Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
B riony
I’ve lived all my life in Slate Quarter where there’s snow on the ground for six months of the year and yet the academy changing rooms where we’re sent after our cross-country run, must be the coldest place I’ve ever encountered. I shiver, my knees actually knocking together and my teeth chattering and I haven’t even stripped out of my gray tracksuit. At least it means no one is hogging space under the showers. Everyone is determined to wash as quickly as they can, squeaking and squealing in pain as they do.
I’ve no intention of joining them. Not because I’m scared of a bit of cold water – the water in our bathroom back in the tower is just as cold – but I refuse to strip down and walk around naked like all the other girls.
Instead, I hover in the corner, carefully removing one garment as I whip on another.
The girls I encountered on the run are already dressing too. I see them glancing my way and whispering, but they make no move to bother me again. For some reason, that encounter with the wolf appears to have spooked them. If they’d actually seen what a softie he was – if not a bit of a perverted softie – I doubt they’d be leaving me alone.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of other girls in this changing room and some are more than happy to torment me.
The brunette – Odessa – being one of them.
“Oh my god,” she says from the showers as she scrubs scented shampoo into her long, thick hair. Her golden collar glistens under the water. She hasn’t removed it to shower – I assume so everyone can admire it. “Do you see that? The piece of scum from the Slate shithole isn’t showering!” She glances my way and adopts a patronizing tone. “I know you come from a pig sty where people are happy to stink of shit and washing and cleaning doesn’t exist, but here at the academy we don’t want to smell your stench.”
Usually, I’d ignore bullshit like this but the other girls are all looking at me with disgust and I do have some pride.
“I’m going back to my room to get washed up,” I say, buttoning up my shirt as quickly as I can. I don’t want to get in a fight with Little Miss Murderous Intentions. But obviously, I don’t have a say in the matter.
“Why? Are these changing rooms not good enough for you?” Odessa says, washing the soap from her hair, a train of bubbles sliding down her shoulders and between her breasts. Breasts that, I hate to admit, are pretty damn perfect – no wonder she has been claimed as a thrall. “Or maybe she’s got something to hide.” She snaps her head down and glares at me. “Maybe under all those layers of baggy clothes, she’s hiding something.” Inadvertently I jerk, my heart beginning to hammer in my chest. How does she know? “Maybe she’s a freak.” Her lips curl into an evil smile and I know this is not going to end well. “I say we find out.” She glares at her new band of admirers, who all look back at her with incomprehension. “Well, go on,” she says, “what are you waiting for? Let’s strip her down.”
I glance towards the group of girls from the woods. They whisper to each other and then dart out of the changing rooms. I guess they’ve had their fun tormenting me and are happy to leave me in Odessa’s hands now.
I swing my gaze back towards the showers. The girl joined to Odessa’s hip comes striding my way. She is huge – at least six feet tall and muscular to boot. I consider bolting the way those other girls did, but stupidly I picked the corner furthest away from the doorway to cower in. I’m trapped. I blame the tiredness and all the distracting thoughts in my head. I’m not usually so careless.
“You heard Odessa,” the tall girl says. “Strip! Unless you want me to strip you.” She grins menacingly. One of her front teeth is missing and she has tattoos printed over her knuckles.
“I’m not stripping,” I tell her, lifting my chin in defiance. “If Odessa’s so desperate to see me naked, she’ll have to try harder at wooing me first. You know, ask me out on a date, buy me some flowers.”
“Is that what you’re hoping the Princes are going to do, Slate scum?” Odessa asks, coming to stand next to her friend. She’s still naked and I notice her bush is just this neat line of curls and her ass is round like a watermelon. If I’m being fair, I can totally understand why she’s pissed that the Princes have chosen me and not her. It makes no sense. “Woo you?” She laughs. “That’s not how it works. You’re scum and they’re going to treat you like scum.”
“Yeah, but they’ll be treating me and not you ,” I say, unable to help the words from slipping out, even though I know better.
I’m rewarded with a fist to my face. My second beating of the day. And Fly said being picked out as the Princes’ thrall would keep me safe.
My nose cracks and pain ricochets through my face, tears flooding my eyes.
I blink, my vision multiplies, and I feel blood slide from the mess that is now my nose and drip down the front of my uniform.
“Strip!” Odessa’s friend growls, her fist hovering dangerously close to my face again.
“No!” I say, my voice coming out funny on account of my smashed-up nose.
“I don’t think you understand how things work,” Odessa says, placing her hand on her hip. “The Hardies are the second highest-ranking shadow weavers in the academy and I am their thrall which means I outrank everyone in this locker room. Including you. You have to do as I say.”
“But the Princes outrank the Hardies,” I say, hating myself for resorting to this, but wanting to emerge from this bathroom alive. Because I won’t be like Amelia. I will survive this. I will. “And I am their thrall.”
“Funny,” Odessa smirks, “I don’t see no collar. Do you Helene?”
“No,” her friend says, “I figure they’ve changed their minds about you, come to their senses.”
Odessa titters. “Probably, I mean look at her.” She runs her fingers through her wet hair.
“Maybe the Princes will end up claiming me too. Maybe they’ll share me with the Hardies and I will have twice as much fun.” Her eyes glaze over as if she’s picturing the scene in her mind.
“Errr, Odessa?” her friend says, jerking her out of her daydream. “You want me to strip her clothes off?”
Odessa’s lips curl again. “Ewwww, no. I won’t be able to eat my lunch if I see that thing naked. Come on,” she nudges her friend, “she’s learned her lesson.”
The giant friend smirks at me and I take my opportunity to dart away before she decides to smack me again.
I head for the bathroom, meeting another girl shuffling out of a cubicle as I duck in.
“Oh no, gosh!” the other girl cries out, hands dashing up to her mouth in alarm when she catches sight of my face. She’s small – smaller than me with big round glasses that amplify her auburn eyes and the freckles scattered across her face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes … actually no,” I say, grabbing a handful of tissue for my bloody nose and walking over to the mirror. It’s worse than I thought and I wasn’t expecting it to be pretty.
“Can I help?” she says, hovering around me.
I glance away from my reflection and towards her face. Is she serious? She looks genuine.
“I don’t know. Do you know how to fix a broken nose?” I say.
To my surprise, she nods. “Both my parents are doctors in Granite Quarter. You pick things up.”
“There are a lot of broken noses in Granite Quarter?” I ask. The Quarter is known for its scholars and academics. Unlike the other Quarters, I doubt there are many fist fights.
“You’d be surprised.”
I examine her as I dab at the blood. What are my choices here? Head back to the clinic, wait in line and miss lunch yet again. Or seek out Beaufort Lincoln and ask him to heal me with his magic.
Yep, I definitely won’t be doing that and as my stomach growls hungrily, I decide it’s worth the risk.
“Okay,” I say, “if you would fix it, I’d be grateful.”
“It will hurt,” she says with an apologetic grimace, “and it is going to be swollen and probably every color under the rainbow, but it will be straight.”
I take a deep inhale of breath. “Right,” I say, turning towards her. “Do your worst.”
She takes me by the arm, leading me into one of the cubicles and making me sit on the toilet, then she peers at me through her glasses, pinching her tongue between her teeth.
“How did you do it anyway?” she asks, touching my nose with her fingertips. I wince even though she’s gentle.
“Someone’s fist met my nose,” I say.
“You’re a bit … weedy to be getting into fights, aren’t you? No offense. I mean I’m pretty weedy too.”
“I’m not weedy,” I say, definitely taking offense. “Okay, so I’m not all muscle like the shadow weavers and the kids from Iron Quarter. I’m lean, but I’m pretty strong when I want to be.”
“I’ve been trying my best to stay out of trouble.”
“I’ve been trying to do the same,” I sigh, “just not very successfully.”
The girl grips my nose with her fingers. “Ready? After three. One … two …”
She yanks my nose back into place and I howl, white light streaking across my vision. It hurts way more than the punch did.
“Stars!” I cry out.
“Sorry,” she says, “but that looks much better.”
Blinking away tears, I hobble back towards the mirrors and peer at my reflection. “I’ll take your word for it,” I say, splashing water on my face and washing away the blood.
“I’m Clare by the way,” she says, cleaning my blood off her hands.
“Briony,” I say.
“You’re from Slate Quarter?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “How’d you guess?”
“I think the Slate kids are being targeted the most by the bullies,” she says matter-of-factly. “Are you going to the canteen to get lunch? If you are, we could go together.”
“I thought you were trying to stay out of trouble? I warn you, all I seem to be able to do successfully since arriving at the academy is attract trouble.”
“I haven’t really made any friends since I got here,” she says, again matter-of-factly. “And it sucks being alone.”
I should be insulted but I have a feeling Clare is one of those people without a filter. It makes a change to all the two-faced people telling you one thing and meaning another.
“Didn’t you come here with any friends?”
She adjusts her glasses. “Yes, my best friend Pippa but she’s been at the clinic since the first night.”
“Shit,” I mutter, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” her eyes drop to the floor, “I don’t think she’ll be out any time soon.”
“Stars, this place sucks,” I mutter. She nods in agreement. “But at least the food is decent.”
“You think the food is good?”
“Well, edible, which is a lot more than can be said for the food at home.”
My new friend (because I’m assuming that’s what she is) looks at me with a mixture of shock and sympathy.
“I need to go back to my room to clean up, but I’ll see you in there.” Disappointment flickers across her face and I figure she’s thinking I’m going to blow her off. I take her hands in mine. “Thank you. For my nose.” I attempt to wrinkle it and wince in pain. “It’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time.”
That’s if you discount Beaufort Lincoln healing my ankle, which I totally am.