Chapter 17
As we collapsed onto the train seats, I clutched my arms over my stomach, sucking air. Then I burst into laughter.
I laughed until I cried. More victory whoops filled the train car as the engine chuffed slowly from the station.
The train clacked merrily down the track, carrying us back toward Cardan Lott.
Most of the students had made it to the train in time, and those who hadn’t, Vanya explained, had townhouses nearby.
Covington was one of the ones who hadn’t returned to the train.
Scarlett appeared disappointed, sitting quietly with her lip poking out most of the ride.
I tried not to think about Covington. Even if the law caught him, he’d weasel his way out of punishment.
When the bells rang to wake us the following morning, I considered feigning an illness to stay in bed.
Vanya wasn’t much better off. When I glanced at her, she had one arm draped over the side of her bed, and her mouth was squished open, drool soaking into her pillow.
The sight of a princess sleeping like that brought a smile to my face, but my body felt like it weighed twice as much as normal.
I groggily moved through the motions of getting dressed, eyeing the clothes I’d left sprawled over my desk chair last night.
“You coming?” I called, hurling a pillow at Vanya’s head. A muffled reply. “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”
She flung the covers off and scowled at me, a smile quickly touching the edges of her mouth. “I feel like I’ve been dragged through the streets behind a horse.”
“Interesting visual,” I said with a yawn. If Covington expected me to meet him in the lair tonight, he could think again. Nothing was coming between me and my bed tonight.
That morning, Professor Enplencourt droned on about the monarchy, how it had quickly shifted from the old Ronovaran dynasty to the dragon riders, who were, even then, considered born from the ancient gods, once thought to be no more than myth.
Covington had not come to class, a fact that I told myself was a good thing.
Perhaps he wouldn’t show up all day, and I’d get to sleep a full night for the first time in three days.
“All right, class,” Enplencourt said, flapping her arms in a very bird-like way, “your next research assignment for this semester will be on the monarchy.”
A groan issued from somewhere farther back in the class.
“As students of Cardan Lott, you are expected to know our history backward and forward, and to take pride in it. If you do not preserve our history, who will? For this research assignment, you will each be assigned a former sovereign, and you will write an essay about their reign and the way they affected this country.”
She held up a piece of paper. “Your assignments are listed here.” She placed it on the desk at the front of the room and tapped her fingers on top of it.
“You may check your assignment on the way out the door. And, first years, may I recommend to you that you do not wait until the night before this assignment is due to attempt to complete it.”
The people around me started gathering up their supplies, shutting notebooks, putting away pens. Wooden chair legs scraped across the floor as the first years got up. We filed past the list, each one bending to check their assigned monarch.
“King Edward the Second,” Vanya said aloud as she checked the paper ahead of me. She shrugged. “I don’t even know who that is.” She squinted at the paper. “I guess because it was three hundred years ago.”
I found my name on the paper and looked at the monarch written beside it.
“Queen Isobel.” I squinted at the years next to her name.
She wasn’t a monarch I was familiar with either, and a wave of embarrassment flushed through me.
I was a citizen of Cavaria, and here was a queen I’d never even heard of.
She’d only reigned for three years. No wonder I’d never heard of her.
It would be hard to write a paper about the legacy of a monarch who’d only reigned for three years.
I sighed and followed Vanya out the door.
“Maybe I can bargain with her to switch me to a more modern monarch?” Vanya said as we strolled down the hall.
“Somebody that actually had some dealings with my country, perhaps? Seems like that would make more sense.” Vanya clutched her books to her chest as we walked slowly down the hall.
All we had left for the day were lair and physical training.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think Professor Enplencourt is going to change your assignment. If anything, I bet she picked a monarch you’d never heard of just for that reason.”
Vanya sighed. “You’re probably right.”
Covington showed up halfway through literature, earning a scowl and a detention from Professor Siva. I avoided looking up at him as he found his way to a seat in the back, hoping that he might forget about meeting again tonight.
At the end of the day, after an electrifying discussion from Professor Indigo of how best to care for dragon claws, Luther bounded down the lawn toward the lair, a wicked smile on his face. Vanya and I both froze at the sight of him.
“Hatchlings,” he announced, spreading his arms out before the first person in our class could walk any farther away. We all paused, a few of us exchanging worried glances. This wouldn’t be good.
“It has come to my attention that some of you are not in the best of physical condition,” Luther said, clearly enjoying himself. He clapped his hands together. “It’s my job to make sure that you are physically fit.”
Vanya cocked her head to the side, and Luther stared right at her as he said, “You are to complete five laps around the school together. Anyone who does not complete the laps will sleep on the roof tonight.”
Vanya stepped forward. “I will do no such thing. You have no authority to command me to do these silly laps.”
Matching her, Luther took a step toward her.
“Royal or not, you’re still a hatchling in House Ruby, and we do not make allowances for anyone.
The members of my house will not be soft.
If all of you do not complete the laps, all of you will sleep on the roof tonight.
You are a team, and you will behave like one. ”
Scarlett coughed behind us. “The princess isn’t going to make the rest of us sleep on the roof.”
Luther spun. “I will hear no more complaining from any of you. Five laps, starting now. If the princess”—he enunciated the word like it was a curse—“doesn't complete her laps, all of you will be on the roof tonight,” he said again, pinning a finger on Prescott’s broad chest.
Prescott took off at a jog down the hall. “Come on, Princess.”
“We can do this,” I said, tugging her along by the elbow. “I'll run with you. He didn't say we had to do it fast, only that we had to complete it.”
“I can't,” she said. “My feet, my legs, they still hurt so bad from last week. And I’m so tired.”
“You can,” I urged, throwing invisible daggers at Luther as he watched us jog away. He’d done this because he knew how tired we were after the night race.
Vanya moaned, then slowly took off after me.
“Pick up the pace, ladies,” Luther said, clapping his hands behind us.
“Why do they have to make us miserable?” Vanya complained.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. If you push through it, you’ll get faster.”
“You sound like you agree with him,” Vanya snapped at me. Then a pained moan escaped her lips. When I turned to look back at her, she was hobbling along.
Vanya only made it two laps before she collapsed to her knees on the path. She was heaving in ragged, uncontrolled breaths, and tears formed at the corners of her eyes. “I can’t…”
I knelt beside her and put my hand on her shoulder. “Vanya, it’s okay. Look at me.”
But she shook her head. “I'm sorry. I just can’t. I’ve never been forced to do so much physical activity in my life. How can they expect me to keep up?”
Scarlett trotted by, tossing a venomous look at Vanya and me. Luther, who had been watching us from the back patio with arms crossed over his chest, trotted down the steps from the terrace and approached Vanya.
“That’s it?” he asked.
Vanya’s eyes brimmed with rage. “How dare you do this to us.”
Luther shrugged. “Looks like you’ll all be sleeping on the roof tonight if the princess is giving up.”
Prescott slowed to a stop ahead and spun around.
“What is this?” Luther asked. “Are you all going to stop just because the princess gave up?”
“You’ve already set the punishment for us as a team,” said Prescott. A look of anger flashed across Luther’s face, but Prescott added, “If she stops, we all stop.”
Vanya sniffed, and a weak smile touched her lips. Prescott nodded down at her, then offered her a hand, pulling her up. Scarlett looked relieved that she didn’t have to keep going.
“Very well. Have fun sleeping on the roof.” Luther stormed away. “It's going to be cold.”
Before I was ready, it was time to head to the roof.
Luther stood in the common room, arms crossed, watching as the first years hustled up to their rooms for last-minute extra blankets or additional items of clothing.
The temperature had dropped faster than we’d expected, and it was going to be a long night.
“How do they even let them do this?” Scarlett hissed as she waited in the hall, blanket and pillow clutched in her arms.
I strolled past her toward my room. She shot me a narrow look and then turned back to complain to Mabel.