Page 4 of Spearcrest Prince

I just need to work out which of these Anaïs Nishihara is going to be.

Chapter 2

Le Plan

Anaïs

Ispreadmyacrylicsout in front of me. I pick out my favourites: monestial blue, sap green and cadmium yellow. Bright, vivid colours, full of life and emotion. Then I place them back inside their tin box with a sigh.

The little alcove I sit in is cold and grey. Outside the window, Spearcrest Academy stretches below: ancient façades of red brick, spiky turrets, grass and trees.

Even though it’s still early autumn, the sky is grey, the sun little more than a ghostly blur behind the wall of clouds. The wan daylight saps the colours out of the trees, the grass, the buildings.

Before I left home, I was given a whole collection of warnings about England. How cold it can get, how much it can rain. I was told how different people were going to be and food was going to taste. I was even warned that the air would smell damp and that the water would taste strange.

But nobody warned me about how grey everything would be.

Picking up my canvas, I prop it on my lap and start sketching. My pencil moves with ease, tracing the outlines of the trees, the plumes of clouds, the spiky skyline.

It’s easy with a pencil, the grey graphite echoing the greyness of the world.

I’ve been here for almost a week now. It took me several days to find this little nook, a broad windowsill by an isolated third-floor staircase in a corner of the oldest building. I’ve come every day to paint the view out of this window.

Every time, I outline, I sketch, and then I look through my paints, and nothing makes it to my palette.

My colours are made for my old life. For Aurigny. For the white villa on the cliffs, the sun on the terracotta tiles of the garden, the green of the old sycamores, the fields of lilac and mustard, and beyond those, the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean.

But I don’t have the colours for this new life. I don’t have the colours for the brick façades of Spearcrest, for its twisted oak trees, its marble fountains and manicured lawns. I don’t have the colours for the students in their dark uniforms, all looking exactly the same. I don’t have the colours for the curious looks and arrogant sneers of everyone I pass.

A raven bursts out from a tangled thicket outside the window, startling me. I look up, following its lurching flight across the campus until it disappears beyond the looming shadow of the clock tower.

“Take me with you,” I whisper.

“Who are you talking to?”

I turn with a start. A girl is standing in the staircase, leaning slightly to peer at my canvas over my shoulder.

She is strikingly beautiful. Dark skin, long dark braids down to her waist. The Spearcrest uniform looks different on her than it does on me: she wears thigh-high stockings with her school skirt and high-heeled shoes. Small gold rings adorn the shells of her ears, and her lips are glossy as the glaze on strawberry tarts.

Two girls stand behind her, waiting patiently. It’s not hard to tell this girl is in charge. She smiles at me, waiting for me to answer her question.

“A crow that was flying by,” I answer.

“Oh, really?” She tilts her head, her smile widening. “How odd. What’s your name?”

“Anaïs.”

“Ah-nah-ees,” she repeats with perfect pronunciation. I nod, and she sticks out her hand. “I’m Kay.”

“Nice to meet you.”

I take her hand. Her fingers are long, her fingernails shaped into perfect points and painted to imitate the iridescence of pearls.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” she says sweetly. “We don’t get many new students in the upper school.” She lets go of my hands and gestures to her friends. “This is Matilda, and this is Aine. Say hi, girls.”

Both girls give me a little wave, and I wave back. So far, this is a friendly encounter. If beautiful, queenly Kay is hiding a secret tyrannical side to her, she’s doing a great job of keeping it concealed.

“Are you an artist?” she asks, pointing at my canvas.

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