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“Wear your own clothes.”
“I would if I had any.”
Royal frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I haven’t seen my suitcase since the day I moved in here,” I tell him, wondering why he’s so surprised. “He probably had someone incinerate everything.”
With a sigh, Royal runs his hand through his hair and then walks to the bedroom with the gold and cream walls. He leaves the door open, and as he’s not told me to stay put, so I hurry after him.
My attention drifts to the chest of drawers by the door. With the house cleaning being my responsibility, I focus on the areas Syn goes to. I’m sure if he knew a thing about cleaning, he’d be in all the cupboards and drawers, pushing furniture out of the way, and rolling back rugs to make sure I’m cleaning properly. But since he’s probably never used a vacuum in his life, I usually just run a cloth over the furniture in the empty rooms. There’s a thin layer of dust on the drawers in here.
Royal walks straight to one of the other doors and opens it. The closet.
Denali House is large, with the six bedrooms being almost identical in size and layout. Syn, Royal, and Gemini all have a bedroom with one closet, that’s large enough for a seat in the middle. One of the other bedrooms is the same. But the two remaining bedrooms—this one and the one next to Syn’s—have two closets. While one is big enough to be a walk-in, the other is about as wide and as deep as the door.
Royal steps into the smaller closet, his broad body taking up most of the space so I can’t see much around him. There’s a soft click, and then the wall in front of him swings backwards. A light automatically turns on as Royal walks in, revealing a staircase, which he starts walking up.
I always suspected there was an attic in this house, but I hadn’t been able to find the entrance. It never occurred to me that there’d be actual hidden doors in here.
Did that mean there were other secret rooms?
I hurry after Royal, stopping at the top. Dust dances in the bright lights that seem almost unnatural in this old building. In the main part, the rooms have been decorated to keep the feel of a house built over two-hundred years ago, but with every modern piece of technology possible.
Up here, the lights shine into every nook, lighting the old wood and brickwork. White sheets, which look suspiciously clean and pristine, are draped over various items that look large enough to be pieces of furniture. If they are, I’m sure they’re not antique pieces… or maybe they are.
I sweep my gaze around the room, catching a glimpse of my familiar battered, silver case tucked into a corner, but as I start to look back to Royal, I only just manage to bite back a squeal of fright. Behind him, in the roof, are large windows. I hadn’t realized and for half a moment, thought I’d seen a ghost instead of my own reflection.
Royal sees me staring and steps back to let me walk over. “They’re not an original feature,” he says, like I can’t tell the large windows look far too modern.
Instead of going to my case, I walk over to the windows, curious. Overall, the house is relatively square in shape. Up here, someone has created an outside area. A small square courtyard, with enormous sheets of glass creating a sort of display unit effect. On closer inspection, the window directly in front of me is actually a door.
Outside, the dark tiled floor is glistening, damp from the weather. There are no plants or even pieces of furniture.
“Is that for me?” I ask.
Royal joins my side, eyeing me sideways. “I doubt it’s even crossed Syn’s mind. He’s not that cruel.”
I make no effort to hide the disbelief from my face. “Looks like it was built specially to put a kennel.”
“I don’t know what the original intention was. The house was completely renovated after JP died—there were plans to do it the following summer, but everything got brought forward after his funeral and through winter break. If they were running behind schedule, they probably scrapped whatever this project was supposed to be.”
“I’m surprised no one just threw more money at it or arranged for the occupants to live somewhere else for a few weeks.”
Royal finally turns to me, folding his arms. “You talk with this bitterness towards those with money, like you didn’t come from the same background. Just because we have money, doesn’t mean we want to throw it at problems like this.”
The same background? My family had money, yes. I had a lot of things growing up that I took for granted and didn’t realize were such luxuries to most people. If you’re poor, anyone with money is rich. But if you have money, that’s when you start to realize that there are levels of rich, too. My dad was first generation wealth—he earned his.
Most of the students in the Elite, even at James Keyingham—their wealth is generational. I bet it would only take the combined wealth of a few people—probably the Keyinghams, Davenports, and Remmingtons—to all but wipe out poverty in this country.
But regardless of that, my issue isn’t with the money.
It’s with the people who have it.
And in this case, that’s the Elite.
XXVII
Gemini
