I can hardly hear the sound of a gull without vomiting all over again. Their cry is a constant reminder of what I did. An accusation and a threat. Proof that what I thought could be hidden was instead immediately discovered in a way I never would have guessed.
I rip a comb through my damp curls, trying to clear my head.
I’m in the shared bathroom of the Undercroft, the air full of steam from the students taking their early morning showers.
I found Dean crying in a bathroom very much like this.
Why was he so upset that day?
Why did the death of Ozzy’s mother strike him so hard?
I don’t understand Dean Yenin. I don’t understand why he’s so full of rage and bitterness.
God my head is a jumble of thoughts, none of them pleasant.
Rakel comes to stand at the mirror next to mine, her short, choppy hair already drying, and a towel wrapped around her body. Her face looks blank without her makeup, as if she hasn’t put on her personality for the day.
“What’s wrong?” she asks me.
“Nothing,” I say.
“You look stressed.”
“I’m fine.”
There it is again. Nobody is ever actually fine.
I watch Rakel arrange her collection of brushes and pots, then begin the delicate process of painting her face.
Anna Wilk tends toward classic goth makeup, but Rakel’s oeuvre is much more varied. Some days she looks vampiric with dark red lipstick and chalk-white cheeks. Others she looks consumptive with pink all around her eyes and dark shadows under her cheekbones. And some days, like today, she resembles a wicked fairy with thick black liner, two-inch lashes, and shades of sparkly purple all over her eyelids, cheeks, and even the tip of her nose.
She finishes her look with three different nose rings, a spiked eyebrow stud, and a serpentine cuff that winds up her ear.
“You’re an artist,” I tell her.
Rakel smiles. “Thank you,” she says. “That actually means something, coming from you.”
“I filled half my sketchbook this summer,” I say, with a glimmer of happiness. “The Bean, the Willis Tower, the Ferris wheel . . . now I’ll never forget what I saw in Chicago.”
“You should show me after class.”
I look at my own decidedly less-interesting reflection in the mirror.
I’ve never dressed with much panache. I’m so petite that my clothes swim on me. Half the time I look like a kid playing dress-up. My hair is a mess of black curls. My face . . . cute, I suppose. But nowhere near as stunning as Zoe’s. She’s the beautiful one. I’ve always just been the kid-sister.
“Could I borrow a little makeup?” I ask Rakel.
“Sure.” She shrugs.
I stare at the rainbow array of products, having no actual idea what I’m doing.
Rakel laughs. “You want some help?”
“Yes, please,” I say gratefully. “I mean . . . I’m not trying to dazzle anybody. I just want to spice my face up a little.”
Rakel surveys my features with a professional objectivity.
“Your eyes are your best feature,” she pronounces. “And we’ll keep your freckles.”
She starts painting my face.
I watch in the mirror to see what she does.
It really is like painting, in the sense that she outlines and shades the contours of my face just as you would paint a portrait to show depth and perspective.
I’m mildly frightened to have those pointed nails so close to my eyeballs, but Rakel works with surprising gentleness. The brushes and powders and creams feel quite lovely against my skin.
Rakel uses shades of plum, peach, and golden brown that match my Mediterranean coloring quite nicely. When she’s finished, I look older. Confident and glamorous. But still myself, not a wicked fairy.
“That’s really good!” I say, thoroughly impressed.
Rakel is pleased. “I watch a lot of tutorials.”
The fresh look cheers me up a little. I’d rather be Glamorous Cat. She’d know how to keep out of trouble, and how to stand up to Dean without him torpedoing my entire life.
With new energy, Rakel and I return to our room to change into our uniforms.
I kept all the same clothes from last year. Yet, as I pull on my skirt, I notice one tiny inch of bare flesh between the top of my knee socks and the bottom of the pleats.
“Look at that!” I say to Rakel. “I must have grown. A bit, at least.”
“Wow,” she says, mockingly. “Keep it up and you might hit 5’2.”
“You’re not tall, either!”
“Compared to you, I’m Shaquille O’Neal.”
I scowl at her. “Now I don’t know if I should give you your present. But you did do my makeup pretty nice . . .”
“What present? What is it?” Rakel demands, eyes bright with curiosity.
I dig through my half-unpacked suitcase, finding the painting I made for her, carefully backed with cardboard and wrapped with paper so it wouldn’t crumple or flake on the journey over.
Rakel rips off the brown paper wrapping, eager but careful.
“Oh!” She gasps, face alight. She turns the painting so I can see it, as if I don’t already know what’s on the canvas. “I’ll hang it up on the wall.”
“That’s why I made it for you,” I say. “So we’ll have a little life down here.”
Rakel snorts. The album cover I painted for her is the furthest thing from “life” in the sense that it depicts a Dali-esque sphere of melting skulls, but it’s from Rakel’s favorite band, so I knew it would make her happy.
“This is a good gift,” she says, in her honest and unsentimental way.
I’m sure she would have told me it was shit if she didn’t like it. Which is nice, because now I know for certain that I did a good job.
“Come on,” I say. “We better hurry, or we won’t have time for breakfast before class.”
Rakel and I hustle up the stairs to ground level, dazzled as always by the brilliant burst of morning sunshine after the soft golden lamplight of the Undercroft.
We only have a few minutes to stuff ourselves with bacon and coffee before we have to run across campus to the Keep.
Kingmakers is so large and sprawling that I could stay fit just by sprinting from class to class. Unfortunately for me, that’s not nearly the only exercise I get. My schedule includes grueling conditioning sessions, combat classes, and classes that aren’t meant to be particularly taxing, like Marksmanship and Environmental Adaptation, but which strain my limits all the same because I’m so damn small.
At least I know what to expect this year. I packed plenty of Band-aids for all the blisters that will blossom on my palms and feet, and I’m already well acquainted with the location of the infirmary and the ice dispensers in the dining hall.
Rakel and I find our Interrogation class on the second floor of the Keep easily enough. I spread my notebooks and pens out across my desk, determined to take notes on every single word that comes out of Professor Penmark’s mouth. I want to score well on my exams. In my Freshman year, I was simply trying to survive. This year, I’d like to find out if I might just have what it takes to run with the rest of the mafiosi.
Professor Penmark slouches into the classroom in his creepy, silent way. He looks even thinner than last year, his pallid skin stretched tight over his bones, his many tattoos a jumble of colorless shapes. He has a long, unsmiling face and dark eyes without any glimmer of life, like a dead thing dug up from the ground.