Chapter 2
2
It was a relief, when I got back to my room, to discover my roommates were elsewhere.
I lay on the bed, gritting my teeth against the pain. The Warden had laid the cane on as hard as always, and I knew I’d be in agony for days, no matter how much soothing ointment or lotion I rubbed onto my buttocks. It was nothing to be ashamed of, but… I knew everyone was going to know, by the end of the day, what happened. Unless Juliet kept it quiet… she might, I told myself. She wouldn’t want anyone to know a mere second-year student had managed to spy on her, or everyone else would start trying to spy on her too.
Bitch, I thought. It was hard to be charitable when my rear was on fire. If she hadn’t tattled to the grandmaster …
I thrust that thought out of my head. Dad had always taught me to count my blessings and I’d been lucky, very lucky, the grandmaster had come along in time to keep them from trying to wipe my memories. Or something. Juliet and Blair were too well connected for anyone’s peace of mind. They might have gotten away with accidentally wiping my mind completely or something worse, far worse. The caning was small beer, compared to what they could have done and then sworn blind it was a terrible accident. I’d live.
My thoughts ran in circles. Who would be the new supervisor? Would it be someone who understood the importance of a free press, or someone who thought I had to be kept under control for my own good? It would be an older student, I was sure. The tutors didn’t have time to spare, not when everyone was adapting to a new grandmaster and everything he brought with him. Anyone who showed they had free time by offering to supervise the broadsheet would rapidly discover they had something else to do, if they weren’t fired by a new boss who wanted to cut headcount. Dad had run a long story on a sawmill that had sacked half its workforce after the new manager had discovered half the workers didn’t do much of anything. Personally, I suspected the old manager had been a fool or blatantly corrupt.
I won’t give up, I told myself. I’ll keep writing even if they shut me down.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Dad had worked hard to send me to Whitehall. He wouldn’t be pleased if I got in trouble, even if I escaped expulsion. He’d understand the urge to write the truth — and do whatever it took to get the story — but he’d always been reluctant to let me anywhere near the less savoury aspects of his business. There had been times when he’d been late, and I’d feared he’d never come home again. How much worse would it be for a father who watched his daughter go into danger, knowing she might not come home either?
There was a sharp knock on the door. It opened a moment later. I tensed. My roommates would have just walked in, and everyone else knew to wait until they were called before opening the door. The hexes we’d put on the doorknob should have been enough to deter any of our peers or stop them in their tracks if they tried to break through the warning spells. Was it the housemother? Or… I swore under my breath as Juliet waltzed into the bedroom as though she owned the place. She was an older student. She’d probably dismantled the protections — or simply walked through them — with a flick of her wrist.
A flash of alarm shot though me as I sat up, wincing at the pain. Why was she here? The tradition was absolute. Senior students were not allowed to enter junior bedrooms without a very good excuse. She was no longer my mentor… did she want revenge? Or…
Juliet smiled at me, so sweetly I knew something was up. “I wouldn’t sit on your buttocks like that,” she commented. “It’ll just make them sorer.”
I stood, folding my hands under my breasts. Technically, I should probably curtsey to her or something, but she was the guest in my bedroom. Besides, no amount of grovelling would make up for the fact she’d caught me spying on her. Sure, she wasn’t allowed to do anything to me directly — at least not without a lot of provocation — but there were plenty of ways for her to make my life miserable if she wanted. I had rivals amongst my peers. She could give them a little extra training, then send them out to hex me. Or worse.
It was hard to keep my voice calm. “What can I do for you?”
Juliet smirked. “You can do exactly as I say,” she said. I knew what she was going to say next before the words crossed her lips. “I’m your new boss.”
I tried not to wince. Again. “You?”
“The Grandmaster felt a young and immature student such as yourself, eighteen going on eight, would benefit from the supervision of an older and wiser student,” Juliet said, not bothering to hide her glee. “Your broadsheet has potential, or so I am told, but it won’t survive the year without some supervision. I mean, really. What were you thinking when you spied on my meeting?”
I ignored the question. “What makes you think you’re qualified to supervise the broadsheet?”
Juliet shrugged. “What makes you think you’re qualified to write the broadsheet?”
“I’ve been writing since I was old enough to hold a chalk,” I said, sharply. It was true. Dad had taught me how to read and write Old Script, before Lady Emily had introduced a newer and better alphabet anyone could master. No wonder the Scribes hated her. She’d rendered them useless in the blink of an eye. “I wrote my very first story when I was a little girl and kept going, to the point I was trusted to write the annual address for my class last year. What about you?”
“I have common sense,” Juliet said, snidely. “Really, what were you thinking?”
I looked her in the eye. “I was thinking everyone needs to know how the sports captains make their decisions,” I told her, bluntly. “Why do you think they shouldn’t?”
“Everyone loves sausage,” Juliet countered. “But they don’t want to know how sausage is made.”
It was hard not to roll my eyes. I’d grown up in a small town. I might not have been a farmer or a butcher, but I’d done my fair share of cooking; and I knew how raw meat was turned into sausage. Proof, if I’d needed it, that Juliet had an aristocratic background. A commoner girl, even a wealthy one, would have basic skills drilled into her from birth by her mother. Juliet would have been taught a great deal, but cooking wouldn’t have been on the list.
My lips quirked. It was funny how many boys insisted alchemy wasn’t really cooking. How could it? Cooking was women’s work. Never mind that alchemy used the same skills as cooking, and a person with a solid understanding of cooking could produce wonders in an alchemy cauldron. They weren’t the same because if they were it would mean the men were doing women’s work…
Juliet glowered. “What’s so funny?”
“My mind was wandering,” I said. I’d have shared the joke with my roommates — it was always funny to laugh at how men would argue desperately to prove they weren’t doing women’s work — but Juliet wouldn’t see the joke. I wondered, idly, if she’d had the sense to ask for cooking lessons when she went home, after a year of alchemy. “I think…”
I took a breath. “Maybe people don’t like to think of how sausage is made” — I doubted it; slaughtering animals and preparing meat for consumption wasn’t for the faint-hearted — “but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to know.”
“And if they did, what would they do with it?” Juliet looked around the room, her lips thinning in distaste. She probably thought she was slumming by gracing our bedroom with her presence. Bitch. It wasn’t as if the room was a mess. It was just a little untidy. “The players have to be assigned to teams, and traded, in as cold and calculating a manner as possible. They cannot be allowed to influence the captains…”