Page 118 of Kingmakers, Year One

Anna says, “Contracts and Negotiations.”

“I’ll walk over with you.”

Her blue eyes flit up to my face, and for a moment I feel a hint of that old spark, that connection between us.

“Alright,” she says.

We descend the long, spiraling staircase on the south end of the Keep, then go out into the February sunshine. It’s still chilly outside, but you can taste the first hint of spring in the air—thefresh grass coming up on the commons, and puffy white clouds in the sky that are friendlier than the thick gray fog we had all through January.

The wind seems to remind Anna of the last time we spoke. She says, “I never returned your sweater.”

“It’s alright. I have three.”

“That was kind of you to lend it to me.” The unspoken part of her sentence is,Considering we’re barely friends anymore.

My chest is aching, and I wonder how I can keep this conversation going without fucking it up somehow. I used to never worry about what I said to Anna. Now all I seem to do is make mistakes.

“It was nothing.”

Wrong. That was wrong. It came out sounding like I didn’t care about giving her the sweater, like I would have done it for anyone. I erased the meaning of the gesture and made it seem like there was no emotion behind it. When the truth is that I wascompelledto help her. I can’t bear watching Anna shivering, or cold, or unhappy in any way.

Frowning slightly, she switches the subject. “The next challenge is coming up.”

“Only a week away.”

“Are you excited?” Anna asks.

She’s talking about the old Leo who loved competition more than anything.

I still feel some of that anticipation but I’m not nearly as cocky as I used to be. I’ve been at Kingmakers long enough now to understand how brilliant and ruthless and experienced the older students are, how much they’ve learned in the three years they were here when I was not.

“I wish we knew what the challenges were going to be ahead of time. So I could better prepare.”

Anna says, “You’ve always been good at thinking on your feet.”

I hear a hint of her old confidence in me. It gives me a warm glow, buoying me up better than anything else could do.

Encouraged, I take a deep breath and ask her, “Are you okay, Anna?”

She throws a quick glance at me. “Of course,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I thought . . . I thought maybe something happened with you and Dean.”

She’s silent, walking beside me. We’ve almost reached the intersection where we’ll part ways for our next class. It’s now or never.

“Are you still dating?”

She turns to face me, her expression impossible to read. “Why do you ask?”

I feel like I’m traversing a thin layer of basalt over molten hot lava. How to navigate this? How to say the right things?

“I . . . I just wanted to apologize. For trying to tell you who to date. It’s your choice, obviously, if you want to date Dean. I had no right to tell you not to.”

Anna looks up at me, blue eyes like winter, cheeks like snow. No color in them at all.

“So you’re happy for me,” she says tonelessly.

No. No, I’m not fucking happy for her. I’ll never be happy as long as Anna is with someone else.

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