I kneel in front of her, holding my towel tight to my body, and grab her hand. “Saint?” I whisper. “Breakfast is here?” My nose wrinkles at the congealed oatmeal, long gone cold, the soupy yogurt that looks half melted, and the curling leaves on the fresh strawberries.
She doesn’t respond, at least not to me, but her whispering grows louder. It’s like she doesn’t hear me, doesn’t even see me. It’s too painful to look at confident, untouchable Saint like this, so I give her space and go to work on my curls, applying the pudding and gel in a methodical fashion. It’s been years since I taught myself to do this; now I don’t even have to think about it, which is good because I can’t think about anything. I’m halfway through when there’s a knock on the door.
Uncaring about my state of undress, or anything at all anymore, I stalk toward the door and wrench it open with a snarled “What?” Fear is such a constant now, I barely feel it.
Pierce holds up his hands in surrender. He is so perfect looking, so absolutely golden, but his joy dims into what I’m sure he thinks is honest concern. “I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
Again, he asks. I laugh viciously and don’t bother with answering because I’m past being able to lie. My hand tightens around the top of my towel, and Pierce’s gaze drags down, over the top of my breasts, and then flits up again, like he’s been caught.
“Do you need something, Pierce? I’d like to keep my peace for the rest of the day, before the Repartee,” I say. There’s nothing about his perfectly coiffed hair or his perfect smile that can muster up anything other than thinly veiled contempt anymore. Resentment is a hell of a relationship builder, and we don’t even have foundations.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m supposed to have lunch with Esme,” Pierce says, his nose wrinkling with distaste at the thought, “but I wanted to see how you were doing.”
I squint at him. “How… do you think I’m doing?” I ask. An awkward beat of silence passes between us, where he doesn’t even try to answer. “If there’s nothing else—”
“Wait, I also brought you something for tonight. Here,” Pierce says, and I finally realize that he has a garment bag slung over his shoulder. I take the offering and lean against the doorframe, looking up at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he just says, “You were brilliant. With the Esme bit, turning the others against her.”
“So you were watching,” I say with a sigh, because I’m over the flattery. That’s what it’s always been. Empty flattery, meant to placate me into continuing.
“Of course,” Pierce says.
“Was Graham?” I ask.
Pierce frowns like why am I asking about his brother when he is standing right in front of me.
“I only wonder because he wasn’t there, at the end.” I say quickly.
“I mean… not at first, but then he said something about how he’s not a coward, and then… I don’t know, maybe he was because he walked away.”
“Well,” I say, reverting back to the Raid because I don’t know what to make of that. “You saw that your girlfriend saved my ass. So you should save the compliments for her.”
Pierce’s expression darkens. “Don’t call her that. But, really, Adina, you’ve performed… beautifully in your own right. You’re, ah, beautiful,” he says awkwardly.
I am expected to be pleased. But it’s as if he has nothing else to say to me. Just that. “Thanks. I have to…”
“Right. I’ll see you at the Repartee tonight,” Pierce says. He takes a step back, drinking me in again. “Save me a dance?”
“If you’d like,” I say softly before I shut the door.
I wait for Saint to say something, but she only gives me a quick look before she’s talking to herself again. I restart the task of my hair, trying not to think about the garment bag or what might be inside or the way Pierce’s eyes traced my frame, every curve and divot and bruise. I try not to think of how I suddenly miss stubble and big hands, the same ones that helped me onto the back of a horse, that showed me how to shoot, that sat heavy on my thighs. He felt unpolished. Real, in a way Pierce isn’t.
After the Raid I feel just a little more plastic. Hardened and hollow. I wonder if someone could look at me and see the way I’m cracking up inside. See that I’m being forced into shapes that aren’t by my design. As Graham feels more real, I feel less than, and maybe that’s why he wasn’t there.
He couldn’t muster a fake smile for me.
* * *
The final Repartee feels monumental in a way that the others didn’t. The feeling is sudden, swarming unease. The day is spent in meandering silence, and that in and of itself feels like psychological warfare. There isn’t a whisper of movement in the halls. There are no giggles or laughter; there wouldn’t be. There are only five of us left. It started with one dead girl, and now there are seven. All gone, for a boy who barely paid attention to them in the first place.
The feeling does not ease when plain white hatboxes wrapped with navy-blue silk ribbons are delivered, along with instructions to be ready in three hours.
Inside is a mask, delicate and beautiful, a marble cast of a woman’s face with crystals laid painstakingly around the eyeholes, and painted silver lips. Silver filigree encrusts the face, swirling up into what resembles a tiara.
I glance over at Saint. She has a half mask, which looks vaguely like the Venetian carnival masks that we learned about once in seventh-grade World Cultures.
“Every day this feels more and more like a cult,” I murmur to myself. I don’t bother hoping for a response from Saint. She hasn’t answered me directly since before the Raid. She doesn’t look like the girl I saw when I first got here at all, and again I wonder what happened with her and Reagan after we were separated in the maze.
My thoughts grow so loud that I start to get ready early. I haven’t looked at the dress that Pierce gave me since he visited just a few hours earlier. It didn’t seem to matter in the moment, but now it feels like expectations. It’s another way for Pierce to demonstrate his favor, favor I want less and less as the prize solidifies in my head.
I take my time unzipping the garment bag and reveal a dark, shimmering, emerald-green fabric.
“That’s a Fletcher. Very avant-garde.”
I jump, nearly dropping it, and spin to glare at Saint.
She sits straight up, her spine like iron, her mouth pressed into a thin line, and finally I recognize her. With grace, she stands from her bed and crosses the room, joining me. Her hair is mussed and she smells like outside, like the maze. Her nose wrinkles like she finally realizes it.
“Aren’t you trapped at the bottom of a spiral?”
“I climbed out,” Saint says coolly. Her expression doesn’t soften when our eyes meet, but she does grab my shoulder and squeeze soundly. “He wants you to wear an emerging designer. Fletcher’s whole deal is taking classic silhouettes and modernizing them. Bringing heritage into a new century. Rather heavy-handed. I bet he’s going to wear something with matching accents.”
“I’m beginning to think he’s delusional,” I mutter.