CORIN

  The halls of Billard Academy had been stained in a new kind of rouge.

  Corin's wound had healed into faint memory, but the ghost of it lingered on every face she passed. What had started as a necessity—a dark, bruised shade of lipstick to hide the Chairman's hand—had become a sensation. Anywhere she looked, she saw that same violent crimson: on the lower forms, the upper sixth, and even on a young literature professor who should have known better than to worship a student's trauma.

  A letter had arrived from the cosmetic house a few days prior, begging Corin to front their next campaign following an unprecedented spike in sales. She told Patrice to send a refusal.

  "Understood, Miss Clarendon."

  Patrice's voice remained steady as she looked at Corin's turned back. She had grown used to Corin not entertaining brand deal offers from a lot of companies. She did not need more money than she already had. And the Chairman would not forgive her if he saw her face in any public spaces. It was hard enough for him to see her occasionally. Being forced to look at her on billboards and on the streets would be taken as an affront.

  "Everything is set for the Gala," Patrice continued, laying the leather folders onto the desk in the private clubroom she shared with the top boys. "I just need a final signature on the security protocols and the—"

  "What do you think of him?"

  The question cut through Patrice's report. Corin didn't look up from her reflection in the darkened window.

  Patrice paused, her fingers lingering on the edge of a folder. "Of... Master Green, Miss?"

  Master Green. The title felt heavy and unearned, a title reserved for the Holder, as a rule.

  "Yes. Of Lucien."

  "He has been exemplary in his lessons, according to Mr. Heatherrow," Patrice said, falling back on the safety of data. "Lady Henrietta believes his performance at the gala will—"

  "I asked what you think, Patrice. I did not ask for a census."

  Patrice bowed her head, her posture stiffening in a show of repentance. "He has become too bold for my liking, Miss."

  "He is the Holder," Corin countered, her voice flat. "The rank demands a certain... impertinence."

  "And you are a Clarendon," Patrice replied, her gaze meeting Corin's in the reflection. "I do not think he should be so... familiar."

  It was true. The insolence Lucien had displayed in Harrowhal Hall was a fireable offense for anyone else. Corin had slapped people for less.

  "But you respect him, don't you?"

  Patrice took a second but was unable to answer.

  "I can tell." Corin said. "You call him Master Green. You never accorded the other Holders with such... admiration."

  "I'm sorry, Miss—"

  "There's no need for that." She stopped her. "I'm not mad. Although it makes me curious what makes you like him."

  "He's kind to you." Patrice muttered.

  Corin sat and began scanning the reports. "He's about to meet the Chairman. I don't need him to be kind."

  If Lucien was to sit at her father's table, he could not be a dog. He had to be a wolf.

  In years, no Holder had ever been invited to sit at the Small Table. Even Corin had spent her life watching that circle from the periphery, a spectator to the geometry of real power. But this year, the invitations had been issued in gold, for her and for Lucien. And Corin had learned that the slightest change in the Chairman's habits should always be approached with caution.

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  "Robert will be there as well," Corin continued.

  The Small Table was the Chairman's private altar, a place reserved for those he found useful. Corin would sit directly across from her father, and Robert Spencer would be seated at the Chairman's right hand. It was a staged confrontation. Her father might not believe her, but he didn't take accusations sitting down. He was placing the shark and the bait in the same cage to see who would bite first.

  "We are proceeding with the internal investigation into all of his transactions," Patrice noted, her tone professional yet alert.

  "Good. I've already bled for it once. It would be a shame not to see it through to the end."

  A sudden knock fractured the conversation. Before Patrice could reach for the handle, the door swung open. Faust Rothwell stood in the frame, looking every bit as composed as the shadows trailing behind him.

  "Give us a moment, Patrice," he said. It wasn't a request. It was a clearance of the room.

  Corin gave Patrice a subtle look of dismissal. The aide stepped out, the door clicking shut behind her, followed immediately by Faust turning the lock.

  She sank back into the leather chair, her pulse steady despite the breach of protocol. She watched him approach. Faust didn't maintain the respectful distance of the desk. He ignored the boundaries of the room entirely. He rounded the mahogany, shoved the heavy dossiers aside with a careless flick of his hand, and claimed a seat on the edge of the desk directly in front of her.

  He was close enough that she could smell his expensive, clean cologne. Whatever he was here for, he wanted no witnesses, and he wanted no escape.

  "Are you trying to make me upset?"

  "Am I crossing the line?" Faust asked, his eyes dark with a defiance that bordered on mania.

  "You know you are."

  "It was never a problem when your dog did it," he spat.

  Corin's gaze sharpened into a cold frost. The insult sounded foul coming from his lips.

  "I can call Lucien anything I wish. You can't."

  She watched him clench his fist against his thigh at the reprimand.

  "I was the Holder for years," he finally said. "And I never got an invitation to the Small Table. He does it once, and you take him to meet the Chairman?"

  So, that's what this is about.

  It was inevitable that he would blame her. He couldn't conceive of a world where a scholarship student earned that seat on his own merit—or where the Chairman had his own shadowed reasons for the invite. Corin didn't bother to correct him. She did not need to explain herself. She remained perfectly still, her eyes level with his, offering him nothing but the reflection of his own frustration.

  "You think because I'm Head Boy that I'm incapable of breaking the rules?" Rothwell leaned down, his fingers snaking out to grip her chin.

  "Remove your hand," Corin warned.

  Instead, his grip tightened. He caged her against the leather of her chair, his body a heavy weight over hers, his face inches from her lips. "You have no idea what I'm willing to do to get what I want, Clarendon."

  Being kicked down to the fifth spot in the rankings had made him pathetic. It had stripped away the golden prince veneer and left something sharp underneath. But Corin didn't scoff.

  She wanted the heirs to break.

  One by one. And she would begin with him.

  "Go. Ahead," she whispered. Each syllable was a dare, hovering against his lips.

  Rothwell's composure snapped. He snatched at her tie, his knuckles grazing her skin, and then his hand moved to her shirt. The sound of buttons ripping away echoed like screams in the quiet room. He lunged forward, his mouth inches from the curve of her neck, poised to devour—and then he stopped.

  He looked up and didn't see a trembling girl.

  Corin met his eyes, and in the silence, she saw him for exactly what he was.

  Pitiful.

  He was a base creature now, reduced to the primal delusion that he could have her—her body—by force. She remembered the nights she'd summoned him to her bed, the times she had used him as nothing more than a sedative to quiet the noise in her head.

  There is nothing Faust can take. That I haven't already given willingly.

  That winter of indifference and boredom made the heat in him leave instantly. Rothwell's hands loosened and he stumbled back.

  Corin did not cry for help. She did not slap him. She knew that silence leaves a deeper wound. She remained in her chair, exposed and distant, refusing to even cover herself. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a flinch.

  "We... are not done," he muttered, his voice cracking before he turned and stormed out.

  Patrice was just outside the door. "Out of my way," Faust growled as he shoved past her.

  She re-entered the room and stopped dead. "Miss—"

  She immediately shed her own coat, stepping forward to drape it over Corin's shoulders with a protective, practiced grace. "Did he hurt you?"

  Corin's lips curled into a sharp, lethal grin. "Do I look like the one who got hurt?"

  Patrice stood straight. She saw Rothwell's pale face. Whatever happened behind the doors, Patrice understood who had won. "I'm going to fetch you a fresh shirt."

  "Patrice." Corin's voice stopped her at the threshold. "I want our people inside Billard to mobilise."

  "All of them?" Patrice turned.

  "All of them. I want eyes on every heir. And on Lucien Green. If one of them so much as sneezes, I want a report."

  "They have begun to falter, haven't they?" Patrice asked. "The heirs moving exactly as you intended."

  Even better. A small smile touched Corin's lips, empty of warmth.

  Then she returned to the folders.