She moves with practiced grace, each step deliberate. Her strides aren’t very wide, hindered by the tightness of her black pencil skirt, but she manages to make them feel like a power walk anyway. There are three strings of pearls of varying lengths dripping from her veiny neck, which is so thin and birdlike that her head looks in danger of falling off her shoulders. I wonder how long it takes her every morning to form the perfect blond waves that are swept over her right shoulder.
She has to be a Remington.
“Welcome to the Finish,” she says, her voice deeper than I expected, and very New England. “You must be Liu Ruolan, and you must be Adina Walker.”
“I go by Saint. It’s easier,” the girl says; the for you is heavily implied. “And you are?”
The woman doesn’t answer, just looks each of us up and down, and I wonder if she finds us wanting. She circles us, her gaze picking apart every inch. Saint looks bored with it, but I squirm underneath the incisive gaze. It feels more cutting than the stares of my peers, like she can see my insides and knows them well. And then the woman stops directly in front of me. When I meet her gaze, I am nauseous with a familiar eagerness for this woman to like what she sees, of wanting to be up to standards.
“Interesting,” she murmurs, like she’s confirmed something with her own eyes.
I immediately feel lighter.
“My name is Dr. Leighton Remington,” the woman says proudly, finally answering Saint’s question. “I am Pierce’s aunt. By marriage. I’ll be the Game Mistress of this Finish.”
It’s an odd title to use. Game Mistress. Not coordinator or director or judge.
“Nice to meet you,” I manage finally.
Dr. Remington doesn’t seem upset by my hesitation. “You’ll have a chance to change before we have a program rundown. Come this way. You’re the last girls to show up, so you’ll be rooming together. Don’t worry, you’ll see that you have an ample amount of space.”
I glance over at Saint, wondering if she’ll be upset with sharing a room, but her face is still coolly unaffected. I go to grab my duffels and Dr. Remington pauses on the stairs, as if she’s sensed my movement.
“Leave your personal items, dear girl; someone will bring them up after you.”
The moment she says it, three servants appear, each one in a crisp black uniform. One of the men grabs my bags while I follow her upstairs.
I can’t keep my eyes off the walls. Everything is dark wood and cedar, the banisters gleaming so much, I can almost see my own shape reflected. I drag my fingers over the wood, wondering if they’ll come away with polish, but they don’t. It’s as if it’s brand-new. Above us are enormous two-story windows, and on each one the Remington crest is emblazoned in yellow and royal-purple Tiffany glass, a snake winding its way through the center, its mouth open wide to reveal the outside world, as if the snake is preparing to eat everything in sight.
Beyond the windows, the grounds look like they could swallow me whole too. The gardens are an explosion of multicolored flora, with winding paths leading to an enormous hedge maze that looks like something you’d find in a movie. The groundskeepers move about, clipping and trimming at the edges, making sure there isn’t even a weed out of place.
“You’ll grow quite familiar with the grounds soon enough,” Dr. Remington says, her voice low and lilting, weirdly soothing.
I hum, curiosity piqued. I don’t know what’s in store for us, but I didn’t imagine we’d have much time to fool around in the backyard like kids.
“This way,” Dr. Remington calls, and I jump, realizing that she and Saint have already reached the second landing.
She continues down the hall, and I hurry after but I wonder what’s up on the third and fourth floors.
Is it where the family lives? Does Pierce live up there?
“Did you go to Edgewater?”
Saint’s question cuts through my own internal interrogation.
“I did. You didn’t, though,” I say needlessly. I shift a look at Dr. Remington’s back, but she’s not paying us much mind, or at least she’s pretending not to.
“No,” Saint agrees. “I went to a boarding school in Switzerland, but I’m from Beijing. I attended summer courses at Oxford with the oldest brother.”
“Graham?” I ask, surprised.
“Is that his name?” Saint murmurs. “I couldn’t remember. He didn’t exactly make an impression beyond being high for the majority of the time. Good at chess, though.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought that,” I manage.
“I suspect that this family is quite good at games,” Saint murmurs, and there’s an edge to her voice now. She doesn’t say anything else, and I squint at her harder while we turn down a corridor with more tall, narrow double doors.
There are seven of them, three on one side and four on the other, all leading down to a tall window that points to the east side of the grounds. I stare, squinting, and see that far past the gardens there is a stable. Of course the Remingtons ride horses. Penthesilea is an equestrian. She probably rides with Pierce. A prince and princess on horseback.
I remember the feel of his mouth on my neck, and I cringe from the thought of both Penthesilea and what I’ve done. For now, it doesn’t matter. She’s not here. I can reckon with the morality of my decisions after I get back what’s mine.
Dr. Remington raps her bony knuckles against the door that now belongs to Saint and me. Her long, thin fingers are devoid of any gold. No ring. Interesting.
“That room at the end of the hall is a common area. A place to mix and mingle. Ladies, I’d like to see you both there, dressed and readied, at one sharp. Dresses have been prepared for you, as we’ll be taking a photo. Also, please bring your phones,” she says. She doesn’t seem the kind of person that will tolerate lateness.
I file the observation away for later, moving to press the door open as Dr. Remington walks away.
It’s bigger than any bedroom I’ve ever seen in real life, even bigger than Esme’s, where I was a guest more than once over the years. I swallow hard, staring at the two enormous four-poster beds, the tall ceilings and long windows filtering in bright summer light. There’s a plush chaise at the end of one bed and a slightly harder-looking bench at the end of the other, though that bed has an extra nightstand that looks like it could’ve been handcrafted in the Baroque era. It probably was.
“I want this one,” I insist firmly, claiming it and the extra nightstand by falling back onto the heavy brocade comforter. I sink into the plushness, turning my face into the silk pillows. Sitting up slightly, I look to the far wall, by the door that leads to what I can only assume is a bathroom. Lined up there are our bags. “How did they get them up here so fast?”
It couldn’t have been easy to lug all of Saint’s trunks up the stairs, and they didn’t come up behind us.
Saint is too busy inspecting her own bed to answer. She picks up the throw at the bottom of the bed between two fingers, rubbing at it. She raises an eyebrow. “I think this is Shahtoosh.”
“What?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Saint says, but she sounds impressed. She marches up to the wardrobe against the wall, flinging it open with abandon, and there, as Dr. Remington had promised, are two muslin garment bags. “There are tags. This one is yours.”