Page 57

It’s three days before Luren returns to classes.

When she does, she doesn’t say a word to anyone.

She just appears at her desk for inking one morning.

Silent and studious. I don’t miss how the other students regard her warily, their too-loud whispers asking, “What’s the point of inking if your cards reverse on you?

” I silence them with a scathing stare. Luren doesn’t even look up.

When I try to approach her after class ends, she quickly flees.

Later, at dinner, Sorza stares at the two empty chairs beside me and asks, “Did you see her at all this afternoon?”

“No.” I don’t have to ask who she’s referring to.

“Me, neither.” Dristin sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Probably for the best that she’s making herself scarce, though. I heard some people celebrating that not one but two initiates were out of the running, since Luren’s now ‘basically comatose.’?”

“Bastards,” Sorza murmurs under her breath.

I’m inclined to agree with Sorza. Whoever said that was lucky it was Dristin who overheard and not me. “We should find her.” I stand.

The other two readily abandon their meals. Together we make our way to the dormitories. Luren’s room is easy to find—all our names are plastered on the doors. But my heart sinks when I see the placards.

Kel’s name is underneath hers.

I exchange a look with the other two, then knock, but there’s no answer. So I open the door without an invitation. There are two trunks, one next to each of the beds. Luren sits on the edge of her bed, in the dark, staring out her window. She doesn’t acknowledge us. Doesn’t even move as I approach.

Her eyes are red and puffy, but her cheeks are dry. I imagine she’s cried out every tear she had and then some. I know all too well how it feels.

Luren still doesn’t move as I sit next to her. Sorza sits on her opposite side. Dristin closes the door and then leans against the wardrobe.

“I thought it’d be easier if our things were packed.” Luren’s voice is void of all emotion. “Though, the staff still hasn’t come to take her things back to her family. I—” She chokes on her words. “I wrote a letter explaining what happened. They deserve to know.”

Over the months, getting to know the two of them, I learned that my initial suspicions had been right: Luren and Kel grew up together. I saw them practically finishing each other’s sentences. I can only imagine what the letter in Kel’s trunk contains.

“Where are you going?” I ask softly.

“To the mills.”

“Luren…” Sorza is at a loss for words.

A bitter smile crosses Luren’s lips. One of resignation. Her eyes flutter closed. “My magic turned on me. I know what happens to Arcanists who have a card reverse…You can’t be trusted to live, otherwise you might cause something like Clan Hermit.”

“Clan Hermit was because of Prince—” Sorza stops herself, eyes darting to me, as if she’s afraid of my opinion of the prince.

Like I don’t already know what’s said about him.

Still, now isn’t the time to get into it, so I don’t correct or interject, allowing her to say, “No one knows what happened to Clan Hermit. Not really.”

“First it’s one card, then many.” Luren sighs. “Once your magic turns sour, it never goes back.”

“That’s not true,” I insist.

“Clara’s right. Arcanists are too valuable for the clans to lose them due to one mistake,” Dristin says matter-of-factly. “They’re not going to kill you for a single error; it has to be repeated. And there are many stories of an Arcanist only having one card turn on them.”

Luren finally moves. Her head turns slowly, almost mechanically, as she looks back to Dristin. Never have I seen her expression so cold. “This was more than a ‘mistake.’ Kel is dead.”

A heavy silence crosses through the room at the last word.

“Still, you can’t give up.” Sorza is the one with the bravery to speak first. “Don’t just hand them your wrist and walk to the mill.”

“What does it matter?” Luren turns to her. “No house will want me now. I’m heading to the mills no matter what: It will be either now, of my own volition, or later, when I don’t get a coin on All Coins Day. I might as well take the Mark and be done with it.”

“You have power that you can use. You passed the Arcanum Chalice,” Sorza says optimistically.

Luren hangs her head. “Only because I cheated.”

The three of us share a confused look. I’m the one to say what we’re all thinking. “It’s impossible to cheat for the Chalice; you had to conquer it by your own merits.”

“Not true,” Luren objects. “I managed to get my hands on a deck and gave myself a few readings before I came to the academy.”

“Where’d you get the deck from? You shouldn’t have had access,” Dristin asks. The noble, ever the stickler for rules.

“I worked at a club in Eclipse City for part of the year. They did readings there for the nobility.”

“Reading for yourself would’ve been illegal.” Dristin frowns.

“What’s done is done, and unless you intend to report her to the enforcers…” I let the statement hover, looking pointedly at Dristin.

“Of course not!” He seems aghast at even the suggestion, which I’m relieved to see. “I’d never do that to Luren. I only meant it’s surprising…” He glances away, adjusting his glasses.

“What was the club’s name?” I ask Luren out of curiosity.

“The Fatefinders Club,” she answers. I should’ve guessed.

“The nobility would talk as if I wasn’t there about everything, including things not meant for my ears.

Even the students who would come in on winter break.

Especially if I kept their cups full and my tits out.

” There’s a side to Luren I never imagined.

I’d applaud the boldness but now isn’t the time.

“You learned about the Fire Festival test from the students and nobles—so you did a reading for it,” I surmise.

“I’m still not entirely following,” Sorza says. “How did giving yourself some readings help you ‘cheat’ the Chalice? Readings are only what can be, not what will be. At best you had a rough idea, but that’s a far cry from cheating. ”

“Think about the theory behind reading: A really good reading is what is most likely to be, should circumstances not fundamentally change.” Luren’s voice is monotone.

But at least reciting fact is keeping her talking.

“And there weren’t many ways my circumstances would fundamentally change before the Arcanum Chalice.

We’re all shepherded in together in one identical procession and presented with the same script and the same choices.

The cards I picked during the Fire Festival were as much up to fate as the reading I did beforehand—there’s nothing that could happen that would cause the cards I drew to change.

So I knew what cards would be presented before me at the Chalice well in advance and which one would probably be the easiest to face. ”

Her skirts. Realization hits me. That was why she undid them. Why she pretended like she didn’t know what was going to happen and seemed uninterested in what I had to say. She didn’t want to risk altering her fate by doing even one thing differently.

“Luren…You are brilliant, ” I breathe.

“If I was brilliant, I would’ve told Kel I foresaw her death.

” She hangs her head and draws a shuddering breath.

Tears still refuse to fall. “I tried to change it. Even when I knew she wouldn’t want to trust you all, I tried to force it.

To do everything possible to deviate from what I saw in the cards.

But…what I saw ultimately came to pass.”

Luren is two for two. Two readings where what she foresaw became reality, identical to how the cards said. At that rate, she might be as good of a reader as Arina.

I reach for her hand, taking it in both of mine and squeezing tightly. This draws her eyes to mine. “Luren, listen to me, you are a rare talent. You cannot go to the mills.”

“But—”

“We are going to make sure people see your gift at All Coins Day.” My conviction is partly selfish.

I need this ability. Desperately. Arina would always give readings before our operations.

The one time I didn’t heed her warnings was the time I got caught.

With Arina missing, this is one key area that the club is lacking before our operation on All Coins Day.

I might not be inducting Luren into the Starcrossed Club anytime soon.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t make use of this ability…

and it’d be good for Luren, too. She needs to keep moving forward.

“You can make it through All Coins Day with reading alone, and then we’ll all train for the Three of Swords Trials together—we’ll do even more than we’re doing now.

There’s plenty of time before winter. We will make sure you stay. ”

“Why should I have time here in the academy and a chance at a better life when Kel cannot?” she whispers.

“ Because Kel cannot, you should have it.” I hold her hand tighter still, as if I’m her sole lifeline.

I look at her and see the outline of my sister.

Of us clutching each other with viselike grips, vowing that we will not die until Mother’s killer is brought to justice.

Sometimes the living must breathe because the dead cannot. “Do it for her. Live for her.”

Luren’s eyes shine in the moonlight. I wonder if she sees me—the real me underneath all of Kaelis’s expensive fabrics and makeup. The me that has been dirty and scrappy and hungry, surviving only on determination. The type of person that she needs to be now, too. “You really think I can do it?”

“Unequivocally.” I nod, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Luren leans on me. “I owe you. All of you.”

“We’re all helping each other survive this place,” I say, surprised at how sincere it is. “You owe us nothing, because you help to us, too. More so…you’re a friend.”