Once all the students are on board, the sailors cast off the ropes tethering us to the dock and start unfurling the sails. The huge white sails immediately fill with wind, and the booms swing around to form the right angle to carry us out onto the open water.
We all look back at the dock, but there’s nobody waiting to wave us off. Parents are instructed to say their farewells from their home country. We’re already on our own. Leaving Dubrovnik is only symbolic.
The city looks foreign to my eyes, and the place we’re going is only more so. There’s nowhere on earth like Kingmakers. A secret school only known to a few dozen families. I won’t get any degree or diploma from this place. Just the accumulation of knowledge passed down through generations of criminals. How to operate in shadow. How to find loopholes in the law. How to outwit and outplay governments and police forces. And how to barter, negotiate, and battle with each other.
The wind fills the sails with surprising force. The wooden planks groan as the ship is shoved hard across the water. Despite its size, the ship picks up speed rapidly. The planks aren’t groaning anymore—they’ve adjusted to the pressure and the temperature change. Now the boat seems to transform, to become as light as a bird skimming over the water.
Soon we’re passing out of the port, out into open ocean. The red-roofed medieval buildings of Old Town are disappearing behind us. We’re cutting through the fishing boats, moving out where there’s no one else around. Seagulls rise up from the fishing nets, circling round our ship briefly in case we have something better to offer. When they see how quickly we’re moving, they abandon our masts and head back where they came from.
“Look!” Anna cries, pointing down to the water. “Dolphins.”
Swift gray bullets race alongside the ship, leaping in and out of the frothy wake.
“That’s good luck,” Ares says.
“Do you know how to sail?” Anna asks him.
“Yeah,” he says. “I had a little skiff in Syros.”
At first I’m loving the cool breeze and the waves and the view of the dolphins. But soon Anna pulls out a book and starts reading, and Ares lays back against the mast, using his backpack as a pillow and laying a spare t-shirt over his eyes so he can take a nap.
What was exciting and stimulating becomes repetitive and boring. I’m tired of the view. I want to see what everyone is doing down on the deck.
I swing down from our makeshift hammock. Matteo was right—the water only gets rougher the further out we get, and I have to use all my balance to cross the rolling deck.
Some of the other students are seasick, with several kids lined up to puke over the railing. I can’t say my stomach is totally steady, especially not with the lingering effects of my hangover, but at least I’m not that far gone.
Up at the front of the bow, I spot a group of boys playing some kind of dice game. I wander over for a closer look.
Bram Van Der Berg is there, along with two of his friends from the night before. Also a couple of boys who look Armenian and one Asian girl.
After watching for a minute, I can tell the game is just a variation of Street Craps. I can’t be sure, but I think one of the Armenians is using a loaded die. He certainly seems to be rolling an eleven more often than would be statistically probable.
Bram and I eye each other warily across the circle. He hasn’t shaved and his face is rough with stubble. I probably look scruffy too, but hopefully in less of a just-got-off-a-ten-year-stretch-in-solitary kind of way. I can tell he’s watching to see if I plan to resume the hostilities from the night before.
I assume there’s going to be a whole lot of jockeying for position in the first few weeks at Kingmakers. Every kid here thinks they’re the alpha—and they probably were, wherever they came from. But we can’t all be alphas at the school. There’s going to be a new hierarchy. I intend to be at the top, like always.
Bram probably thinks the same thing. He narrows his eyes at me, tossing back his longish hair and muttering something to his friends. The other Penose give me venomous looks.
Bram’s the next shooter. He rolls the point number three times before hitting a seven, ending the round. He scoops up his winnings, grinning.
“Hey, Dmitry,” he calls. “Why don’t you come join?”
He’s calling to a tall blond boy who’s standing at the railing looking down at the water. The boy took his shirt off because of the heat. A Siberian tiger is tattooed to the right of his spine, done in the classic style as if it were crawling up his back. Because the boy is so pale, the tiger looks snow white with black stripes.
Dmitry turns around slowly, facing our group.
He looks right at me and seems to recognize me immediately.
I get a similar jolt.
He’s strangely familiar, even though I know we’ve never met.
His eyes narrow, his jaw tightens, and his lip curls up in a sneer.
“No thanks,” he says coldly. “I don’t like the company.”
“What?” Bram says, glancing back and forth between us. “The Amerikanets?”
“What’s wrong with Americans?” I say. I keep my voice level, but I’m looking the blond boy right in the eye.
Bram and I sized each other up last night, and it was clear that we both thought we were hot shit. Who’s shit is hotter remains to be determined. With Dmitry it’s something else. He’s doesn’t view me as a rival. He’s looking at me like an enemy.
“It’s not Americans,” he says to me. “It’s you.” His voice drips with disdain.
Something in his tone, coupled with his coloring and the familiarity of his features makes it all click at once.
I’m talking to my cousin. He’s calling himself Dmitry, but this is Dean Yenin, I’m sure of it.
Not that Dean considers us family.
His father and my mother are twins. They were best friends growing up. Until my mom chose my dad over her own family.
Dean’s grandfather tried to kill everyone I know and love at my parents’ wedding: my uncle Nero, my aunt Camille, Uncle Dante, my godmother Greta, even my father. He succeeded in murdering my grandpa Enzo, so that I’ve only ever known him from a portrait that hangs in my father’s office.
And in return, my father rained down bloody retribution on Dean’s family. Dean’s grandfather is dead, strangled to death by my dad. And his father Adrian is burned up worse than Vader from what I’ve heard.
So we are enemies, maybe more than anyone else on this boat.
I knew that Dean was coming to Kingmakers.
I knew this was coming.
But it’s something different to meet him face to face, after never even having seen a photo of him.
He’s the main reason my mother didn’t want me coming here. She’s tried to reach out to her brother over the years—tried to repair their relationship so they could at least have a measure of forgiveness, even if they could never be close again.
He never responded to her, not a single word.
It’s clear from the expression on Dean’s face that my mom was right. The Yenins weren’t just avoiding us. They fucking hate us still.
“Is that any way to talk to your cousin?” I say to Dean.
I won’t give him the satisfaction of glaring back at him. Instead I paste a grin on my face, like I don’t take him seriously. I know that’s the best way to really piss him off.