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“I’ve not forgotten,” I say, too elated to repress a grin of triumph. “Claim it.”
Chapter 24
Green-Eyed Monster
Theodora
Amonthofnumbnessfollowed by a month of back-breaking intellectual labour results in the most overwhelming exhaustion I’ve ever felt. A feeling like both the adrenaline rush and the inevitable crash but happening simultaneously.
By October, I’m so profoundly tired my skin feels like a burning hot veil around my body and my head and eyes ache almost constantly. Every morning, I wake up like a corpse dragged from the darkness of death, consciousness forced upon me like a disease.
So when Rose and Camille drag me to a party I desperately don’t want to go to, I don’t even have the strength and energy to fight them.
Before the party, I lie the wrong way around on my bed, head almost dangling off the end, hydrogel eye patches covering the grey shadows under my eyes. I’ve almost fallen asleep when my bedroom door opens and my eyes fly open.
“Oh. Hey, Ness.”
Inessa is still in her uniform, and there’s a packet of sweets in her hands. Inessa is one of the true good girls of Spearcrest—the Sophie Sutton of her year group. She doesn’t go to parties or make out with boys in the various hook-up spots around campus. She reads, goes to after-school clubs, and attends services in the chapel.
The ultimate good girl.
My father wishes I was like her. I know because he’s told me so many times.
“Your friends are so annoying,” Inessa says with a roll of her eyes, oblivious to my bleak train of thought.
Sitting next to me, she brushes her hands down the length of my hair, which dangles over the edge of the bed like a cascade.
“They’re just giddy girls,” I say cautiously.
I love Inessa. No matter how much my father tries to install her as a rival in my life, she’ll always be the closest thing I have to the sister I’ve always wanted.
“They keep asking when you’re coming down. Apparently, you guys have somewhere special to be.”
I sigh and reluctantly sit up. “The Young Kings are having a… get-together.”
“I thought you hated those guys? They’re so arrogant and annoying.”
“I’ve been invited. It would be rude not to go. And I don’t mind them.”
“Hm. I’m just saying. You’re too good for any of them.” Inessa gives me a little prim roll of her eyes and then breaks into a smile. “But since you’re going… what are you going to wear?”
“I have no idea.” I stand in front of my mirror to peel off my eyepatches and observe with consternation that the shadows under my eyes are just as dark as ever. “Maybe a shroud, given I look like a corpse dug up by a Victorian resurrectionist.”
“You don’t look like a corpse,” Inessa says with a frown. “Not even a little bit. You’re quite literally the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life. Look at your hair. I want it so bad. Like Zarya-Zarenitsa.”
“More like Baba Yaga,” I reply belligerently over my shoulder.
I’m not in the mood for compliments, or for partying, or for anything. The only thing I want is to be in bed and unconscious. But Inessa stands on her feet with a humph of determination and goes to throw open my wardrobe doors.
“Right, come on then, Baba Yaga. Let’s get you dressed up.”
“Idon’tknowaboutyou girls,” Camille says on our way to the study room, her arm squeezed tightly around mine, “but I’ve had the most outrageously, relentlessly shit week. I need—like, I need to be so drunk, and I need someone to make me come so hard.”
Rose lets out a cackle. “You’d have better luck with Mr Gold than the boys at this party. Unless you get yourself a Young King.”
Mr Gold—or Eric Victor Gold—is the name of Camille’s bullet and the star feature of her many stories about the elaborate dates she has with it. Lingerie and caviar dates, mirror and a fifty-year-old bottle of Cabernet dates. Camille’s dates with her vibrator are better than most dates girls in our years have been on.
Not that I would know since I’ve never been on one.
