What happens if you lose?
Going downstairs, I pass the front door again, and the ache of failure mocks me. I had a chance last night and I blew it, allowing Saint to convince me to follow her back to our room. Maybe she saved me from death, but I still didn’t try. Not really.
I begin to hear the others, a cawing sound not unlike a murder of crows, as we move down the hall. When we come to another set of double doors—the only rooms I’ve found with a single door are our bedrooms and the bathrooms—I steel myself, ready to be faced with a room of girls all willing to do what Esme already has.
Saint throws the doors open and the dining room falls into silence. Saint ignores it perfectly well, swinging through the entryway, but it roars in my ears as we walk the entire length of the dining room to grab the only open seats, next to Penthesilea.
Hawthorne cringes under the weight of everyone’s stares, but she doesn’t pull away. She stands by my side.
“Ah… good morning,” Penthesilea says, disrupting the stillness as we settle closest to the wide picture windows, light streaming in hard enough to make us squint.
“Morning,” Hawthorne returns.
Slowly, the other girls go back to their conversations. When I count, I notice Margaret’s chair is missing. So is Esme’s.
“How did you sleep?” Penthesilea asks.
“It’s freezing here,” Saint declares. “And I say that as someone who has essentially grown up in the Swiss Alps.”
“Yes, the Remington home is quite chilly, even in summer. I think it’s because it’s old, it doesn’t have the proper ventilation built into the walls to maintain heat,” Penthesilea explains. She turns to Hawthorne and smiles. “I hope you slept well.”
“I did. Esme too. She slept like a baby,” Hawthorne murmurs.
One of the girls—Jacqueline from Nightingale-Bamford—leans forward over her avocado toast and caviar and asks, “Your name is Adina, right?”
I freeze under the weight of her question. The other girls are watching, some more slyly than others.
“Yeah,” I say quietly, giving her the benefit of the doubt. “Pass the bacon, please.”
Wordlessly, Penthesilea passes the platter to me, and I dump at least six strips onto my plate. The spread is decadence: poached eggs, a porcelain bowl of caviar, a platter of lox and chives atop freshly baked bagels. Croissants that look so perfect, they have to be imported. My stomach snarls, reminding me of my missed dinner and the strength I’ll need for today.
At least I’ll be well fed, marching to my death. I help myself to each and every thing, trying things I’ve never been able to afford before. I don’t care if I look like a starving urchin, or whatever Esme would call me. Decorum doesn’t matter now, like Saint warned me. The rules are different. The first bite of the croissants is everything, steam rolling into my nose, the flaky layers melting like butter on my tongue. I can’t help the pleased moan and Penthesilea smiles, amused. I half smile back at her.
“The caviar is good too,” she says. “It’s a bit fishy. A bit salty.”
“Like ocean water,” Hawthorne adds, eager to assist someone now that her supreme leader is out of commission.
I do as they bid, and wow. “Oh, you’re right, it’s very good,” I mumble around a mouthful, following it up with the most fatty, perfectly salted bacon I’ve ever had in my life.
“How are your accommodations, Penthesilea?” Jacqueline asks, turning to her while I eat, self-consciously stroking the light acne scars on her cheek.
“Very nice. I face the rose garden,” Penthesilea says pleasantly as she butters another piece of toast. She doesn’t seem to catch the malice in Jacqueline’s voice, or perhaps she does hear it, but she’s not letting it bother her. “I used to take a lot of walks through the garden. It’s lovely in first bloom.”
“That’s nice,” Jacqueline says dismissively. “You have your room to yourself, don’t you?”
Penthesilea’s grip on her knife gets just a hair tighter. “Yes, I do. After… last night’s tragedy.”
I nearly drop my own fork. Penthesilea was rooming with Margaret? She seems barely affected by her murder, or at least she wants everyone to think she is. But the longer I look at her, really look at Penthesilea, past her hazy edges and frothy bliss, I can see the rigidity to her spine.
“Did you know Margaret?” Jacqueline asks. She leans in, looking at me again. “Adina, I mean.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Jacqueline makes a face, like she doesn’t understand. “Then why did you run to her?”
My stomach gurgles and I’m no longer hungry. I can feel my heart hardening to her, hardening to nearly all these girls who seem to lack basic empathy. The worst part of it all is how nothing feels like it’s changed at all for them. Margaret’s life was nothing but an inconvenient end to a pleasant evening.
“Why didn’t you?” I retort. Jacqueline rears back.
She sniffs as if the question itself is offensive, and she looks at Penthesilea again, who must seem easier to deal with than me. “Well, what’s done is done, I suppose. Penthesilea, I’ve found that I don’t have nearly enough space,” Jacqueline says, leaning forward with her shark smile. “Care to play a game?”
Penthesilea places her knife down and laughs. “Oh, so you’re in the know—a bit early for a game, isn’t it?”
In the know?
“？‘Early’？ I don’t know the meaning of the word,” Jacqueline tosses back.
Penthesilea quirks an eyebrow. “Cards or dice?”
Before Jacqueline can decide, the doors are thrown open.
Leighton Remington stands in the doorway, dressed in a sleek sheath dress that makes each of us look sloppier by the second. She brushes back an imaginary flyaway, patting it into her perfectly coiffed blond hair.
“Ladies, finish your breakfasts in quick order. Once you do, you will return to your rooms to find today’s attire spread and ironed. Your training begins now.”
Everyone moves collectively. Jacqueline shovels the rest of her avocado toast into her mouth. Penthesilea slots a piece of buttered rye between her teeth, and they both get up.
“Come on. We were already late for breakfast,” Saint mutters under her breath. She grabs my wrist, tugging me up after her.
“Miss Walker.”
I jerk to a stop and turn on my heel, swallowing.
“Yes, Dr. Remington?” I mutter.
She tilts her head. “Before we begin, I’d like to see you in my office.”
CHAPTER 10
“DID I DO SOMETHING WRONG, Dr. Remington?”
“Do sit down, Miss Walker,” Leighton says. She shuts the door behind her and walks past me in her crocodile pumps.
Her office is a grand space, with built-in bookshelves lined with tomes ranging from what looks like a collection of Dante’s poetry to the latest edition of the DSM. The elegant jewel-tone wallpaper complements the panels of rich, dark wood. Her desk looks like it’s carved from the same, old but gleaming with a fresh polish. I look to the red leather chair that I expect she wants me to sit in, but she takes the seat there, leaving only the velvet green couch that dominates the back wall.