Page 120 of Kingmakers, Year Three

“Thank you for what you did. I hate what it must have cost you . . . but just know, I’m finally happy. Finally at peace. Because of you.”

Her words put warmth in my chest, where there had only been ice.

“It had to happen,” I tell her. “It’s exactly what you said—when someone loves you, they’d do anything to keep you safe.”

I’m gripping the phone tight, wishing I could hug my sister just as hard.

“Te amo, hermana,”she says.

“Te quiero,”I reply.

23

DEAN

After Cat leaves the Bell Tower, I stay up there alone for hours, pacing back and forth in an agony of indecision.

I fucking hate what Cat did. I hate the image she put in my head of my mother and her new fucking family, her new child, the one that replaced me.

I hate knowing that she’s living in Chicago, fully moved on without me.

And yet, pathetically, I find myself scrabbling through the torn-up pieces of paper on the floor until I find the ones that show my mother’s face.

I try to piece them together again.

It doesn’t work. I destroyed them past recognition.

I want to go find Cat. But she doesn’t want to see me right now.

Actually, she said she never wants to see me again.

Did she really mean that?

If she did, then I don’t know what I’ll do.

Something fucking drastic.

Close to midnight, I finally leave the Bell Tower. I wander around campus until I happen upon a party in the old stables on the northwest corner of campus. The festivities are nowhere near as well-organized as when Miles Griffin used to run the show, but the music is loud and Louis Faucheux is selling 40s for $100 a pop.

I don’t usually drink.

Tonight seems like the perfect time to start.

I down half the bottle while gambling away the rest of my cash on street dice with Bram, Valon, Motya, and Pasha.

“That’s more like it!” Bram says, roaring with laughter as I roll an eleven, winning a hefty bet off Valon. “Nice to have the old Dean back.”

I take another swig of my drink.

“Yeah, you like the old Dean?” I say blearily. “That makes one of us.”

Pasha calls Bodashka and Vanya Antonov to join us. They’re at least as drunk as I am, Bodashka’s broad face flushed red, and Vanya swaying a little as he saunters over.

Bodashka gives me a grudging greeting, and even Vanya nods in a manner that might be interpreted as friendly.

“I didn’t think you drank,” Vanya says to me.

“I don’t.”

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