“Cherries are fruit,” I tease him.
“Not that way, they aren’t.” He gives me a comforting shoulder squeeze. “Don’t forget to stop by my office later. Now that you’re feeling better, I want to talk to you about a few things and hear how your first day went.”
“It’ll be fine, Uncle Finn.”
“I’m hoping it will be more than fine. But good or bad, come tell me about it. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Good. See you later, girls.” He smiles at us, then disappears out the door.
Macy shakes her head as she grabs her own school uniform out of the closet. “Just ignore him. My dad’s a total dork.”
“Most good dads are dorks, aren’t they?” I ask as I move to the mirror on my closet door so I can start fixing my hair. “Besides, he reminds me of my dad. It’s kind of nice.”
She doesn’t say anything to that, and when I glance her way, it’s to find her staring sadly at me—which is, bar none, the second worst thing about losing my parents. I hate the sympathy, hate the way everyone feels sorry for me and no one knows what to say.
“That was supposed to be a happy comment,” I tell her. “You don’t need to feel bad.”
“I know. It’s just that I’m so happy you’re here and we have this time to get to know each other. And then it hits me all over again and I feel gross for being happy.” She sighs. “Which sounds like I’m making this all about me, but I’m not. I just—”
“Hey, you.” I break into what I’m learning could be a really, really long soliloquy. “I get it. And though how I got here sucks, I’m glad we have this time, too. Okay?”
A slow smile takes the place of her worried look. “Yeah, okay.”
“Good. Now get dressed. I’m starving.”
“On it!” she says, disappearing into the bathroom to do just that.
Twenty minutes later, we finally make it down the back stairs （“sooooo much less crowded,” Macy swears） to the cafeteria, after winding our way past no less than seven suits of armor, four giant fireplaces, and more columns than existed in all of Ancient Greece.
Okay, the last might be a slight exaggeration, but only slight. Plus, the fact that they’re black instead of white gets them extra points in my book. And that’s not even counting the gold filigree around the tops and bottoms of the columns.
I mean, the whole thing is a total head trip. Seriously. Going to school in Alaska is wild enough. Going to school in an actual castle, complete with halls whose bloodred ceilings are lined with Gothic lancet arches, is hella cool.
At least if you don’t count all the people staring at me as we make our way through the halls. Macy dismisses it as “new-girl stuff” and tells me to ignore it. But it’s pretty hard to do that when people are honest-to-God turning around to stare at me when I pass. I know Macy said they’ve all been together for a long time, but come on. I can’t actually be the first new person to land here, can I? Just the idea is absurd. Schools get new kids all the time—even schools in Alaska.
Macy interrupts my inner diatribe with an excited “We’re here!” as we stop in front of three sets of black-and-gold doors. The wood is carved, and I try to get a closer look at the designs, but my cousin is in too big of a hurry to show me the cafeteria. Which…seen one, seen them all, I figure.
But as she throws open one of the doors with all the pomp and flair of a game-show hostess showing me the car behind curtain number one, it’s pretty obvious that I’m wrong. Again. Because this cafeteria—and it feels wrong to even refer to the room by such a mundane name—is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Ever.
I’m pretty sure it even puts the library to shame.
To begin with, the room is huge, with long walls covered in different murals of dragons and wolves and I don’t know what else. Crown molding in black and gold runs around the edges of the ceiling and down the walls, framing each mural like a regular painting. The artist in me is fascinated and wants to spend hours studying each one, but I’ve got class in half an hour, so it’ll have to wait. Plus, there’s so much else to see here that I don’t know where to look first.
The ceiling is arched and an in-your-face, unapologetic bloodred, overlaid with curved black molding in elaborate geometric patterns. A huge crystal chandelier hangs from the center of each one, casting the whole room in a soft glow that only makes its grandeur more obvious.