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I’m not smiling at her—I don’t need her to know her importance yet. Like an enemy kingdom, I’m better off making sure Theodora never sees attacks coming. I need to keep her as unprepared as possible, on the back foot. I need to make her slip up, scramble, rally. Her failures will become my victories.
“My favourite book isPeter Pan,” she answers. Her voice is pleasantly sharp. I want to press it against my skin and see if it’ll draw blood. “What’s yours?”
I don’t have a favourite book. Most of the time, when I read, I’m forcing myself. Forcing myself to get through dense prose, pausing every five minutes to look up words and references. I never read books that are easy to understand—I wouldn’t respect myself if I read the novels and comics my peers are reading. Magic and teenage spies and superheroes.
I read because I am the son of Lord and Lady Blackwood, and that means I must be better than everybody else. My superiority demands superior intellect. So I read, but never for pleasure.
“My favourite book isThe Count of Monte Cristo.”
It’s only a half-lie. I likedThe Count of Monte Cristo, and the story is one I think about often. What’s not to love about the doggedness of vengeance? But it’s also an enormous book, and now Theodora Dorokhova won’t be able to look down on me for reading short books.
She smiles—a small, restrained smile, but the first I’ve seen on her face.
It’s an odd thing, her smile. It holds light but no warmth, like the cold gleam of moonlight.
“Oh,” she says, “I’ve actually—”
Then the door to Mr Ambrose’s office opens, and Theodora’s voice dies like the extinguished flame of a candle.
The smile dies with it.
A man precedes Mr Ambrose out. The man Theodora arrived with. I can only assume he’s her father, even though he looks nothing like her. Dark hair, hard eyes, and the sort of brutal, unpleasant strength of a big ugly factory.
Theodora looks up at him, her mouth still open. Her blue eyes are full of an expression I can’t read or comprehend. I would have guessed fear if it didn’t seem so unlikely to me that someone could be so afraid of their own father.
Mr Ambrose says goodbye to the man, then smiles at Theodora. “Goodbye for now, Theodora. See you on the first of September.”
She returns his smile, except it’s not really a smile. There’s no light in it, not even the cold gleam of moonlight. It’s just a dull stretch of her lips.
“Come,” the man commands without looking at her.
He walks away. Theodora stands. Her fingers are curled around the ends of her sleeves, gripping the wool tightly. She hurries after the man without a word.
“Nice to meet you, Theodora,” I say to her as she walks past me.
She turns and looks at me in surprise. Her eyes widen but she says nothing. Then her gaze slides off me, and she disappears around the corner.
“Is she very clever, Mr Ambrose?”
Mr Ambrose turns to me with a strange smile. “Very clever, Zachary. Just as clever as you are.”
I nod, his words confirming the solemnity I feel, the sense that Theodora is special.
“Is that man her father?” I ask.
Mr Ambrose nods slowly, casting one last glance down the corridor. “Yes, he is.” He gives me a sudden smile. “When she arrives in September, I’d like you to make her feel welcome, Zachary. Help her settle in, make sure she’s okay—look after her. Can you do that?”
“Of course, sir.”
“You promise?”
“I swear it, sir.”
I say it like a vow—it feels like a vow.
The weight of it settles on me like the blade on the shoulder of a knight. Mr Ambrose has just given me a sacred duty—a task too important to give anybody else. It’s an obligation and an honour, one I’ll never abandon or fail.
Chapter 3
