The Deepest Night

from the windows barely reached its center, thick slices of light that blinded you on and off as you passed through them and struck rainbows from the crystal pendants of the chandeliers. Table after table was laid out in orderly rows, one for each year of students. The teachers’ dais had been placed against the southern wall, where they could critique our manipulation of forks and knives without the light in their eyes.

I made my way to the tenth-year table—blinded, not; blinded, not—sailing past the usual giggles and gossip of the other students as though I couldn’t hear any of it. Seating was assigned, so I wasn’t stuck at the end of our table because I was the last to arrive, which I was. I was stuck there because that’s where Westcliffe had put me.

I took my chair next to Malinda Ashland’s. She lifted her nose in the air and reached for the teapot between us before I could, just barely managing not to whack me with her elbow.

Pretty, snooty Malinda. No doubt she secretly wondered if Westcliffe bore her some grudge, fixing me next to her.

The rest of the girls of my class were hardly more pleasant. Beatrice, Caroline, Lillian, Stella, Mittie. I’d describe them to you, but to be honest, all you truly need to know is that they were the pampered, drawling daughters of the empire’s so-called best families. On weekends they wore cashmere and chiffon and gemstones. They knew all the rules of lawn tennis and polo and would sooner curse out loud in front of their mothers than sip champagne from a sherry glass. I existed as a boundless source of scandal for them, and that was about all.

Except for Sophia, their leader. Ever since she’d started speaking to me, they’d backed off a bit.

A bit.

“Pass the bacon, please,” I said to Malinda, who ignored me.

I leaned past her for the platter. I didn’t bother to stop my elbow from knocking into her hand just as she was lifting her cup.

She let out a hiss, shaking the tea from her fingers. “Eleanore, really! Were you raised by wolves?”

“Worse,” snickered Lillian, on her other side. “Plebeians.”

“Wolves have better manners than certain humans I know.” I scraped the last few pieces of bacon onto my plate, then moved on to the scrambled eggs. “At least they share.”

“Only after the alpha has had his fill,” chimed in Sophia, at the far end of the table.

“Or hers,” I added pointedly, with a glance at her nearly empty plate.

She sent me a lazy smile. “True enough. But then, leading a pack of lesser minds can be such exhausting work. Still, someone’s got to be in charge.”

“Someone,” echoed Beatrice, pausing over her grapefruit. “Rather odd thing to say. They’re just wolves.”

Sophia never took her eyes from mine. “Pour me another cup, Bea, won’t you?”

“Of course!”

The hardest part of meals for me was figuring out how to eat as much as I wanted without attracting adult attention. In Blisshaven there had been no assigned seats, no snowy crisp tablecloths, no chinaware, no fine silver. There had been minders instead of professors, and they’d all carried wooden batons. Breakfast had been nonexistent, tea was nothing but day-old bread, and dinner was usually a thin fish stew or veggie soup or—only on Sundays—gristly bangers and mash. About once a year someone from the government would show up for a tour, I suppose to ensure we orphans weren’t wasting any of their enormous goodwill, and suddenly our boots would be patched and our clothes mended and there were apple slices to share, or crumpets, or even gingerbread.

Imagine going from that to this: Huge salvers of roasted meats, steaming in their juices. Seafood lapped in creamy rich sauces. Vegetables no longer dissolved into soup but sauteed or baked or boiled, so you could tell what they were. Fresh rolls, so fresh the insides were still warm when you tore into them. Butter and jam, white sugar and chilled milk. Whole apples, pears, persimmons. Bread pudding, iced cakes, sweet biscuits for dessert.

Every day. Every single day.

It isn’t sloth or even birth that pins the poor in their place. It’s hunger. Hunger kinks you up. Keeps your mind obsessed and your body cramped and shivering, and you dream of how lovely dying is going to be because no one ever goes to bed starving in heaven.

I added more eggs to my plate. Malinda rolled her eyes and gave a sniff.

“Look at her,” fake-whispered Lillian to Caroline, loud enough for all the table to hear. “Speaking of wolves! She bolts down her food as if it’s the very end of the world, doesn’t she?”

“As if she’s doomed never to dine again!” Caroline fake-whispered back, stirring sugar into her tea, clink-clink-clink.

I didn’t bother to respond. As far as my stomach was concerned, it might well have been my last meal. You never knew.

I was nearly a third of the way through when I heard the ominous, unmistakable rustling of organdy and the snap of high heels against stone.

Blast.

I slowed my chewing, swallowed, and lifted my gaze to find Mrs. Westcliffe standing beside my chair. I hoped like hell there weren’t any egg bits on my face.

“Miss Jones,” she said, pinch-lipped.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You will join me in my office, if you please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I cast a longing look at my unfinished breakfast.

“Now, Miss Jones.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I pushed back from the table. Westcliffe was already pacing away, so I don’t think she noticed the giggles that whipped up anew, my classmates with their hands pressed over their mouths, their eyes sparkling with malice, and Sophia real-whispering “Dooooooom” under her breath as I walked past her.

Chapter 3

When you find yourself really, truly in the thick of trouble, there’s one very important rule to remember: Never volunteer information. Just keep your mouth shut and let the others do the talking, and maybe they don’t really know anything much and you’ll get to walk away.

I’d learned that rule, and learned it well. But as I followed the ebony-clad figure of the headmistress out of the great room and down Iverson’s hallways, my thoughts were already babbling.

Oh, was I eating too quickly, ma’am? I beg your pardon! I’m ever so anxious not to be tardy to class!

Oh, did I use the fish knife to slice the butter? How careless of me! Of course I know the difference between a fish knife and a butter knife and a tea knife and a fruit knife!

Oh, did it seem I struck Malinda on purpose? Honestly, that was an accident! I had no idea she’d be thrusting her hand in front of me then, and in her defense, I don’t think she saw me at all, since her head was turned and she was talking with her mouth full to Caroline.… 

The office of the headmistress was a place no student normally wished to go, nor—if she was mannered enough or at least clever enough—would she have reason to.

I, however, was already dismally familiar with the chamber, from the lace panel curtains patterned with pansies and pearls to the vases of lilies discreetly scattered about, freshened every three days. Even the porcelain angels framing the clock on the mantelpiece smirked at me with their same familiar smirks.

You again, eh? What a shock.

I was most especially familiar with Mrs. Westcliffe’s imposing cherrywood desk (always smelling of beeswax) and the pair of baroque leather wing chairs set at precise angles before it.