Page 18 of Legacy Elite

That lands.

She knows it does.

"Still nothing?" she says. "God, that must be awful. Everyone staring at you like you're something special and you can't even tell them why."

Torres's hand presses harder against my back.

I don't look at him.

Natasha tilts her head. "I suppose the suite helps."

There she is.

God, I hate her.

"Actually, I was just thinking about you," I say.

Her smile falters.

"I was wondering what you did all summer that was so boring you came back this interested in my housing."

"I wasn't thinking about you. You and your nobody squad are in my way, genius."

"Well, thank you for this fun talk. Tell your mom hi." I pick up my bag. "Oh, and I asked them to put me in second-year housing. They said no. If you want to write a letter about the gross injustice of it all, I'll sign it."

I walk past her.

"That was very restrained," Sophia says under her breath.

"I'm a new woman."

"You're a new woman with a suite. But just so you know, I could kill her for you.”

"No."

"Freya can kill her."

"No."

"Torres looks like he could do it very quietly."

Behind us, Torres says, "I could."

That gets half a laugh out of me.

The Great House residence is on the far side of the chapel. It's older than the rest of the campus. Fewer windows, deeper stone, a courtyard with actual grass instead of the churned mud we had.

There's a desk inside the door with an actual person behind it. There is a staircase with a carpet on it. On the second floor the corridor goes quiet in that thick way that means money spent on making things quiet.

And my key opens a door about halfway down it.

"You have got to be kidding me," I say.

There's a sitting room.

I have a sitting room. There's a fireplace in it, laid and ready, and two windows that go from about knee height to the ceiling, and a desk that is not a plywood shelf bolted to a wall. Through one door there's a bedroom with a bed in it that is, conservatively, twice the size of the one I had last year. Through another there's a bathroom that is mine. Only mine. Nobody else's.

There's a second bedroom. A small one, off the sitting room, with a bed and a wardrobe and nothing in it.