Kingmakers, Year One

4. Leo

4

LEO

“ L EO!” Anna shouts, yanking off my blanket and dragging me out of the bed so my ass bumps on the floor.

The impact makes my skull throb. I don’t know what was in that brandy last night, but I’m experiencing a hell of a hangover. The bright Mediterranean sunshine streaming in through the window is about ten times more cheerful than I want to experience at the moment. I’d much rather plunge back into the lovely dark silence of a huge pile of blankets over my head.

“What are you doing?” I groan, shaking the hair out of my eyes.

“We’re supposed to be boarding in ten minutes! Didn’t you hear me banging on your door?”

“Anna,” I grumble. “Can you do me a favor? Can you please just . . . shush? You’re so loud . . .”

“GET UP!” she hollers, making my head ring like a bell. “WE’RE GONNA MISS THE BOAT!”

“Okay, Jesus,” I say, picking myself up off the floor.

Anna thrusts a glass of lukewarm tap water into my hand, and I chug it down. It tastes weird, as water always does in a foreign place. My stomach churns.

“How come you’re not hungover?” I ask her.

“Because I didn’t drink as much as you.”

“But I’m twice as big as you. I should be able to drink twice as much.”

“Good hypothesis—how’s the field test working out for you?”

“Not great,” I admit.

I fell asleep in my clothes. I pull my dirty t-shirt over my head, and then unbutton my jeans and drop them down. Anna turns around quickly, facing the door.

“You’ve seen me naked before,” I tease her. “And I’ve seen you . . .”

“Not in a long time,” Anna says coolly.

We used to go skinny dipping together in Carlyle Lake, Anna skinny and pale no matter how late it was in the summer, and me brown as a nut. But it’s true, we were only kids at the time. I haven’t actually seen Anna nude since she . . . well . . . filled out . . .

“How’d you get in here anyway?” I ask her. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t drunk enough to forget to bolt the door.

“I picked the lock,” she says. “It’s hardly Fort Knox.”

Anna is an encyclopedia of hidden skills. I’ve long since learned not to compete with her on random tasks. At least, not with any confidence of whether or not I’ll win.

I’m heading to the shower when Anna shouts, “We don’t have time for that!”

“Okay, okay,” I grumble, rifling through my duffle bag. I stare stupidly at the clothes, realizing that it’s almost all white dress shirts, gray or black trousers, charcoal sweater vests, and sage-green pullovers.

Fucking uniforms. I forgot about that.

Grabbing items at random, I put on a white button-up and a pair of gray slacks, both horribly wrinkled from being stuffed in my bag without proper folding. I rake my fingers through my hair, give my teeth a five-second brush, rub on some deodorant and a spritz of cologne, and in less than two minutes I’m ready to go.

“With time to spare,” I say to Anna.

She rolls her eyes at me, marching toward the door, her green plaid skirt swishing behind her. She already has a run up the back of her stockings, and she’s wearing the same big, clunky vintage Docs that she’s owned since Junior high.

“You’re looking very kawaii ,” I say, grinning at the sight of her in a skirt.

Anna whips around, narrowing her ice-blue eyes at me in their ring of heavy black liner.

“Don’t start with me,” she hisses.

“I’m just saying?—“

“Don’t say anything. Not a fucking word.”

I’m guessing she’s sensitive because Anna’s ability to express herself through her clothing matters to her. Even though it looks like she wears the same depressing shit every day, I know her well enough to differentiate between her fetish-wear ensembles, her Victorian vampire look, and her punk-rock goth. It’s a good indication of her mood. For instance, the more chains she’s wearing, the more I know I better not fuck with her that day.

“My lips are sealed,” I promise, throwing my duffle bag over my shoulder and following her out of the room.

We have to run to make it down to the dock in the remaining seven minutes. Thank god we picked a hotel so close to the water.

Our boat is leaving from the very last berth. They’ve only just started loading, and the dock is still crowded with students from all over the globe.

I can guess where some of them are from: one boy has a traditional dragon tattoo extending down his arm from beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt, the scaly, curling tip of the tail wrapping around the base of his thumb. His friend is probably Yakuza too, though not a very obedient one. He’s missing the tip of his right pinky, which means he’s had to commit yubitsume, the apology ritual where the offender has to amputate his own finger.

Next to those two, I see a girl with flaming red curls who wipes the sweat from her face, saying loudly, “Jaysis, it’s quare warm today, isn’t it?”

The dark-haired girl she’s speaking to stares back at her blankly. “What?” she says, in an accent I can’t quite place—it might be Galician.

“It’s fierce hot!” the Irish girl reiterates. “Anybody got a mineral?”

“I thought we were all supposed to speak English,” the dark-haired girl says, tartly.

“I bloody well am!” the Irish girl cries.

I glance over at Anna to see if she’s enjoying this exchange, seeing as she’s half Irish herself. She doesn’t seem to have heard a word of it—she’s gazing up at the ship instead. It’s bigger than I expected, and not at all the bus-like ferry I was imagining. Instead, I see a four-masted barquentine with a navy and gold hull, and crisp white sails.

“Why’s it so big?” I say out loud. There’s less than a hundred Freshmen, and the trip isn’t that long.

“The water around Dvorca is rough as hell,” a boy with close-cropped dark hair answers me. “If you tried to sail over in some fishing boat you’d get tossed around like corn in a popper. Some parts of the year you can’t come and go from the island at all.”

“How do you know?” another kid demands.

“I’ve had five siblings go through Kingmakers,” the boy replies, shrugging. “I’ve got a pretty good idea how it all works.”

“Where’re you from?” I ask him.

“Palermo,” he says. “I’m Matteo Ragusa.”

“Catholic?” I ask.

“You know it.” He grins.

“I’m half-Italian too.” I put out a hand to shake. “Leo Gallo.”

“Chicago, right?” he says.

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Two of my brothers live in New York. There’s plenty of Italians at Kingmakers. More Russians, though.”

“I’m also half-Russian,” I tell him.

He laughs. “I won’t hold it against you. Can’t say the same for the rest of them.” He jerks his head toward our fellow students.

“What’s wrong with Russians?” Anna demands.

“Everything,” Matteo says, laughing. “They’re blunt and rude. Mean as hell, though not as mean as the Albanians. Then you’ve got the Italians, you know we’re all hot-headed and a little bit lazy, then you’ve got the Irish?—”

He breaks off, seeing Anna raise one darkly-penciled eyebrow.

“Just kidding around…” He raises his hands in defense. “You’ve got twenty different kinds of mafia families, with a hundred kinds of prejudices and grudges. And yet somehow we’re all supposed to get along for four years. Until we go out in the real world and get to battling again.”

“I’m not worried,” I say, mostly to annoy Anna. “I get along with everybody.”

Anna snorts, tossing her head.

People who don’t know me very well are always impressed by me. Anna knows me best of anyone, and she’s never impressed. I’ve done the craziest things to try to force her to admit that I’m funny, or skilled, or a fucking badass. But she’ll never admit it.

I don’t know what kind of guy would turn her head. While I’ve gone through a dozen girlfriends, she never seems to fall for anybody.

A whistle blows and one of the deckhands motions for the students to start boarding.

“Here we go,” Matteo says nervously.

I spot Ares joining the queue, carrying one small and battered backpack in place of a suitcase.

“Morning,” I say, looking him over for signs of a hangover.

Like Anna, Ares looks a hell of a lot better rested than me. Fuck, am I the only lightweight?

He grins at me. “You made it.”

“Just barely.”

“Come on,” he says. “We better get on board if we want a good spot up at the bow.”

Anna and I join Ares in the line, and we all scale the gangplank up onto the ship.

Those with bigger suitcases left them in a pile on the dock for the deckhands to load below. I see a French girl arguing furiously with one of the crew, because she brought at least three matching Louis Vuitton suitcases, while our acceptance letters stated we were only allowed one bag each.

“How am I supposed to fit everything I need in one suitcase? ” she demands, as if the idea is obscene.

“I’m only puttin’ one on the ship, so you better tell me which one, or I ain’t taking any of ‘em,” the deckhand says sourly.

I don’t see how that drama plays out, because I’m stepping up onto the deck of the ship already swarming with uniformed students. Plenty of them have already ditched their vests or jackets, wilting beneath the blazing sun. At least there’s a sea breeze.

“Why do we have to wear wool?” I complain to Anna.

“It’ll be cooler on the island,” Ares says. “Out in the ocean, it gets chilly in the winter. Not freezing, but close to it.”

Ares spots a piece of netting strung between two masts like a giant hammock.

“Come on,” he says, chucking his backpack up into the net. “Let’s sit up here.”

Anna and I follow him up. Even though we’re only five feet in the air, we have a much better view of the activity on the deck as the sailors prepare to cast off. We can see more of the port, and the wide, dark expanse of the water leading out of the bay.

Once all the students are on board, the sailors cast off the ropes tethering us to the dock and start unfurling the sails. The huge white sails immediately fill with wind, and the booms swing around to form the right angle to carry us out onto the open water.

We all look back at the dock, but there’s nobody waiting to wave us off. Parents were instructed to say their farewells from their home country. We’re already on our own. Leaving Dubrovnik is only symbolic.

The city looks foreign to my eyes, and the place we’re going is only more so.

There’s nowhere on earth like Kingmakers. A secret school only known to a few dozen families. I won’t get any degree or diploma from this place. Just the accumulation of knowledge passed down through generations of criminals. How to operate in shadow. How to find loopholes in the law. How to outwit and outplay governments and police forces. And how to barter, negotiate, and battle with each other.

The wind fills the sails with surprising force. The wooden planks groan as the ship is shoved hard across the water. Despite its size, the ship picks up speed rapidly. The planks aren’t groaning anymore—they’ve adjusted to the pressure and the temperature change. Now the boat seems to transform, to become as light as a bird skimming over the water.

Soon we’re passing out of the port, out into open ocean. The red-roofed medieval buildings of Old Town are disappearing behind us. We’re cutting through the fishing boats, moving out where there’s no one else around.

Seagulls rise up from the fishing nets, circling round our ship briefly in case we have something better to offer. When they see how quickly we’re moving, they abandon our masts and head back where they came from.

“Look!” Anna cries, pointing down to the water. “Dolphins.”

Swift gray bullets race alongside the ship, leaping in and out of the frothy wake.

“That’s good luck,” Ares says.

“Do you know how to sail?” Anna asks him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I had a little skiff in Syros.”

At first I’m loving the cool breeze and the waves and the view of the dolphins. But soon Anna pulls out a book and starts reading, and Ares lays back against the mast, using his backpack as a pillow and laying a spare t-shirt over his eyes so he can take a nap.

What was exciting and stimulating becomes repetitive and boring. I’m tired of the view. I want to see what everyone is doing down on the deck.

I swing down from our makeshift hammock. Matteo was right—the water only gets rougher the further out we sail. I have to use all my balance to cross the rolling deck.

Some of the other students are seasick, with several kids lined up to puke over the railing. I can’t say my stomach is totally steady, especially not with the lingering effects of my hangover, but at least I’m not that far gone.

Up at the front of the bow, I spot a group of boys playing some kind of dice game. I wander over for a closer look.

Bram Van Der Berg is there, along with two of his friends from the night before. Also a couple of boys who look Armenian and one Asian girl.

After watching for a minute, I can tell the game is just a variation of Street Craps. I can’t be sure, but I think one of the Armenians is using a loaded die. He certainly seems to be rolling an eleven more often than would be statistically probable.

Bram and I eye each other warily across the circle. He hasn’t shaved and his face is rough with stubble. I probably look scruffy too, but hopefully in less of a just-got-off-a-ten-year-stretch-in-solitary kind of way. I can tell he’s watching to see if I plan to resume the hostilities from the night before.

I assume there’s going to be a whole lot of jockeying for position in the first few weeks at Kingmakers. Every kid here thinks they’re the alpha—and they probably were, wherever they came from. But we can’t all be alphas at the school. There’s going to be a new hierarchy.

I intend to be at the top, like always.

Bram probably thinks the same thing. He narrows his eyes at me, tossing back his longish hair and muttering something to his friends. The other Penose give me venomous looks.

Bram’s the next shooter. He rolls the point number three times before hitting a seven, ending the round. He scoops up his winnings, grinning.

“Hey, Dmitry,” he calls. “Why don’t you come join?”

He’s calling to a tall blond boy who’s standing at the railing looking down at the water. The boy took his shirt off because of the heat. A Siberian tiger is tattooed to the right of his spine, done in the classic style as if it were crawling up his back. Because he’s so pale, the tiger looks snow white with black stripes.

Dmitry turns slowly to face our group.

He looks right at me and seems to recognize me immediately.

I get a similar jolt.

He’s strangely familiar, even though I know we’ve never met.

His eyes narrow, his jaw tightens, and his lip curls up in a sneer.

“No thanks,” he says coldly. “I don’t like the company.”

“What?” Bram says, glancing back and forth between us. “The Amerikanets?”

“What’s wrong with Americans?” I say. I keep my voice level, but I’m looking the blond boy right in the eye.

Bram and I sized each other up last night, and it was clear that we both thought we were hot shit. Who’s shit is hotter remains to be determined. With Dmitry it’s something else. He’s doesn’t eye me like a rival. He’s glaring at me like an enemy.

“It’s not Americans,” he says, voice dripping with disdain. “It’s you .”

Something in his voice, coupled with his coloring and the familiarity of his features makes it all click at once.

I’m talking to my cousin. He’s calling himself Dmitry, but this is Dean Yenin, I’m sure of it.

Not that Dean considers us family.

His father and my mother are twins. They were best friends growing up. Until my mom chose my dad over her own family.

Dean’s grandfather tried to kill everyone I know and love at my parents’ wedding: my uncle Nero, my aunt Camille, Uncle Dante, my godmother Greta, even my father. He succeeded in murdering my grandpa Enzo, so that I’ve only ever known him from a portrait that hangs in my father’s office.

And in return, my father rained down bloody retribution on Dean’s family. Dean’s grandfather is dead, strangled to death by my dad. And his father Adrian is burned up worse than Vader from what I’ve heard.

So we are enemies, maybe more than anyone else on this boat.

I knew that Dean was coming to Kingmakers.

I knew this was coming.

But it’s something different to meet him face to face, after never even having seen a photo of him.

He’s the main reason my mother didn’t want me coming here. She’s tried to reach out to her brother over the years—tried to repair their relationship so they could at least have a measure of forgiveness, even if they could never be close again.

He never responded to her, not a single word.

It’s clear from the expression on Dean’s face that my mom was right. The Yenins weren’t just avoiding us. They fucking hate us still.

“Is that any way to talk to your cousin?” I say to Dean.

I won’t give him the satisfaction of glaring back at him. Instead I paste a grin on my face, like I don’t take him seriously. I know that’s the best way to really piss him off.

Sure enough, he takes another couple steps toward me, closing the space between us. Instinctively, everyone else steps back. They all know the feeling of a fight about to happen. That anticipation in the air, the electricity between two people itching to do each other harm.

“Don’t call me that,” Dean says.

It’s funny how even the simplest words can cut if they’re said sharply enough.

Dean hasn’t raised his voice, but he makes it perfectly clear that he isn’t fucking around. His fists tighten at his sides, and his shoulders swell as his body shifts into a more aggressive stance. He’s got the look of a fighter, as if he’s most natural in that position. If I were anybody else, I’d probably take a step back, cringing like a little bitch.

But I’m not somebody else.

I’m me. And I don’t back away from anybody.

“Don’t call you what?” I say. “ Cuz?”

Dean takes another step forward until we’re within arm’s reach of each other. I’m taller than him by two inches, but he’s got a decent amount of muscle packed on his frame. I’m watching him carefully, though I don’t let it show. I stand there as relaxed and casual as ever.

“We’re not family,” Dean hisses. “Your whore of a mother betrayed her family. She’s not a Yenin anymore. She’s just a piece of treacherous trash.”

I want to hit him so bad my fists are throbbing. I can’t let that go unanswered.

“The Yenins broke a blood oath,” I spit back at him. “I don’t know how the fuck you’re even here. You should be excommunicated. Whose cock did your father have to suck to get you back in?”

We rush each other at the same moment. I throw the first punch, right at his stupid fucking face. But to my surprise, he slips the hit so my fist barely glances off his jaw. I’ve never missed like that before.

At the same time, he hits me with a left hook that fucking rocks me. Dean may not be quite as big as me, but he’s fast as hell and strong. My head is ringing, and my hangover headache comes roaring back.

I swing at him again, and this time he can’t quite duck it—at 6’5 I’ve got a fuck of a longer reach than he’s used to. I pop him in the cheek, raising an instant red welt under his eye.

In retaliation he slugs me in the gut, hard enough to regurgitate whatever was in my stomach if I’d eaten any breakfast. Jesus he’s got a sledgehammer for an arm.

The howls of Bram and the other students draw the attention of the sailors. Two of the deckhands tear us apart before we can finish the fight. They’re big, burly men, and they fling us down on the deck, shouting for us to knock it off.

The bigger of the two, a man with a glass eye and two sensuously entwined mermaids on his forearm, points a sausage-like finger at me and growls, “Raise your fists again, and I’ll chuck you in the fuckin’ ocean. No fighting on board.”

He stands there, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching us both until Dean picks himself up off the deck and resumes his sullen position at the railing and I head back toward the bow.

I climb up in the net once more, making Ares stir and mumble in the midst of his nap. Anna glances up from her book.

“What the hell happened to you?”

She’s staring at my face.

I swipe my hand under my nose, blood smearing across my knuckles.

“Little family reunion,” I say.

“Dean?” Anna asks, eyes wide.

“Who else?”

“Why’d you have to go and fight him?”

“He started it. I was willing to be friendly.”

Anna frowns. “For how long, two seconds?”

“He called my mom a traitor!”

“Of course he did! You know what he’s probably been told. Did you even try to talk to him?”

“It’s not my job to talk to him!” I scoff. “ His family are the traitors, and if he says another word about my mom, I’ll break his fucking jaw for him.”

“You’d better not,” Anna says darkly. “You know the rules?—”

“He’s the one?—”

“They won’t care!” Anna cuts across me. “This is exactly what Aunt Yelena was worried about?—”

“Oh, get off it,” I grumble. “I heard enough of that before I left.”

I hate when Anna acts like she’s on my parents’ side about me not going to Kingmakers. She should be happy that I came here with her instead of taking my full ride to Duke. Does she want to be here alone? I thought she’d be thrilled that we were both experiencing this together.

The thought of going to some school without her, any school, made me sick to my stomach. She’s my best friend. We’ve always done everything together.

I know Anna cares about me. But sometimes I think she doesn’t need me the same way I need her. She’s got siblings and I don’t. I would never admit this in million years, but sometimes I’m jealous of Cara and Whelan. I hate that Anna loves them almost as much as she loves me. I don’t want her attention divided.

I know it’s ridiculous because they’re just kids. But I want to be first in her eyes, the way she is in mine. Closer than blood.

“Leo, you can’t act like that at Kingmakers,” she says, her blue eyes fixed determinedly on my face.

“Act like what?” I say stubbornly.

“You can’t act like you usually do.”

I hear the edge of fear in her voice, and that’s what makes me smother my flippant retort. Anna isn’t scared of anything usually.

“I know,” I admit. “I know it’s not high school anymore. I’ll be careful.”

“You promise?” Anna says.

“Yes. I promise.”

“Alright.” She gives me a small smile, leaning back in the hammock and picking up her book once more.

She’s reading an ancient, battered copy of Lord of the Flies .

“Let me guess,” I say. “Your suitcase is full of books you’ve already read.”

Anna smiles just a little.

“Not full,” she says. “But yeah, about half of it.”

“They have a library at Kingmakers, you know.”

“I don’t care,” she says. “This belonged to the Other Anna.”

Anna is named after her aunt, who died a long time before she was born.

Anna has a strange reverence for this namesake she never met. She talks about the Other Anna like her guardian angel. Like a piece of her soul lives inside of Anna herself.

I’m jealous of the Other Anna, too. A girl who died thirty years ago.

That’s how stupid I can be.

I’ve never been able to be rational when it comes to Anna.

“How much longer till we get to the island?” Ares asks, from beneath his t-shirt.

“I dunno,” I say. “All I see is ocean.”

Just like Matteo warned, the water gets rougher as we draw closer to Kingmakers. Long before we spot the island, the ship is pitching and tossing, and I can tell the crew is approaching in a kind of zigzag, to avoid rocks or sandbars beneath the surface, or maybe just because of the way the currents run.

More of the students succumb to seasickness, and I can smell the vomit even from up in the net. I must be turning green myself, because Anna says, “You better not puke on me.”

Ares looks completely undisturbed.

“I used to go out in fishing boats all the time,” he says. “Boats a lot smaller than this. You bob around like a cork.”

When we finally spot the island, it juts out of the water like an accusing finger pointing up toward the sky. The limestone cliffs rise up for hundreds of feet in a sheer pale sheet, with waves crashing against their base, sending up so much spray that we can feel it all the way over on the ship. Far up on the cliffs I spy the stone walls of Kingmakers itself.

Part castle, part fortress, Kingmakers is built directly into the cliffs, so it rises up in three levels hewn out of the rock. Constructed in the 1300s, it has most of the gothic elements you’d expect, including six main towers, a portcullis, military-style gates, and a winding German-style zwinger, which forms an open kill-zone between the defensive walls.

The limestone walls are white as bone, and the steeply pitched roof is black. The pointed archways and the stained-glass windows are dark as well, as if there’s no lights on inside. To divert rainwater off the roof, the drainage spouts are carved in the shape of grotesque gargoyles, demons, and avenging angels.

The students fall silent below us, gazing up at Kingmakers just as Anna and I are doing. The school has us all transfixed. Even in the Mediterranean sunshine, there’s nothing bright or welcoming in its towering stone walls.

Our ship has to skirt the island to approach on the lee side. Even then, it takes our Captain several attempts, doubling back and trying over again, to shoot the narrow gap into the harbor.

We pull up to the only dock, the crew throwing down their ropes with obvious relief.

As they unloads our bags, the students climb into open wagons with bench seats running along both sides. Each wagon is pulled by two massive Clydesdale horses who stand even taller than me at the shoulder, thick tufts of hair hanging down over hooves the size of dinner plates.

“Are we going on a hayride?” One of the girls in our wagon laughs.

“I don’t think they have any cars on the island,” Anna says to me. “Look . . .”

She nods her head toward the unpaved road winding through the tiny village clustered around the bay. Sure enough, I don’t see so much as a moped anywhere.

Once the wagons are loaded up, the drivers climb up on their tall bench seats and flick the reins to tell the horses we’re ready to go.

Our driver is a skinny, deeply tanned man wearing suspenders and a pair of trousers that are more patches than pants.

“Do you work at the school?” I ask him.

“Yup.” He nods.

“How long have you worked there?”

He glances over at me, squinting in the bright sun.

“Feels like a hundred years.”

“Did you go there yourself?”

He snorts. “You writin’ a book, kid?”

“Just curious.”

“You know what curiosity did to the cat.”

I grin at him. “I’m not a cat.”

“No,” he says. “I didn’t go to Kingmakers. I was born on this island. I’ve lived my whole life here.”

“Do you ever go to Dubrovnik?”

“What’s Dubrovnik?”

He says it so drily that it takes Anna stifling a laugh for me to realize that he’s fucking with me. I laugh, too, and the man grins, showing teeth that are surprisingly white next to his tanned face.

“I go once in a while,” he says. “But I like it better here.”

It doesn’t take long to leave the little village behind us, and to begin ascending the long, winding road toward Kingmakers. We drive through orchard and farmland, then up through rockier ground where goats and sheep graze.

I see olive groves and a vineyard so heavy with grapes that you could almost get drunk off the scent alone.

All the while we’re climbing steadily, drawing closer to the colossal stone gates of Kingmakers.

On one side of the gate stands a winged female figure brandishing a sword. On the other, an armored man holding an axe.

We pass between the two figures onto the grounds of the school.

Up close, the castle is even larger than I expected. It’s almost like its own self-contained city with greenhouses, terraced gardens, courtyards, palatial buildings, towers, armories, and more. I don’t know how the fuck I’m ever going to get to class on time.

Anna sits next to me, silent but looking everywhere at once.

“What do you think?” I ask her.

“It’s beautiful.”

Trust Anna to skip right over “strange,” “terrifying,” and “intimidating” to land right on “beautiful.” I guess, considering the house she grew up in, Kingmakers probably feels more like home to her than it will to anybody else.

Since I grew up in a normal house with sunlight and stainless-steel appliances, I find Kingmakers just a little bit spooky.

As the wagons pull into the main courtyard, we’re met by a dozen students who look like they’re probably Seniors. They’re all neatly dressed, with their shirts tucked in, ties in place, and hair properly combed. They look cool and comfortable, and like they’re ten years older than us instead of only three.

By contrast, we tumble out of the wagons in various states of undress, sunburned and sweaty, with our hair salty and tangled from the sea breeze. The Seniors smirk at each other.

A tall black girl steps forward. She’s slim and elegant, with her hair twisted into a thick braid that hangs over her left shoulder.

“Welcome to Kingmakers,” she says coolly. “I’m Marcelline Boucher, and I’m a Senior year Accountant. This is Rowan Doss, Pippa Portnoy, Alfonso Gianni, Johnny Hale, Blake Wellwood, Grant McDonald . . .”

She points to her fellow students, listing off their names in such rapid succession that I can’t remember any of them a moment later.

“We’re here to take you to your dorms. So you can get . . . cleaned up.” She raises a disdainful eyebrow at the lot of us. “I’m going to read your names. Grab your bag and join your guide. And pay attention! I’m not going to repeat myself.”

She barks the last line at a couple of Freshmen who were whispering to each other. They snap to attention under her fiery stare.

Marcelline pulls a list out of her pocket and begins to read off our names.

Anna’s in the first group, and the smallest—there are only three female Heirs in our year, including her. She retrieves her suitcase and goes to stand beside Pippa Portnoy, a petite girl with a sly expression and thick, dark bangs hanging over her eyes.

The next two groups are Enforcers—almost all male, with a dozen students assigned to each guide. The Accountants are called next, then the Spies, and finally we’re down to the male Heirs. Marcelline reads off the names, pointlessly since we’re the only ones left:

“Bram Van Der Berg, Ares Cirillo, Erik Edman, Leo Gallo, Hedeon Gray, Valon Hoxha, Kenzo Tanaka, Jules Turgenev, Emile Girard, and Dean Yenin.”

Fucking great. I’m going to be sharing a dorm with the two most obnoxious people I’ve met so far.

At least Ares will be there, too. He gives me a fist bump as we line up next to our guide, a Polynesian guy with his hair shaved into a Mohawk and several piercings in both ears.

“I’m Johnny Hale,” he reminds us. “I’m supposed to help you get settled in. Remind you of the rules. Make sure you get places on time the first week. But I’m not your fucking babysitter, and I don’t give a shit about your problems. So follow the rules, and don’t expect me to bail you out if you don’t. Any questions that aren’t fucking stupid?”

He glares at us, challenging us to come up with a query that fits his criteria. Nobody dares to try.

“Good,” he grunts. “Let’s get going.”

He leads us across the courtyard in the direction of the towers on the northwest corner of campus. We pass through a couple of greenhouses, and then what looks like an Armory.

“Gym’s in there,” Johnny says. “That’s where your combat classes will be held, too. You can work out any time outside of class hours—it’s open all night. There’s an underground pool, too. And showers so you can clean up after.”

“Are all the dorms over here?” I ask him, wondering how far away Anna might be.

“No,” Johnny says. “They’re scattered all over. The Enforcers are in the Gatehouse. Spies in the Undercroft. Accountants over by the library. You lot will be in the Octagon Tower. The girls are separate from the boys—you’re not allowed in their rooms, so don’t get any bright ideas. There’s four guys for every girl at Kingmakers. You’re not supposed to be dating and the odds aren’t in your favor anyway. Half the girls here probably have some marriage contract lined up already, and if you get one pregnant, her family can have you castrated. So just keep that in mind.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. Bram looks green at the thought.

“We’re in here,” Johnny says, shoving through a heavy wooden door studded with metal reinforcements. The thing looks like it weighs as much as a refrigerator, but Johnny pushes it aside easily.

He’s leading us into the second-tallest of the towers on the northeast corner of campus. Unlike the others, which are cylindrical, this particular tower is indeed octagonal. Its strange shape creates odd corners in the main common room, and awkward angles for each of the dorm rooms. At least our rooms are high up with good airflow and a stunning view of the limestone cliffs.

“Two to a room,” Johnny says. “Pick your own roommate, I don’t give a fuck.”

It’s an obvious choice to go with Ares. We only have to make eye contact and grin at each other to confirm it.

I expect Bram Van Der Berg to room with his Albanian friend Valon Hoxha, but to my surprise he gives a quick upward jerk of the chin to Dean, saying, “You wanna share?”

Dean eyes him warily.

“Alright,” he says. “As long as you’re tidy.”

“Of course.” Bram nods.

They take the room down the hall from Ares and me. I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing to have both my antagonists teaming up. At least it puts them in the same place, so I can keep an eye on both of them at once.

Valon Hoxha looks disgruntled at being abandoned without so much as a second thought. He’s forced to turn sullenly to the blond Norwegian Erik Edman instead.

“You have a roommate already?” he mutters.

“Nope,” Erik says. “And I don’t snore, so you better not either.”

Jules Turgenev turns to the French-Canadian Emile Girard.

“ Serons-nous colocataires?”

“Pourquoi pas?” Emile shrugs.

That leaves the boy with the dragon tattoo, Kenzo Tanaka, to room with the sullen and silent Hedeon Gray, who I believe is from London.

Ares and I take the room at the very end of the hall. It’s the farthest walk away from the stairs, but it has the best view and hopefully will be a little quieter than the bedrooms closer to the common room.

It’s a small space with two beds on opposite sides of the room, two dressers, and no closet. No desks either—I guess we’re supposed to do our schoolwork in the library. If there even is any schoolwork. Do we write papers at Kingmakers? I have no idea.

That’s when the strangeness of this place finally hits me. I realize that I have no fucking clue what class is going to look like tomorrow. This is not a normal college. I can’t picture what we’ll be learning, or how.

“You care which bed you get?” Ares asks me.

“Nope.”

“I’ll take this one, then,” he says, throwing his backpack down on the bed set against the right-hand wall of the room.

“Suits me,” I say, flopping down on the left.

The bed is hard and narrow. My feet hang off the end.

“Well, shit,” I say, realizing how poorly I’m going to fit in this room, especially with a guy as big as Ares. “Maybe we should’ve picked smaller roommates.”

Ares laughs. “It wouldn’t help you fit on that mattress any better.”

At least the rooms are clean—the stone floor is swept, and the walls have been freshly white-washed to remove whatever scuffs or scribbles the former occupants might have left.

“Does the window open?” I ask Ares.

“Yeah,” he says, trying it. “Careful though—it’s a long way down.”

He peers through the bubbled glass down the steep walls of the tower to the courtyard below.

“When do you think we get dinner?” I say.

I skipped breakfast and they didn’t feed us anything on the boat. My stomach is growling.

“Should we ask Johnny?” Ares says.

I weigh my hunger against Johnny’s obvious irritation at being asked to care for us Freshmen in any way.

“Yeah.” I grin. “Let’s ask him. But be prepared to run if he decides that’s a stupid question.”