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The moment we sit, I waste no time heaping my plate. I need to regain my strength and build my body back if I’m going to survive here and have any chance of escaping.

It’s a monumental effort not to lift my plate and quite literally shovel the food into my mouth.

But I force myself to take small bites. I’m no stranger to starvation.

After Mother died, Arina and I went through periods of feast and famine.

When the work was good, our stomachs were full.

When we had to go deeper into hiding from the city enforcers, the garbage was our buffet.

I’ve built myself up from nothing more times than I’d like to count. I’ll do it again now. I’ll play Kaelis’s game and keep his eyes on me and me alone. That way, they’ll never turn to the people I love.

Speaking of people I love… I scan the tables again.

I’ve looked over House Cups seven different times.

Cups was the house Arina was going to bid for and was confident she’d quickly forged enough relationships to get into.

It’d certainly suit her the best. Maybe she ended up somewhere else?

I scan the other houses, searching for her.

Nothing. I look again, as if something would’ve changed and she’d magically appear. Of course she doesn’t.

My sister isn’t here.

What. In. The. Twenty?

My fist shakes as I raise the goblet to my lips—from anger, and from the pain of the burns that still coat my hands.

The skin is beginning to peel, gnarled and nasty.

I try to wash away the taste of anger and bile with as much wine as I can tolerate without getting myself drunk.

Which isn’t much after a year of forced abstinence from the substance and a still mostly empty stomach.

But a light wine-haze might be the only thing that keeps me from marching up to the faculty’s table and grabbing Kaelis by the throat.

“You seemed tense to begin with, but the knowledge of the placements has taken it to a whole new level,” Sorza says to me from across the table in that dry, even manner of hers.

Her black eyes flick to Dristin as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Careful sitting next to her, Dristin, or I think she’ll put that knife through your throat to reduce some of the competition. ”

“I won’t hurt any of you.” Not that they’d believe it from my tone, given how agitated I am. Kaelis asked for Arina’s name in Halazar. Why, if she’s not here? Unless he’s already exacted his vengeance against her while I was kept unconscious. My blood is boiling.

“We’ll make it into houses, or not, based on our skills, not our birth,” Luren says optimistically.

Her cheeks flush easily with the slightest bit of wine, overshadowing the thin spattering of freckles on her pale skin.

“No need to be competitive beyond that. The academy is designed to reward the talented. We’ll all do our best and it’ll all work out. ”

Sorza snorts. Dristin blinks several times, as if he can’t believe those words, in that order, just came out of Luren’s mouth. I set my chin in my palm and stare at her as I take another sip of wine.

“What?” She picks up on our collective disbelief.

“Your naive optimism is refreshing.” I set down the goblet. “But it’sgoing to get you Marked at best and killed at worst if you’re not careful.”

“You don’t really think—”

I grab her shoulder and pull her close, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

“Do I think any of the people at this table would ‘accidentally’ kill you to further their own ambitions if the opportunity presented itself? In a heartbeat, Luren. A heartbeat. We’ve all killed our futures with our own bare hands just to get this far.

What makes you think anyone would have any qualms about ending you? ”

“Was that necessary?” Kel frowns as I lean away.

“It was if she wants to survive.” I finish up the last few bites of my meal as Luren stares listlessly at her plate.

She’s going to find out what this place is like, sooner or later.

It’s kinder if I’m the one to tell her. I’m sure she doesn’t see it that way…

not yet, at least. But she will at the first opportunity that the deck is shuffled and none of the cards come up for her.

I pat her shoulder as I stand, giving her the same advice I was telling myself the entire time. “Eat up. You’ll need your strength.”

“Where are you going?” Sorza asks.

“To meet my fellow students.”

“ Fellow students,” she mutters under her breath, with a snort at my hubris.

I’m the first to make my way from the center tables, so I can feel all the initiates’ and students’ eyes on me as I head toward House Cups. There are stares all around, none particularly warm, and more than a few whispers.

“Isn’t she bold?”

“She’s the one who killed her paramour, no?”

“A long-lost noble, a secret lover…”

“Is the prince truly engaged to her ?”

“Couldn’t be.”

“He said it himself. Are you calling the prince a liar?”

“Clan Star…Liam…”

I fight to keep my head from jerking in the direction of the sound of his name.

They could’ve just heard it from the future I sacrificed, but I doubt it.

It was said with such familiarity. Of course someone here would know him.

Most students are nobles, after all. I keep my head higher and my pace even—my focus solely on the man who spoke for House Cups.

There’s a good shot he’d know what happened to Arina.

If he is King this year, it’s likely he was Knight or Page last year.

My sister wouldn’t mention too many people by name whenever she’d speak of her time in the academy—at least from what little I was able to hear about the school from her before I was taken to Halazar.

So I can’t be sure. But I know she was forging relationships with those in Cups to try and secure a spot, so he’s a safe bet.

As I draw closer, I can make out a glassy, circular pin with a crown and an embellished Minor Arcana cup upon it, just like Arina described. Three others wear similar pins, each crown slightly different in shape to denote their position.

The four royals of the house.

They’re not actually royals; they have no relation to the Oricalis family.

But Arina explained them as “royals of the academy.” They represent the nobility of each Minor suit—Page, Knight, Queen, and King.

The Page and Knight are second years. The King and Queen are third years.

All are the top of their class and exemplars of the cards they are said to represent.

“Hello, Clara Redwin of Clan Hermit.” The man uses the same friendly tone as before. As though nothing has ever bothered him in his life. The go-with-the-flow nonchalance suits a King of Cups. “To what do we owe the pleasure of being the first house you would seek out?”

“I was wondering if perhaps I might impose upon you to take a turn about the room with me?” The music is picking up once more.

The student performers have finished their meals.

Dancing around the bonfires will surely follow soon, as is customary during the night of the Fire Festival.

I’m sure just about everyone else will want to dance with the third-year King, especially the men and women of his house currently side-eyeing me.

“There are many plants here that I have never encountered before, as I’ve spent most of my days among the cobblestone and iron of Eclipse City. ”

“If it is plants you seek to learn of, then perhaps a Coin would be a better escort?” Coins are associated with the element of earth.

“Perhaps I wish for your company,” I say directly, adding a flirtatious note.

“As forthwith as a Sword and as bold as a Wand.” There’s a subtext to the remark: not one of us Cups. But I’m not bothered.

If I were forced to pick a house—which I suppose I will be—it would not be Cups.

Arina was a Cup at heart. She could take one look at someone and know exactly what was wrong, and exactly what they needed to hear.

Or how to break them from the inside out.

The woman could talk her way out of Halazar if she needed to.

“I have been told such boldness can be appealing to a Cup,” I say.

“By whom?”

“A good authority. Though, you are welcome to prove me wrong.”

There’s a glint of amusement in his warm brown eyes. He stands.

“Myrion, you can’t be serious,” the Queen at his left whispers.

“She is a guest in our home, Orielle. Let’s not be rude.” A guest. Not yet one of them. Something I doubt they will let me forget over the next year.

Orielle forces a smile. “Yes, of course.”

Myrion rounds the table toward the opening that splits it from House Swords; I mirror his movement on the opposite side, meeting him in the gap, positioning the unburnt side of my face to him.

If he notices the injuries, he says nothing of them.

Myrion holds out his elbow. I can feel everyone still watching me as I take it.

The moment I do, it’s like the rest of them have been given permission to make their moves. The other initiates stand and head to each of the house tables to strike up conversations. The music picks up in earnest, and Myrion guides me to a nearby pyre.

I’ve no doubt that he’ll give me just a singular turn of the room, so I waste no time. “I am curious, are there any reasons a student could be Marked and cast out?”

“What an interesting question to lead with.” He studies me through his thick black lashes.

“Initiates, of course, can be Marked should they fail at any point in their first year.” My sister wouldn’t have failed, of that I’m certain.

“But initiates aren’t carelessly cast out.

And, once aninitiate is accepted and becomes a student, the only way they wouldbe cast out is if they were removed by the headmaster himself.

Arcanists within the academy are solely under the purview of Prince Kaelis. ”