Page 47 of Faerie Marked

I didn’t remember anything about taking the test. The entire three-hour time limit passed in a blur and I wasn’t sure if I answered all the questions or passed out at my seat in a sure flunk.

A week later, the headmaster called an assembly to announce the students who had been cut. I didn’t have any nails left on my hands at this point. I’d chewed them all down to the quick while Melia laughed at me and questioned my eating habits, telling me I’d gotten too skinny from my special diet. Ha ha.

I didn’t remember the assembly, either. Not until it was over and I stood outside the door with the marks sheet in my hand.

I was in the top 25 for the whole class.

Top 25.

Me.

Me?

The next thing I knew, Melia had me by the shoulders yet again, drawing me into a dance of epic proportions that had the others around us grimacing and moving out of the way before we stepped on them.

“Didn’t I tell you? You had nothing to worry about!” she squealed.

“What’s going on?” I said in a daze.

“Girl, you did so well! All your worry for nothing. You only have to stay in the top 100 to be safe, and look at you! You’re in thetop 25. You beat my first-year scores by a long mile.” Melia paused, pushing a crazy curl of hair away from her eyes. “What did I get? I think I was in the top 60 or something. Nothing to write home about, not like yours. I knew you were going to do great things.”

“I’m not sure how this happened,” I murmured, allowing her to move my limbs in a loose dance until my heart lodged in my throat.

“Let’s go get celebratory ice cream!” Melia insisted. “You deserve it.”

“Wait a minute. Ice cream? We’re not allowed off campus.”

“Have I taught younothingso far? Those secret passages, Tavi! One of them leads directly into the kitchen where we can pillage the lunch lady’s personal stash of sweet treats. I do it all the time. They have no clue.”

Melia linked her arm through mine and led me away, the paper hanging limp in my hand.

Top 25…

It had to be some kind of trick.

* * *

No one went home for fall break as I had expected they would. I already had excuses prepared as to why I chose to stay in the dorm instead of visiting my family. There was no one I wanted to see, anyway. Except for Elfwaite. I would have loved to see the pixie and let her know what a crazy twist my life had taken because of her.

“My score was in the top ten,” Persephone gloated later that evening in the dorm. Blond hair fell in long waves down to the small of her back and she ran her brush along the length. “Number 7. Can you believe it?”

“You are beautiful and smart,” one of her friends said in a simpering tone.

I had a book open in my lap. I’d had to adjust to not using a mirror, and since coming to the school, I’d stopped wearing makeup. It did knock my confidence down a bit but not so much to have me worry what someone like Persephone thought of me.

“Good for you,” I whispered under my breath.

She didn’t hear me. She didn’t need to.

Persephone held her hand mirror aloft, staring at herself and watching each brush of her hair with her lips pursed in a perfect pout. “It was never a question of me making it through to next semester,” she continued. “I always knew I would do well. I just didn’t know I would dothatwell. But then again, my parents expect perfection from me.”

“You’re always so good with tests,” another of her friends gushed.

What a sorry pack of sycophants.

“It’s a question of intelligence. Intelligence and class, both of which I possess in abundance. Not to mention my good looks.” Persephone stared at herself in the mirror. In her reflection she caught sight of me, her eyes narrowing. “But I suppose not everyone can make those same claims.”

Yeah,dig at me again.

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