Page 115 of A Heart of Bluestone

It’s probably a trap.

And Serena doesn’t deserve my time. My company.

But she isn’t wrong when she says I need a drink. More than that, I need to forget. Forget all the ugliness that sours my mood for weeks on end, that rots my insides.

I want more than a drink.

I want… an escape.

And so, with a weighted sigh that deflates my shoulders, and nothing more than defeat in my eyes, I push off the bed.

And I do as she says.

I wash my face first.

Then, when I’m back in the dorm room, I dress in the clothes she tossed at me. I pull on suede boots that will ruin if the snow is sludgy down by the cabin. I gloss my face in the lightest touch of makeup, then paint my lips mauve to match the top.

Finally, I follow Serena out the door.

I make it to the steps that descend from the atrium into the school grounds, and I make it in one piece. The risk of it has my insides writhing, a pool of worms slicking and slapping around.

My hands are clammy, and I have that ill fever-like sensation all over my body, too hot and too cold at once, like my nerves battle the winter air beyond the academy doors.

Serena notices.

She pauses on the steps and hands me a silver, glittering flask.

I unscrew the lid, but before I do anything as silly as take a drink from her, I lift it to my nose and sniff.

Satisfied, I pour the clear vodka into my mouth, chin lifted, and welcome the sear down my gulping throat.

I hand it back.

Before she tucks the flask away, she downs a hefty amount herself.

I lean onto my right boot, my weight shifting with me as I peer down the trail that splinters off to the ruins. Snow has powdered over the rubble, a thick coating of white dust, and now the ruins of an old castle make some sort of snowy maze behind the cabin, mostly weeds and debris.

Serena secures the flask into the sleeve of her high boots. Flashing me a grin, she jumps off the stairs.

“Come on,” she calls and starts down the trail.

I shouldn’t.

But I do.

I shadow her down the trail for the full ten minutes it takes to pass the shrubbier trees and reach the clearing.

There are more half-breeds here than elites or even made ones. That, I can tell by all the games I don’t recognise and the krum fashions.

Made ones are sent so young to the Home for the Misplaced that their cultural connection to the krum world is limited.

This is a half-breed party with krum-world sparklers and kegs. I don’t have the faintest idea how anyone smuggled a keg onto school grounds.

My steps are slowed by the uncertainty biting at my heels. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong.

Then, before I can turn around or even come to a firm decision—

“Olivia?” A voice snakes out from the crumbled cabin.

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