Page 125 of Kingmakers, Year One

I didn’t realize it in the heat of the competition, but thinking on it now, that was very unlike him to pass the bomb to Ares and to trust him to take it all the way to the end while Leo provided the diversion.

Leo did what he had to for the good of the team, not caring if it was Ares who got the lion’s share of the glory. And he took an absolute beating doing it. He was the leader we needed.

He wouldn’t have done that a year ago.

I wonder if he sees the change in himself.

Chay is getting out the bottle of vodka that came in her Christmas package.

“Don’t they search all the packages?” Zoe asks curiously. Her parents only sent three fresh school uniforms and a copy ofAtlas Shrugged. They certainly wouldn’t mail her contraband.

“They don’t care if your mom sends you a bottle, as long as it’s sealed,” Chay says carelessly. “They only care about the really sketchy shit. Knives or guns or poison or whatever. Which is hilarious, because we have all that on campus.”

“It’s all locked up in between classes,” Zoe points out.

Chay rolls her eyes. “Right, and none of us know how to pick a lock.”

She unscrews the lid on the Iordanov, which has a grinning pink skull on the front and is already three-quarters gone, since this isn’t the first time we’ve all shared a nightcap. Three shots glue into water glasses stolen from the dining hall.

“To our covert operation,” Chay says, grinning and raising her glass.

I drink the vodka down, promising myself it will be my only drink of the night. I want to talk to Leo if I get the chance, and I don’t want to say anything stupid if I get too tipsy.

“We made a great team.” Zoe smiles. “Us and Ares—like Charlie’s Angels and Bosley.”

“Who?” Chay frowns.

“They—never mind.” Zoe shakes her head.

Zoe is a passionate fan of old TV shows. Her greatest disappointment came on the day when Chay confessed that she had never heard of Lucille Ball.

“I still think you should come to the party,” Chay says.

Zoe soberly shakes her head. “I’m going to stay in and study. I missed too many Chemistry classes and now I don’t know anything about secondary explosives.”

She stays with us while we get dressed, however.

I pull on a black silk camisole and a pair of velvet pants. It’s a softer and more romantic look than what I usually wear—especially once Zoe brushes my hair out and plaits it in a long and intricate braid with a black ribbon woven through.

“You’re so beautiful,” Zoe says, without jealousy.

“So are you,” I tell her.

It’s true. With her coal-black hair and light green eyes, Zoe has a kind of ethereal loveliness that is only enhanced when she looks unhappy, as she does right now. She looks like an elf-princess trapped in a dark fairytale. Which, in a way, she is . . . she’ll have to stay locked in this tower all night by the decree of her father while the rest of us are free to go where we like.

“What about me?” Chay says, more to break our melancholy mood than because she actually cares about compliments. Chay’s sense of self-worth is a perpetual-motion machine that needs no fuel.

I survey her cherry-red pants and cropped t-shirt.

“You look like Mick Jagger.”

“Oh,” she pouts. “I was going for David Bowie.”

I give Zoe a quick hug before we part ways at the door.

“Come down later if you change your mind,” I tell her. “When everybody is too sloshed to tell on you.”

Chay and I cross the courtyard quickly, holding our school blazers over our heads as makeshift umbrellas because it’s still raining. We’re heading to the stables where the havoc of a party underway is audible even over the sound of the rain.

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