6 #2
Asta let them go. Whatever was going on there, it wasn’t for her benefit.
At that moment, Natalia Bruce entered the ballroom.
Asta watched her saunter toward a table near the back, a rag-tag assortment of family members in tow.
Nat was in one of her bad-girl outfits, as Asta always thought of them, everything black and neon, artfully torn, pointedly risqué.
This was the kind of thing she wore when she was luring a victim she meant to ravage and discard.
Asta wondered who her target was tonight.
Nat had teased her hair into an enormous crimped mane, swept back from her temples in dragon clips.
The rest of the Bruce crew was in what passed for formal wear in their family.
Vampirish dresses. Heavy black boots. Dark suit jackets.
T-shirts with graphics of lightning bolts and screaming musicians.
The crowd pulled back to let them through, as if they radiated poison.
Reaching the Bruce table, Nat draped herself in one of the chairs.
She scanned the room until she caught Asta’s eye.
There was something equally exciting and nerve-racking about being the center of Nat’s attention. She beckoned Asta over.
Nat was as unpredictable and hot-tempered as her uncle, but she was fearless in a way that thrilled Asta.
Their first day training together, Nat had ridden her dragon, Vulture, right off the training tower before Hummer had finished explaining how to avoid hitting the false ladders stacked on the far side of the warehouse.
Vulture was fine, but Nat had broken her wrist. She’d been back in the saddle by the afternoon with a cast and a grin.
‘Nice outfit,’ Natalia said with a wink, kicking out a chair from the table for Asta.
Asta sat with a groan. ‘I look like a hick.’
Natalia threw back her head and laughed. ‘Fuck that. You look amazing. Anyway, you want people to notice you at this kind of thing.’
‘Oh, sure. It’ll be all, “Who was that dork wearing her racing gear at the dinner?”’ Asta glanced over her shoulder toward the place where she knew the Pillar alums were standing.
A sharp kick to the shin whipped her head around.
‘Ow! Nat! That hurt!’
‘Stop whining, or I’ll do it again.’ Nat cocked her leg for another shot.
Asta gasped indignantly. ‘You are such a brat.’
Rather than drop her leg, Natalia extended it across Asta’s knees and brought the other up to join it, crossing her feet at the ankles. ‘You like it.’
Asta blushed.
Nat knew her flirting flustered Asta. That’s why she did it, as far as Asta could tell.
She liked pretending she could add Asta to her list of ravage-and-discards whenever she wanted.
But Nat was Asta’s closest friend right now, and Asta didn’t let herself fall for her friends anymore. She had made that mistake once already.
Asta wagged her finger at Nat. ‘Don’t be cute. You don’t give a crap what I like. You enjoy being a brat. That’s why you do it.’
Natalia made an insolent face. It was the strangest thing.
Nat was three years older than Asta, but sometimes it felt like she hadn’t progressed past adolescence.
At other times, Asta got the sense that Nat had seen more in her twenty-five years than most people saw in a lifetime.
She was never sure how much of Nat was an act and how much sincere.
‘Have you seen the Golden Boy yet?’ Natalia asked. That was her name for Felix. Asta shoved Nat’s feet off her lap.
‘Yeah.’ Asta crossed her arms over her stomach. ‘What a prick. You know, he’s over there with his Pillar buddies laughing at me for this?’ She gestured to her race suit. ‘Laughing. Like we’re twelve.’
Natalia raised her boot again threateningly.
‘Do not kick me! That is not whining! I’m just saying. He’s an asshole.’
‘Well, the asshole cometh.’
Asta looked around to see Felix shouldering his way past some stuffy old men in stuffy old suits, his eyes locked on her.
Every who’s-who photo collage in the newspapers tomorrow would be sure to have his face front and center.
It wasn’t even that he was famous. He could have walked in off the street looking like that and the cameras would have been all over him – he looked that good.
His suit had thin satin lapels, and there was a golden chrysanthemum in his buttonhole.
His shoes were as shiny as the day she met him, polished to gleaming.
He had shaved since this afternoon and slicked his hair with some kind of fragrant pomade that Asta could smell as he approached. Asta steeled herself against him.
He is not for you, she reminded herself sternly. Remember what he did. Remember what you did. There’s no chance in hell.
Natalia straightened in her chair and put on a voice that Asta had never heard her use before. It was chirpy and full of bubbles. ‘Oh my god! You’re Felix Seraphin.’
Felix broke his focus on Asta and glanced at Natalia.
‘Yes, I am,’ Felix said, stiffening, though his tone remained pleasant.
This was his being-fawned-on-in-public demeanor.
Asta recognized it from when they had gotten off the bus at riding camp.
It was the same look that used to come over him whenever there were tours at the Seraphin Estate.
The whole first month at the Pillar School, he’d looked just like that: a little glazed, a little artificial, but smiling. Always smiling.
‘You’re amazing,’ Natalia said. Her girl-in-pigtails voice betrayed itself, and a trace of her usual sarcasm snuck through.
‘Thank you,’ Felix said, and gave a curt nod. He turned to Asta, but Nat wasn’t done.
‘No, you don’t understand. I honestly can’t believe I get to race against you. Like, I am totally going to brag about being on the same track as Felix Seraphin.’
‘You’re a rider.’ Something in his posture relaxed momentarily. But then his eyes flashed with realization. ‘You’re Natalia Bruce.’
Natalia moaned with delight. ‘Felix Seraphin knows my name?’ She fanned herself, but the facade was disintegrating by the second. Felix must know, by now, that she was making fun of him, Asta thought.
‘Okay, calm down, Nat,’ Asta said.
‘How can I? Does the best dragon rider in the whole country know your name?’
Nat knew more about Asta’s relationship with Felix Seraphin than anyone else in the world. She was playing some kind of game with him – or Asta – but Asta couldn’t figure out what it was.
Whatever the case, she was getting to Felix. ‘Actually, Asta and I are well acquainted. We’ve known each other for some time.’
‘Oh, wow, acquaintances. So, you’d never, like, make her feel stupid in a whole room full of her colleagues or anything, right?’
His fingers went to the button on his tux, and he unfastened it, as if the tightness of his jacket was to blame for his sudden discomfort. ‘What are you talking about?’
Asta couldn’t take it anymore. ‘Don’t play dumb. I saw you, Felix. You and Pikki.’
Felix opened his mouth in pretended shock, but his eyes darted away. ‘She said something funny, Asta.’ He was a terrible liar. ‘Not everything is about you.’
‘Shove it up your ass, Golden Boy,’ Nat said.
She draped her legs back over Asta’s knees, and Asta let them stay there this time.
Nat kept her eyes fixed menacingly on Felix.
Felix looked from Nat to Asta, who avoided his gaze by giving her full attention to the array of forks at her place setting on the table.
‘Come on, Asta,’ he said, like he was talking to a child. Asta’s neck began to burn. ‘We were just—’ He had no conclusion to this defense, and it died away under the chatter of the room and the soft jazzy music. Asta let her eyes drift to the polished tips of his shoes.
He lowered his voice and tried again. ‘Asta, can we talk privately?’
Nat laughed outright.
Asta couldn’t imagine what he wanted to talk to her about, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not if he was going to be like this. It hurt too much. She shook her head.
Nat waved her hand at him dismissively. Asta counted the seconds – one, two, three, four, five – until he left.
‘Thanks, Nat,’ Asta said, her voice small. Hanging around with the Bruces was hardly the ticket to fitting in at Silverscale, but at that moment, Asta couldn’t have cared less.
Nat gazed up at the ceiling, a wry smile on her lips. ‘We are going to crush that man into a powder and sprinkle his ashes in the Hallium River.’ She dropped her face and looked directly into Asta’s eyes. ‘Do you hear me, Asta? Crush him.’
Asta smiled and nodded.
Around the ballroom, the guests were starting to find their seats. Asta saw Gem already at their table, scanning the room for her.
‘Gotta go,’ she said. Natalia took her feet down, but grabbed Asta’s wrist before she could leave.
‘After the ceremony,’ she said, ‘don’t make any plans. I’ll find you.’
Asta agreed and slipped off to her table. In the back of her mind, a question tickled and teased. What had Felix wanted to talk about? What could he possibly have to say to her?