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“Twenty-five thousand.”
I turned to her. “What?”
She nodded, her lip caught in her teeth in semi-disbelief. “Plus.”
“Shut the front door.”
She shook her head. “I won’t, but it’s true.”
I smirked at her, then remembered the price tag on the relatively tiny piece of jewellery on my hand. My mouth parted in a little ‘o’ and I breathed out heavily.
“That’s... That is a lot,” I admitted.
“Someone feeling a little guilty about their...extra curriculars for once?” Florence hinted, her eyebrows bouncing up and down suggestively.
I smiled wryly, but went back to looking at the ring.
Apollo and I came from families that Florence liked to say didn’t only have more money than sense, but had so much that numbers lost all meaning. In some ways, she was right. In theory, I could have anything I wanted, so long as I could put forward a good argument for having it and didn’t already have ten (unless it was clothes or shoes). My father would pay it. Anything for his little princess. But I’d had Florence’s steadying influence most of my teen years. Her parents might have had plenty of money, but they’d been sensible and instilled a value for money in their offspring so they didn’t fritter away their inheritance. What we called old versus new money.
Apollo hadn’t had any steadying influences. He was surrounded by people who pandered and simpered. He threw away money like it was nothing. To a point. Never to this degree. Anything with more than five figures was calculated. Or drunk ordering. This sort of spending meant something. This sort of spending meant that Florence might have been right.
“It wouldn’t have been the motivating factor,” I guessed. “But it might have contributed. He’s certainly making a statement, though.”
“Shame you can’t wear it in class,” she chuckled, and I grinned.
“Yeah,” I answered sarcastically. “Such a pity. I do, though, have to wear it ever other waking hour of the day.”
“And you’ll need to remember the code to the safe for when you take it off,” she reminded me, and I cursed.
The safe that my father had bought me to keep my valuables in at school. I’d argued I could just leave my valuables at home where they were extra safe. Apparently, that wasn’t the right mentality. Expensive jewellery was honestly more trouble than it was worth.
“I might need to get Valen to break into it,” I muttered. “He may as well be useful for something.”
“He’d be useful for a great many things,” Florence said suggestively.
I gave her a disapproving glare that kept trying to be a smile. “Not that I’ll ever find out.”
My phone went off, and Florence threw it to me.
Apollo
Running late. Meet me in the quad.
I wasn’t going to ask him what quad. We knew each other incredibly well. At least, I knew him incredibly well. If he was running late, he meant the quad outside the boys’ dorm.
“Is he not even going to pick you up?” Florence asked, disgust evident in her voice.
“Of course, not,” I answered, heavy on the sarcasm. “A God never goes to a princess, even if it is her birthday.”
“If he doesn’t get you like a million dollars in jewels, kick him in his.”
I smirked at my best friend. “Yeah, sure. I’ll do that right after I tell him exactly what I think of his phoney birthday dinner dates and wasting the Saintlings time on pulling the petals off I don’t want to know how many roses for that idiotic display.”
My finger twirled the new ring around my finger.
“You okay?” Florence asked gently.
Here was someone who did actually know me incredibly well.
