Page 11 of Kingmakers, Year Four

“I’m a last-minute addition to Kingmakers,” Cara says. “I’d planned to go to normal college. Take literature courses and all that. But then I thought . . . learning about the world might be more useful than studying writing.” She smiles. “Or maybe I just couldn’t stand the thought of pretending to understandBeowulfyet again.”

“I came last minute as well,” I say. “My dad didn’t want me here.”

“Why’s that?” Caleb asks, eyeing me closely.

“He’s overprotective,” I say. “Or I dunno, maybe it’s the right amount of protective, considering the kind of things that go on in ourworld. But it feels like I’m in a box with a lid. And I just . . . want to know what it’s like to walk around without somebody watching me every minute of the day.”

“I don’t know if you came to the right place for freedom,” Sabrina says, casting a glance around at all the uniformed students. “You saw the list of rules they sent us for this place.”

“Don’t pretend like you intend to follow any of them,” Caleb snorts.

“Oh shut the fuck up, you kettle-calling pot.” Sabrina tosses her dark hair back over her shoulder. “Neither will you.”

Since the cousins obviously have the scoop on Kingmakers, I pepper them with questions they’re happy to answer.

Caleb tells us that he’s most excited to compete in theQuartum Bellum,the annual challenge where all four years of students are pitted against one another for supremacy.

“What kind of challenges?” I ask him.

Caleb shrugs. “It’s different every year. There’s no sports at Kingmakers, so that’s it in terms of athletics. I mean, other than Combat training and all that shit.”

“I dunno how I’m going to do in the classes,” I say. “I didn’t go to a normal high school; I had a tutor.”

“Who learns anything in high school?” Sabrina says airily. “Besides, the classes here are completely different. It won’t matter if you passed trigonometry or not.”

That cheers me up a little. Even as I see another boy standing against the mast of the ship giving me an absolutely filthy glare. Some of my fellow students are pretty damned unfriendly.

Well, I don’t need a million friends—one or two would be more than I had before.

Sabrina and Caleb are talking about the motorcycle Sabrina has been fixing up with her mom, which will belong to her alone if they can ever get it running.

“You know, when you buy them new, they already work,” Caleb teases her.

“They don’t make the Indian Four anymore,” Sabrina says, rolling her eyes at his ignorance. “That’s pretty much the whole point.”

Meanwhile, the boy at the mast has been joined by a couple of friends. They’re all looking over at me, muttering.

I try to ignore them.

“You like fixing cars?” I ask Sabrina.

“Not as much as bikes,” she says. “The Indian Four has this upside-down engine and it?—”

The three boys interrupt her, pushing between Sabrina and me.

“Podyvit’sya, khto tse.” Look who it is,the biggest one says in Ukrainian.

He was the one leaned up against the mast, the one watching me the longest. He has a heavy, sullen-looking face, a shaved head, and earrings in both ears.

His friends—one skinny and heavily tattooed, the other handsome in a sloppy, unshaven sort of way—are both leering at me like they know me.

“Khto vy, chort zabyray?”I demand.Who the hell are you?

“Are you serious?” the big one says, looking at his friends and laughing derisively.

Sabrina is watching in confusion, but Cara seems to have understood at least part of what was said. She asks the boys, “Well? Are you going to answer the question?”

The skinny one sneers at me. “He’s your cousin, you dumb shit.”

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