Chapter 12
Landon is snatching me by my bicep before I reach the corridor to the staircase.
His sudden strong grip wobbles the cups in my hands, spills trails of hot coffee down my searing skin, and splashes down on the dark walnut polish of the floorboards.
I turn a look on him, the corners of my mouth tucked into my cheeks.
“Where are you running off to?” There’s a breathlessness to his question, like he raced around to find me after I left the mess hall.
“Bed.”
His full grin spreads around bright white teeth. “Don’t think so. Slopes,” he adds with a glittering wink. “Get dressed. I’ll meet you back down here.”
My face falls. “Not today—”
“Yes, today. You haven’t been keeping up your end of the deal, Liv. I gave you a grace period—but it’s time to get it together.”
My tongue rolls around my cheeks, wrangling back vicious retorts that brew in me.
What silences those insults is that he’s right.
I can’t risk him going to Dray and revealing what I know. Not until I’ve gotten myself sorted, until I’ve got a plan.
Whatever scheme I’m hoping falls onto my lap or tumbles into my mind, I don’t know, I just cling to the hope that it’ll be enough to free me from a future I just can’t fathom.
The warmth of Landon’s glittering eyes runs me over, from the ponytail tacked onto my head down to the toes of my suede boots.
“You’re more of a skier than a snowboarder,” he decides, and he isn’t wrong. “I’m the latter. Think you can keep up?”
“Those mind tricks don’t work on me,” I say, dull. “I’m more than happy to fall behind.”
Unaffected, Landon just lets his grip slip away from my arm, ignoring the stares that flicker over us from the few students strewn about the grand parlour.
And though Asta, still standing by the coffee station, watches him with enough intensity to burn a hole into his cheek, he doesn’t even glance her way.
I do.
Out the corner of my eye, I keep tabs on her, her arms folded over her chest, the silence of her seething rage as the machine whirls behind her, too loud in the soft quiet of the parlour.
I grit the answer out, “Fine.”
Because what else can I do?
I did make the deal.
Sure, I could go back on it now, since I already got the information I needed—but what happens when there’s more to learn? What happens when Landon gets pissed off enough to go to Dray and tell him what I know?
I doubt he would put himself in that position, in the path of Dray’s wrath, but then again, we’re all Snakes here, just doing our best to stay afloat.
“I don’t have my skis,” I add before Landon can leave me for the boys’ dorm.
“Borrow mine.” He gives a slight shrug. “88s.”
I’m better with 80s, and I haven’t gone on the slopes for a long time, so the reluctance—the nerves—start to appear.
My mouth thins, lips sucked inward, and I bite down uneasily.
“You have your snowsuit?” he asks with a glance at the doorway we all but block, the one that leads to a corridor running through to the cigar room, a place of not so lovely memories, and a bathroom, and the two staircases to the girls’ dorms.
The temptation is there, ribboning through me, to just run into the dorms and hide.
That will save me from the slopes.
But not from the consequences.
I nod, reluctant.
Landon’s smile is warm victory. “Meet you back down here in an hour?”
And he’s gone.
I don’t watch him stalk through the parlour, shouldering students aside. I turn my back on the curious frowns aimed at me, and that one constant searing glare I feel itching over my flesh like a fucking grater.
I snub Asta—and take my coffees to the dorm.
By the time I’m perched on the edge of my bed, sipping at what should be hot, freshly brewed bliss, disappointment slumps me.
Warm.
Tepid.
Coffee is best when it’s hot.
I have an hour, so I take the time to finish the cooling coffees, until I give up on the final and third mug, because it’s just too gross.
It’s then I start digging through my luggage.
I find the snowgear all the way at the bottom of the largest case, packed neatly by Abigail.
Thankfully, it’s the nice suit she packed, a soft cherry blossom pink with black strips up the sides, black boots and a hat to match. But as I get changed, my mind drifts to Courtney, and my gaze slides to her bed.
The curtains are parted, the pillows fluffed and duvet stretched over the mattress.
The imps have been here, tidied up already, and in that time, Courtney left the dorms.
I would have seen her in passing if she went for the mess hall. Since I didn’t, I’m guessing she’s gone to spend the whole day in study hall.
So boring.
Maybe there’s a flicker of something in me, a faint flittering speckle of excitement…
Not because I’m about to go on the slopes with Landon, but because I’ve actually got something to do. Something that, even though I hate it, might be… fun?
I stamp it down to a shadowy place, the part of me that’s always yearning.
‘A little too late,’ comes to mind.
It’s all a little too late.
These offers of friendships, hands extended in the storm, the same hands that have shoved me over and thrown me aside and brought me so much suffering.
I can’t let myself be happy today, not even for a moment on the slopes. I can’t let a smile touch my face or a laugh bell in my throat.
I must force my mind to latch onto the image of Courtney in study hall and pretend that I would rather be there with her.
I hold onto that as I fasten my hair into Dutch braids, moisturise my face, then grab my ski mask.
I head down to the grand parlour.
Landon isn’t here yet, some minutes shy before the hour is up.
Asta is gone, and that in itself is a relief.
I feel a bit safer and drop into an armchair by the fireplace as I wait.
The smell of burnt coffee wafts from the whirring machine, and I fleetingly think that someone else should notice and properly clean out the machine.
I don’t.
I just watch the growing queue at the station as students slowly start to stream in from the main door, returning from the mess hall, and it all becomes so trance-like that I flinch when I hear him.
“Nice suit.”
I glance up at the wooden pillar and find Landon leaning against it.
The darkness of his complexion flickers with amber hues from the warmth of the fireplaces, and it’s lovely against the forest green of his snowsuit.
“Come on.” With a jerk of the chin, he gestures to the growing number of students starting to fill the grand parlour. “We need to get to the storeroom before all these assholes.”
My snowsuit rustles as I push up from the armchair, more enthused than the dull look I keep pulled onto my face.
Can’t afford to even look like I’m having the least bit of fun.
If I can withhold that from them, even if it’s the only part of it all I can control, then that in itself is a win, even if it’s small.
I shadow Landon out of the grand parlour, and I guess I’ll have to get used to the stares, because they follow us through the corridors.
The storeroom is just one hallway back from the atrium, and it’s crammed with locked cages.
I stick by the door as Landon marches inside.
Instinct keeps me here, rooted in the threshold, and not a step over. It would feel too blatantly idiotic to follow a Snake into this dimly lit room full of cages and locks, even for me in all these new alliances.
After a while of distant rattling, Landon returns with a sleek black snowboard tucked under one arm, and a pair of similar skis propped against his shoulder.
He shifts the snowboard into my arms. “Carry this, it’s lighter.”
I arch a brow. “All of a sudden a gentleman?”
His smirk is cold and curt before he leads the way out of the final corridor and into the atrium.
The air is abruptly colder, sharper, and the noise is a humming murmur from all the loitering students.
There’s always a breeze up here, always a whistle weaving through the mountaintops, but today is a disappointment—maybe a part of me was hoping the winds would be too strong for the gondolas to be running, for the slopes to be open.
Guess luck isn’t on my side.
The faces around the atrium are split with grins, shifting with laughter, bright with the excitement of the first Saturday of the semester.
I stick to Landon’s heels as he shoulders through the crowds gathering in our way—until he stops, and I almost knock my head off his back.
I tilt, peering around his arm, and find the obstructions.
Oliver’s gaze hooks mine first—and holds for a heartbeat before he flicks his gaze to Landon. “You’re going out?”
The air suddenly gets colder.
Dray tilts, just as I do, to look around the bulk of Landon’s form. And his brow arches the moment his gaze lands on me.
“Slopes,” Landon says. “We’re going to find out if Olivia can keep up with me.”
Those crushed glass eyes don’t wander from me, like Landon hasn’t spoken at all, like everything around us is just background noise.
Then, Dray’s mouth curves into a cold smile, and he straightens. “Be careful out there.”
It sounds nothing less than a threat.
And I don’t quite feel it’s aimed at me.
Still, Landon’s smile doesn’t falter. “Always.”
The cold touch of their gazes, like the tips of ice-swords pressing into my skin, follows us to the parted front doors.
I brace myself before my boot even flattens on the first step, prepared for the crisp breeze.
The shudder that rattles me is violent and swift, like my body needs a heartbeat to just process the shock of the temperature even with the aid of the snowsuit.
I drag myself along the snowy path to the gondola station, the snowboard hugged firmly in my arms. I keep some steps between me and Landon, just in case those skis knock backwards over his shoulder and crack me on the head.
We wade up the path and bypass the early queue for the gondolas down to the village. There’s only a handful of students waiting at the second station—the chairlifts that go higher up the mountain than the academy itself.
A chairlift jolts to a stop on the thick wires just as we stop at the end of the queue.