I was half depressed and halfway through my cup of coffee when a knock echoed through the cottage. Someone was at my door. I had no idea who it could be. All my friends were supposed to be out for the holidays.
Frowning, I dumped the rest of my coffee down the sink and left my quarters to see what was going on.
“Hey,” Rachel said when I opened the door. She held up a small wicker basket covered with a checked cloth. “How about a picnic?”
“That sounds great.” I realized I was starving, and whatever Rachel had in that basket smelled delicious. “Where to?”
“Back to the path?” she asked. “Maybe we can go another way, see something other than mountains.”
“Perfect,” I agreed. “Why’re you back so early?”
“Oh, that,” Rachel said. “Portal tickets were way less expensive today than tomorrow. I figured I’d save my parents some money.”
“Is your brother back, too?” I asked.
Rachel laughed as we headed down the hallway and shook her head.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Rafael is snowboarding with his friends at Telluride. He won’t be back until he absolutely has to be.”
“I still don’t understand your family,” I said. “If Rafael came to the School of Swords and Serpents as an initiate, why were you enrolled at the Golden Sun Academy? And why does he get a trip to snow country while you’re looking for portal bargains?”
Rachel didn’t say anything for a few moments. She stared down at her hands and the basket she held. I didn’t push her, afraid that I’d embarrassed her or made her mad. That hadn’t been my intent. I just wanted to understand how two people from the same family could be so different.
“My parents aren’t rich.” Rachel broke the silence between us as we reached the hallway that led to the path. “Rafael is here on scholarship. He also does work for the Disciples of Jade Flame. He’s like... I don’t know how to explain it. Anyway, he’s actually much better off than the rest of us. I see more of him here at School than I ever did back home.”
I hadn’t considered that I wasn’t the only student who had someone else footing the bill for their education. It felt strange to imagine Rafael and I being so much alike. We hadn’t paid for school, we were both doing things for our respective clans, and we were both on a secret payroll.
I had a dark thought about last year. Had Rafael’s clan hired him to take me out?
That didn’t seem like a very good question to ask his sister, so I pushed it away.
“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense. Maybe he can get you in with the clan, too.”
“That’s not a great idea,” Rachel said with a grimace. “I mean, yeah, I’m technically a Disciple. I don’t fit in very well with the other ones, though. My attitude doesn’t sit well with most of them.”
She trailed off, then shrugged as we stepped on the path.
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I’m part of the Shadow Phoenix clan, but they hated me last year.”
“Rafael said everyone hated you.” Rachel giggled. “It’s amazing how becoming the school champion and kicking the snot out of a hundred contenders made you so very popular.”
“Oh.” I took a fork in the path and headed toward a forested area we hadn’t visited together yet. “That’s why you’re with me.”
“With you?” Rachel said with a faint grin. “I’m with you so we can have a nice early dinner. I’m just being nice to a poor Shadow Phoenix who stayed at school over the whole winter break.”
We both laughed at that, and I felt more at ease than I had this whole year. There was something just right about hanging out with Rachel. She was nice, and sarcastic, and we had similar backgrounds. It didn’t hurt that she seemed to get more attractive by the day.
“Well, thank you for taking pity on me,” I said. “It gets lonely in my room by myself.”
“It looks like a pretty impressive room you’ve got there.” Rachel raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think anyone else gets their own lakeside cabin.”
“There are definitely perks that I’m going to miss when I’m not the champion anymore,” I said. “Then again, last summer just about did me in.”
“Here’s good,” Rachel said. We’d passed through a thin band of trees to a bluff that overlooked a rushing river. The ground was covered in a thick layer of springy moss that made a perfect place for us to sit. Rachel placed the basket on the ground, and I sat across from her.
“Let’s see,” she said. “I stole most of this from the dining hall. There’re some chicken tenders, biscuits, a little pot of honey, apples, cherries, a couple of kinds of cheeses. Oh, and this.”
She lifted a bottle of wine from the basket and offered it to me across her forearm like we were in a fancy restaurant.
“A fine vintage,” I said. “I think. I’m not much of a wine drinker.”
“Me, either,” Rachel said with a grin. “I figured this was as good a time to try it as any. Picked it up from a party during the break.”
Fortunately, the bottle had a screwtop instead of a cork, because neither of us had a corkscrew. We ate and drank, filling our bellies with food and sipping the stolen wine. It wasn’t long before my head felt fuzzy and warm, and my words slipped and slithered across my tongue when I spoke.
“Did you miss me locked up here in this big old place by yourself?” Rachel wiped wine from her lips with the back of her hand and handed the wine bottle to me.
“I wasn’t alone,” I said. “The staff were here. They’re pretty nice during the breaks. Even fixed me a Christmas ham. Or, at least, slices of a ham.”
“That’s not what I
