Page 43 of Kingmakers, Year Four

“Why would you make that bet? You’ll get an A anyway if you know how to shoot.”

Nix shrugs. “It’s more fun this way.”

Nix’s joy in her win is irresistible. I find myself smiling back at her without meaning to.

Her hair is a flaming corona around her head. She’s wearing the usual gray gym shorts, but her ass and thighs fill out the material in a way that’s not at all typical.

On impulse, I ask her, “You want to come for a walk with me?”

“Might as well,” Nix says. “He can’t fail me for skipping class anymore.”

She leaves the bow with the Scottish kid, and we tramp off across the field before Professor Knox can come back and stop us.

“I’m sweaty as hell,” Nix says.

The tiny curls around her hairline are sticking to her forehead, and her skin looks less bluish, more golden in this light. The sun brings out little glints of gold in her green eyes and in the red of her lashes.

Nix has a complete lack of self-consciousness that I find strangely restful. Since I’m constantly monitoring what I say, what I do, and how I’m coming off to people, it’s refreshing to be with someone who seems utterly themself, for better or for worse.

Proving my point, Nix asks bluntly, “Why’d you come looking for me?”

“I wasn’t,” I say. “I just heard everyone shouting.”

Snatching up a long strand of dry grass, Nix twirls it between her fingers, tilting her head and watching me closely with those narrow eyes that seem more animal than human.

“Sometimes I feel like you’re sitting by me on purpose. Walking with me on purpose,” she says.

I’m transparent as glass. She can see right through me.

My face is getting hot, and I tell myself to pull it the fuck together. I’m a shit spy if I crack under two seconds of interrogation.

“Do you not want me to?” I say, trying to keep my tone casual.

“No.” Nix shrugs, tossing the grass aside. “I like it. God knows, I can use all the friends I can get.”

“Me too,” I say.

Nix laughs. “You don’t like being a third wheel to Leo and Anna?”

Fuck, she really is perceptive.

“How do you already know everything about everybody?” I demand, trying to turn the tables on her.

“Not everything,” Nix sighs. “That thing with Hedeon was a mind-fuck. How could parents act that way toward their kids? Whether they’re blood or not.”

Nix is striding along beside me at a rapid pace, her long legs easily matching mine. Her cheeks flush with outrage. I saw her face when Hedeon was talking — despite only knowing Hedeon a short time, her sympathy overpowers her.

“Was . . . was your father not harsh with you?” I ask her.

I can’t imagine Marko Moroz as supportive and affectionate, even though I know, theoretically, his daughter is the center of his world.

I expect Nix to be offended by this question. She’s been forced to defend her father every day since she came here. I ask anyway because I really want to know.

Nix answers as honestly as ever.

“My father isn’t perfect,” she says. “He has an ego. And a temper. He hates to be challenged. We get in fights—screaming, shouting, throwing things. He demands nothing less than total loyalty, from me and his men.”

I can feel my lip curling—I’m well aware of that particular characteristic of Moroz. I have to force my face smooth, as if this is new information, impersonal to me.

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