Page 47 of Kingmakers, Year One

“There he is, that fucker…”

“Who?” I turn to look.

“Dean Yenin.”

Leo is staring across the hall not at a stranger, but at the very boy I ran into this morning. I recognize him at once, even though he’s now fully dressed in a green sweater vest and trousers.

I whip my head back around, cheeks flaming.

“That’s Dean?”

I never asked Leo what Dean Yenin looks like. The silver-blond hair, the fair skin, the violet eyes—I’m a fucking idiot. It’s Aunt Yelena’s nephew, clear as day.

Had I not been so embarrassed and annoyed, I would have realized. Now that I’m paying attention, I can even see a faintbruise under his eye—a remnant of his fight with Leo on the deck of the ship.

“That’s him,” Leo says grimly. “Wonder if we’ll have classes with him today.”

“Probably. The Heirs will mostly be together, won’t we?”

“What do you have first?” Ares asks us.

I take my schedule out of my bag. We didn’t select the classes ourselves—it was all determined ahead of time, mailed to us in one of those thick slate gray envelopes that can only mean a missive from Kingmakers.

The Kingmakers letters are hand-written every time. I wonder if that’s because nothing is stored on a computer at this place. They must have a dozen employees with perfect penmanship, because my schedule looks like something torn out of an illuminated manuscript.

It’s not exactly easy to read—Leo squints at the ornate cursive, trying to figure out what the hell his first class even is.

“I think I’ve got . . . History,” he says at last.

“Me too,” I say.

“Me three.” Ares grins.

“Well you better hurry up, then,” Leo says. “We only have five minutes, and I have no clue where the Keep is.”

I fold up one more slice of bacon and stuff it in my mouth, washing it down with a gulp of tea.

“Do you think we’re supposed to clear the dishes?” Ares asks.

“Nope.” Leo nods toward a man in a crisp white apron who’s cleaning off the neighboring table. “Looks like that guy’s doing it.”

Ares hesitates, seeming like he’d rather help, but Leo and I are already slinging our bags over our shoulders.

“Come on,” Leo says. “I don’t know what they do if you’re late—string you up on a rack, probably.”

The draconian punishments of the school were spelled out in our rules and regulations list. But so far, it’s all theoretical, so it’s easy for Leo to joke about it.

I don’t feel quite as sanguine. I’ve never known anything to be a joke in the mafia world.

Our acceptance letters clearly spelled out the Rule of Recompense.

Students from all over the world come to attend Kingmakers. There’s a heavier concentration of Italian, Irish, and Russian students, because those are the territories closest to the school. But with children from all countries and families, and plenty more grudges than the one between Leo and Dean, they have to be strict about violence.

They know that fights will break out—it’s inevitable with so many young hotheads used to solving every problem with their fists.

The one thing we have in the back of our minds at all times, reminding us never to go too far over the line, is the Rule of Recompense.

If any student injures, disfigures, or maims another student, the same injury will be applied to them.

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