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Done with her cape, Geraldine continues toward the staircase without checking the map. I jog after her. “How do you know where to go?”
Her cheeks flush. “As soon as I got the timetable, I visited each location and timed how long it took to get from place to place.”
“Smart.”
A tight smile. “I need to be.”
We emerge on the next level to a classroom with two rings of seats surrounding a round gym mat at the center. The room is filled to the brim with exhibitors. Max gingerly waves at us from seats he’s saved across the floor.
Alfie is too busy chatting with the red-lipped, raven-haired Shadow to notice me. Two more Chasers listen intently to his story, their heads bowed as though it is riveting. Everyone is impeccably groomed in pressed, starched uniforms without a trace of dirt. Every fingernail is trimmed and polished.
I’m the only one with my hair out and wild.
My confidence evaporates as a thousand eyes turn my way. Conversations hush. Scandalized gazes rake down my stolen clothes and unkempt appearance. Unfortunately, Max saved seats in the front row. Geraldine walks over to sit beside him, stowing her cape beneath her seat. I sit next to her, do the same, then face forward, hugging my middle.
I force my hands to rest on my lap, but they fidget without my permission, so I retrieve my cape and use it to clench. Revenge sounds easier in my mind than in reality. The only person I’m hurting right now is myself. My disregard for the rules better reflect poorly on the House of Shadow, or I’ll have to chalk it up as another stupid mistake.
A bell chimes in the distance. Any student left standing scurries to an empty seat and sits spine straight, hands in lap.
I’m chewing my nails again. It almost physically hurts to readjust, as though the action leaves me vulnerable to mockery. These people don’t openly scorn, but do it in other, veiled ways. Take the Never sitting next to me. The moment I sat, he leaned away. The person on the other side told him to lean back, that sitting next to someone like me makes him look good.
Perfectly punctual, the House of Embers Radiant arrives and strolls to the center of the mat. The Marquess Lord Ignarius is the same suave sophisticate I remember from the pageant. His dark tailored suit is trimmed with flames—the fabric shimmers as though catching reflections from the simmering veins in the walls. A small lapel pin is the shape of a flame, like the icon on the timetable. His dark hair is greased back, and he smells like campfire smoke. It tingles my nose.
With his hands behind his back, he takes a turn of the room and studies us with haughty superiority.
“You are here as dream chasers,” he announces solemnly, “in an exhibition showcasing cutthroat talents to the good people of Avorlorna. I shall refrain from insulting your intellect by teaching combat rudiments.” He stops before a Never who has her ankles crossed. She quickly untangles, and he resumes his walk. “You are fragile sparks in the inferno of a war threatening to consume us all. Now, I claim no mastery”—a self-congratulatory smirk—“but unless fire has spontaneously learned to douse fire, divergent tactics must be deployed when facing an opponent who mirrors your form.”
As he passes, his smokey scent tickles my nose to an eye-watering point. I scrunch to stop the sneeze, but it’s making me squirm. Geraldine gives me a concerned side-eye as he continues.
“Today,” he announces, “I bless you with knowledge revolving around this very?—”
My sneeze echoes against the walls. He stops, twists, and stares at me.
“Sorry,” I mumble, silently grateful I don’t have to sign my apology in Avorlorna. I think my hand is covered in snot.
“Are you quite finished?” he intones.
I nod, tuck my hands beneath my cape, then hide them under my arms. Across the mat, the red-lipped House of EmbersShadow mimics me. I return my hands to my lap. She does the same.
What is her problem?
Ignarius’s lips curve when he takes note, and he returns to the center of the mat.
“What better way,” he announces with a flourish, “to demonstrate this lesson than to invite two exhibitors who, for all intents and purposes,shouldreflect each other’s skills. House of Embers Shadow, Dahlia Vella, if it pleases you, take the mat.” His smile turns smarmy as she sashays out with as much grace as a dancer—or a fighter—and looks at me.
My stomach hollows with dread. My gaze flicks to Alfie’s alarmed eyes. He knows what’s coming.
“And you, House of Shadow’s Shadow.” He snorts in an unbecoming way for a noble. “Indeed, that’s quite the tongue twister. Perhaps they ought to have been more meticulous with the naming conventions.” He stares at me. I don’t want to move because my dagger is tucked into the back of my waistband. I was stupid to bring it. “Do you require a formal written invitation, my delicate subterranean bloom?”
A twitch forms beneath my eye as snickers break out in the room. Unable to think of an appropriate reply, I purposefully sneeze and spray. While everyone averts their gazes in repulsion, I simultaneously remove my cape from my lap, hide the dagger within the folds, and give the lot to Geraldine.
Distraction is the biggest tool in a thief’s tool kit. I still remember the day my mother taught me that during our secret communications. She said,Bump into them, and while they’re thinking of the big knock, your nimble little fingers will be doing something magical they can’t see.
I join Dahlia at the center.
Ignarius stares at me again, this time with open distaste. I wipe my nose with the back of Fox’s sleeve. The more disgusting they think I am, the more they’ll underestimate me.
With a pompous flourish, he returns his attention to the class, signals vaguely in my direction, and says, “One can never predict the guise Nightmares adopt when they surface from the subterranean watergates. A Terror can materialize as your reflection, or they can assume the identity of your wildest fear.”
