Page 95 of Spearcrest Prince

Iheadforthedrinks table and almost bumping into Luca. He loops his arm around my neck and hands me a bottle of liquor.

By the smell of him and the glazed-over look in his eyes, he is about as obliterated as I’m looking to be. I take the proffered bottle, take a deep gulp, and give it back.

“How’s married life?” he asks in a loud slur over the music.

“I’m not married.”

He waves his bottle, brown liquor splashing over his fist. “I mean—engaged. How’s engaged life?”

“Shit.”

“You fucked her yet?”

“No,” I lie.

If Luca thinks for a second I’ve slept with Anaïs, he’ll have his hands around her neck and his dick inside her before I can even blink.

“You should fuck her,” Luca advises.

“No. I hate her.”

“I thought you liked her.” Luca laughs, a cold and hollow sound. “I thought youlovedher.”

“I don’t do love,” I remind him. “It’s poison.”

“But you’d drink that poison,” Luca points out, a sadistic gleam of delight in his eyes, “for her.”

“I despise her,” I tell him. “I wish I’d never met her.”

Luca nods and tries to give me a sympathetic look. But sympathy makes him look completely demented. I burst out laughing.

Therestofthenight devolves into flashes.

Iakov comes back from outside, his hands in his pockets, looking concerned.

Luca and I with our arms on each other’s shoulders, yelling about how loving women is about as fun as pissing acid out of our dicks.

Iakov, Luca and I doing shots, dancing in flashing lights, laughing like maniacs. Luca extolling vengeance, and Iakov telling us a weird and disturbing story about his dad punishing his sisters instead of him when he misbehaved as a kid.

Leaving the party and howling like wolves in the arboretum. Me on my knees in the grass and mud, searching for something, my fingers numb with cold as they rip through hard moss and sharp grass. Being pulled away by Iakov and Luca and screaming something about not letting Anaïs get away with her crimes.

Things get increasingly murky after that.

Sneaking around the school corridors, cackling. Showing Iakov the gallery, where students have started putting displays together for the end-of-year exhibition. Running down the long marble chamber, past the fluted pillars. Luca staring for ages at a picture that’s just a canvas painted completely black. Iakov and I laughing hysterically at his expression of grim fascination.

Memories of laughter and shouting. Tearing and ripping and kicking. Luca grabbing the black painting away from its display. Running away from the gallery.

Taking a sharp and impulsive turn to the art corridor, Iakov and Luca shouting my name. Rummaging like a lunatic through the art studios, sending stacks of canvases flying until I find a painting, which I grab under my arm.

More running, cold air, trees. A wooden jetty, the shock of plunging into icy water. A sodden, shivering walk in the dark. More darkness.

Complete darkness.

Chapter 33

La Peinture

Anaïs

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