“I’m Serafina van Doren, by the way,” the girl said, by way of introduction. “And you must be Iris Briggs.”
“How did you—”
“Rumors have been flying about you,” she said, anticipating my question. “We don’t get many new students here at Pembroke. Most of us have known each other for years, grown up together and all that. It gets very stale and incestuous, so it’s exciting to see a new face.”
I could think of five people who weren’t excited to meet me. “Who were they?” I asked, pointing my head back towards the courtyard.
“Oh, them?” She twisted her mouth. “They call themselves the Hellfire Club.”
The Hellfire Club.
“That’s very poetic,” I commented.
“It’s very ridiculous,” Serafina said, rolling her eyes. “But I’d still steer clear of them for a while. They’re . . . influential.” She said it in the voice of someone reluctantly admitting an indisputable truth.
“Are they dangerous?”
Serafina lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. But just avoid them and you’ll be okay. They’re like male lions—too lazy to chase anything unless it’s threatening their territory.”
I thought of Keaton’s eyes—sharp and hungry in the morning sunlight. Did he think my father was invading his territory? Or worse, that I was?
I looked over my shoulder, suddenly terrified I’d find him at the end of the corridor, watching me.
Serafina sensed my uneasiness and touched my shoulder. “Hey, I promise they won’t hurt you, okay? I won’t let them. They’re mostly harmless. Well, except for Lennox Lincoln-Ward, the boy with the white hair; his only goal in life is to torture Sloane.”
“Sloane?”
“My roommate. She’s very quiet, a little scary, but she keeps to herself mostly. I don’t know why Lennox hates her so much—well, other than that he’s an asshole.”
I think of the boy behind Keaton, the one with the glittering eyes and sharp mouth. “What about the one you called Rhys?”
Serafina frowned. “Okay, maybe I lied about them being harmless. If the Hellfire Club were all lions, Rhys would be the lion who kills for fun. He would be Uncle Scar. Be careful around him.”
“And Keaton? Should I be careful around him too?”
Serafina hesitated, then shook her head. “No. Like I said, just avoid him and he’ll forget about you. Constantines are like that.”
“Constantines?”
Serafina tilted her head. “You really are new, aren’t you? The Constantine family is like the Kennedys—if the Kennedys made their money doing shady shit. Oh and owned half of New York City.”
“Half?”
“I mean, I’m including the legal holdings as well as the less-than-legal holdings here.”
Alarm spiked. “Um, are they like a crime family?”
“Only in the technical sense,” Serafina said, waving a hand, like I was getting hung up on some insignificant detail. “They’re very respectable otherwise. One of those Mayflower families, you know, like all the women wear real pearls, every summer is spent in Bishop’s Landing, they go golfing in Kiawah, that kind of thing.”
A respectable crime family? That didn’t seem like a thing to me. “I’m less worried about their respectability than I am Keaton having me whacked or something.”
Serafina burst into giggles. “Whacked?”
“Whacked! Offed! Rolled into a tarp and then fed to the local deer or whatever!”
She was still laughing. “I promise the Constantines don’t feed people to deer. And don’t worry about Keaton. He really will forget all about this morning; he’s usually too busy with his girlfriend and rugby to worry about anything else. And anyway, you’re with me now.”
“I am?”
“You are,” she confirmed, beaming at me. “I’m the queen around here. And Sloane is my lady knight. We’ll make sure none of those Hellfire morons bother you.”
Relief and gratitude eased something in my chest. “Thank you,” I said.
“What class do you have first? I’ll walk you there.”
I pulled out my schedule. “AP Physics.”
“Excellent! Sloane does too.” We started walking down the hall towards the south wing of the school, where all the science labs and lecture rooms were. For the first time since my father took this post, I started to feel a little hopeful that this year might not be so terrible after all, even if I had inadvertently angered the son of a respectable crime family.
“So, what’s it like being the headmaster’s daughter?” Serafina asked.
As we walked to the physics lab, other students called out to her or playfully tugged on her blazer or reached out for high fives. She strode through it all like a monarch striding through a throng of courtiers, and I knew she hadn’t been joking about being the queen.
I was even more grateful she’d decided to befriend me. If anyone could keep me safe from Keaton’s furious stare, it would be her.
“It’s mostly terrible,” I said. “This is the third school of his I’ve gone to, and he always wants me to be the best at everything. I used to think he’d go easier on me once I turned eighteen and my perfect older sister moved out, but no. Not to mention he’s not really down with my photography obsession.”
I didn’t elaborate any more than that. I was still upset about my birthday this summer, when I’d announced to him that I wanted to study photography in Paris and not law at an Ivy like he wanted me to. He’d wanted me to be more like Isabelle—the obedient one, the one who did everything right, including getting impeccable grades at LSE.
He’d yelled; I’d yelled back.
My mother had hidden, like she always did whenever there was conflict.
“Photography?” Serafina asked. “That’s pretty fucking cool. Are you taking a class on it this year?”
Excitement—real excitement—fizzed in my veins and made me smile. “Yeah. Advanced photography seminar. First class is on Friday.”
She smiled back as we got to my classroom. “I’ve got another lady knight in there. Aurora. She’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“You really are the queen here.”
“I’m a van Doren,” she said, like that explained everything. “Ah, Sloane! Save a seat for Iris, would you?”
I looked across the room to see an unsmiling white girl with a very short, no-nonsense ponytail and a helix piercing high on one ear. When I came up to the table and held out my hand, she shook it without a word. But her green eyes were quick and keen as she took in everything about me, and her handshake was strong and efficient. She seemed like the kind of person who knew where every exit in the room was, along with everything that could be turned into a weapon.
“Sloane, this is Iris. We’re adopting her. Also, make sure Keaton leaves her alone.”
Sloane nodded and silently gestured for me to take a seat.
Serafina left with a wave and a promise to see me at lunch, and then the physics professor burst into the room, breathless and late, and just like that, my first day at Pembroke Prep had officially started.