Page 55 of Snake

Seeing that ballet poster and the rose-pink wallpaper makes my chest constrict. When I’d stepped inside this room that night, I thought my parents were still alive. Until that point, I hadn’t even considered a life without them. How fucking naïve and innocent I was back then. I was a completely different person.

“What do you need help with?” I ask the older sister, desperate to get my head out of the trenches of the past.

“Sissa can’t decide on her dress, and I need help with my hair.” The girl turns to me. “You know, for the dance?”

“Oh. Sure.” I’ve never heard of a dance where there’s such a vast difference in age groups. But from the handful of posters I saw up in the halls of the Academy, it sounds like the dance is being held in the town hall. Guess that means everyone in town is invited.

So it’s not like prom, after all.

“I’m Mariella,” the girl says as she takes a seat at the ornate, baby-doll pink dressing table.

“Nice to meet you,” I say, although the words sound hollow in my mouth. I’m struggling to drum up even a pretend smile.

“You can help me dry my hair,” Mariella says, pointing at a rose-gold hair dryer. “Douchecanoe was supposed to help, but—”

“You know, that’s really not a nice thing to call someone,” I cut in. A little testily, probably, but this girl should know how to treat her mother.

Mariella sniffs, giving me a wary eye in the mirror. “Whatever. Are you going to help me or not?”

Bristling, I snatch the towel off her head. Vicky’s only ever been nice to me, and she deserves to be treated with respect.

“Have you heard the saying, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?”

Mariella rolls her eyes at me. “I’m sixteen, not twelve.”

“Well, Miss Sixteen, you should treat your mother with more respect.” My voice is tight as I comb out Mariella’s hair. This is obviously one of those fancy detanglers because, despite how much I want to yank some sense into this girl’s scalp, the brush keeps slipping through her hair.

“My mother?” Her brown eyes go wide with shock.

“I lost my parents a few months ago.” I swallow down a sudden knot in my throat as I start to section off Mariella’s hair. “If I could go back in time, I’d have treated them a million times better. Your mother deserves to be respected and loved, not called names.”

Mariella giggles. “I wasn’t calling Mom a douchecanoe.”

I pause, about to turn on the hairdryer. “Then who—?”

“Stop!”

I spin around at the sound of Sissa’s panicked yell. She’s standing in the doorway, dragging two ball gowns behind her. “I need your help first.”

“I can help you as soon as I’m done with Mariella.” I turn back to the mirror and switch on the hair dryer. The dressing-table mirror is facing the doorway, so we can both see Sissa storming toward us across the carpet.

“Me first!” Sissa yells over the whirring of the hair dryer, holding up the dresses on their hangers. “Which one?”

I turn off the hair dryer. “You can wait a few minutes, can’t you?” There’s a hint of exasperation in my voice, but honestly, these are the most demanding girls I’ve ever met. They’ve obviously been spoiled rotten.

“No, I can’t!” Sissa holds one dress—a sparkling blue one with a scooped bodice—higher than the other. “If I wear this one, I have to straighten my hair, and that takes forever. If I wear this one—” She drops the blue dress, favoring the cream-colored one with a high neckline but no back “—then I need to have an updo, and that takes even longer.”

Dear God, was I ever this dramatic when I was a kid?

I give the girl a quick, thorough scan. “Have you showered or washed your hair yet?”

Mariella giggles in anticipation as Sissa’s cheeks go red. “No, but—”

“Then go do that first. When you’re done, I’ll help you pick a dress.”Huh, and the Serpents think I’m not fair. I just pulled off a King goddamn Solomon, thank you very much.

Sissa glares at Mariella, lets out a throttled scream, and stamps her way out of the bedroom. Both gowns drag on the floor behind her. Thank God they’re still in their plastic wrapping, because they look fucking expensive.

So spoiled.

---