumph, blissful and full of plans.
I’m afraid that Miles is the same.
They can’t see what I see.
They’re not watching Rocco as he gets paler and more venomous by the day. He’s a snake that’s starving, and that only makes him more dangerous.
“I think he’s losing his friends, too,” Zoe says. “Jasper was pissed about that week in a prison cell, and from what I hear Dax is none too happy that Rocco fucked up their room.”