Page 56 of Kingmakers, Year Two

There was no need to explain any further. Everyone on campus knows Miles.

“I might go,” Rakel said, as if conferring some huge favor on me.

I left it at that, not even brave enough to throw in a, “See you there.”

Rakel and I have not become closer friends in the nearly two months we’ve been sharing a room. The center of our dorm room is an invisible Berlin Wall that I’m not allowed to cross, and we never walk together, even when we’re leaving the Undercroft to go to the same class at the same time.

The closest she’s ever been to friendly was in our last Security Systems class, when I managed to successfully decode the mystery USB stick handed out by Professor Gillespie. He gave us no instructions whatsoever. I managed to image the USB stick and start forensicating it. It was TAILS, with LUKS encrypted partition. The professor forbade us from using cloud computing or any external system, so I had to brute force the password.

I was first to finish, in what Professor Gillespie informed us was record time.

Rakel leaned back in her chair to get a better look at my computer screen.

“How’d you figure that out?” she demanded.

“I ran hashcat against the LUKS password,” I said, showing her all the steps I took.

“How’d you know to do that? The professor never said.”

“Just trying different things,” I said. “I think . . . sometimes when you know you don’t know anything, you can find a solution somebody else might overlook. Trying even the ideas that seem stupid.”

On the next challenge, Rakel was quickest to finish.

“Nice!” I said, checking her solution in return. “That was smart.”

For a moment, it looked like she was going to smile back at me. She didn’t, but she wasn’t scowling, either.

I don’t see Rakel as Zoe, Chay, and I join the line outside the stables. I do spot a tall boy with white-blond hair walking from the library toward the Armory. He pauses, examining the students bunched together outside the doors in our makeshift costumes. Music thuds out through the open doors, as well as shafts of dim red light and artificial smoke.

The red light strikes the boy’s handsome face, illuminating the left side while the right remains shadowed. As he stands watching, his look of irritation turns to an expression of pure fury. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and stalks past, his body so tense that all the muscle on his arms twitches.

“Who was that?” I whisper to Zoe.

“Who?” she says. She’s not looking in the same direction as me, all her attention fixed just inside the doors of the old stables.

“That boy over there—the blond one.”

I point, but it’s too late. He disappeared into the darkness.

“I don’t know,” Zoe says, sounding distracted.

We’re next to go inside. I see Leo and Anna already waiting for us, with Hedeon Gray a few feet beyond them. Miles and Ozzy are manning the door.

Miles greets us warmly, refusing to let us pay our entry fee.

“I told him not to charge you,” Ozzy says, winking at Chay. “Don’t let him take credit for that. Or for this, either.”

He slips Chay a little baggie that she immediately tucks in her pocket.

“Ozzy!” she says. “Are you trying to be charming?”

“Depends.” He grins. “Is it working?”

Ozzy isn’t good-looking, not compared to Miles, Leo, or Ares, but he does have a brilliant smile with dimples on both sides. It takes over his whole face and makes you think that he might be handsome after all.

Chay seems to think the same as she gives Ozzy a quick kiss on the cheek. Unfortunately, the effect only lasts until she lays eyes on Ares, leaned up against one of the ancient wooden support pillars next to Hedeon.

Ares isn’t as flashy as Leo or Miles. He dresses in the plainest, cheapest clothes, and his dark, shaggy hair always looks like it needs cutting. He’s reserved and unassuming. But he has a kind of quiet strength that’s powerful all the same. I often find myself looking at him, without any particular reason. When he does speak, his voice is deep and resonate. The kind of voice that vibrates in your bones.

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