Page 26 of The Knight

Casually, he says, "Girls normally ask me for more expensive things, you know. Jewelry. Concert tickets. Backstage passes are a big one for those who know my mother's industry. Autographs for all the rest, who at least are familiar with my father's blockbusters. Hot chocolate is the cheapest thing any girl has ever asked of me."

I stiffen. "Are you saying that I'm cheap?"

"And implying that you're easy?" He chuckles, the sound low and dark, melting like the chocolate I'm craving. "Nothing about you is easy, Brenna Wilder. There are scorpions with less sting."

It hits me that he's been thinking of me the same way I think of him: as untrustworthy, dangerous even. All this time I thought of myself as the underdog and the Elites as the enemies I had to take down. Maybe they saw themselves as performing acts of self-defense when they did things like steal my tests and get Georgia to humiliate me in public. After all, I'm the one who poked the hornets' nest, and the reason why they stung me.

Looking at things this way is like hanging upside down and discovering a whole new way to see the world. It makes me uncomfortable, so I change the subject.

"Let's go get this hot chocolate, then," I tell Blake, wondering if this is some kind of game he's playing—or if we're playing it together. "Maybe while we drink it you can quiz me some more on calculus."

Chapter 11

As I take each of my finals, I can feel it, deep in my gut. This instinct that tells me the questions are coming easy. I know how to solve every equation in Calculus I, thanks to Blake, whose strangely gentlemanly behavior continued all week. English Language and Literature is a breeze, especially after Lukas and I absolutely aced our shared project. And though I'm bad at World History, Tanner showed me a few absolutely obnoxious mnemonic devices to use to memorize dates and names, which stuck in my head out of irritation as much as anything—an irritation that carries me through most of the multiple choice questions and makes writing an essay filled with facts far easier than I thought possible.

The last thing I have to do is turn in my final piece for Visual Art, and it's the only final I'm nervous about. Not because I don't think I'll pass it—I've got an A in this class for a reason—but because showing the class my final piece feels like opening up a vein in public.

Our teacher said to do something close to the heart, that showed off our favorite media and what we most want to depict. Art is memory, she said, and anything we put to canvas or paper will live forever.

There's only one thing I can think of that I want to have eternal life.

My hands tremble as I set my finished watercolor on my easel, its paper cover still intact. The hardboard backing is covered with little pencil scribbles I noted that are smudged here and there. Sometimes, as I worked on it, I worried that I'd forgotten so much—too much.

I don't know what caused me to choose this as my final assignment, before everything had been revealed. Maybe it was too big of a risk. But I couldn't resist the allure of doing something close to my heart.

Out of the corner of my eye I spot Cole taking a seat at an easel just to the right of me and setting a pencil drawing in place. The work on it is the best he's done, showing almost as much improvement as I've pulled off in Calculus. He's taken what could've been a simple drawing of the campus and made it complex and almost sinister. Oak trees cast sharp shadows on the buildings, the darkness filled in with dark pencil gradients, and empty doors and windows seem to suggest an absence of life. Even the way the tree branches bend in the wind feels more ominous than anything.

He's shown Coleridge for what it really is: a haunted place cast in dark shadows.

Turning towards me, Cole raises an eyebrow in my direction. "Admiring my work?"

"I didn't realize you were drawing the campus."

"This place is so near and dear to my heart." He throws me a mocking smirk. "After all, where else would I meet a girl like you?" Motioning towards my hardboard, he points out, "Yours is very modern and avant garde."

I roll my eyes at his joke. "The watercolor is underneath. I'm protecting it."

"From what?"

"Shitty boys with buckets of dirty water."

"You wound me. Here I thought our little feud was over the moment our illicit tryst began."

I stiffen. "There's no tryst. Or you and me."

"Aww. And here I was brainstorming names for our firstborn child."

He has to quiet down, thankfully, when the teacher appears at the front of the class, practically beaming. She doesn't waste any time, wanting to get right to our projects, her enthusiasm clear. I have the feeling no one here is going to fail this class—which is probably why a rich, sullen boy like Cole took it instead of something a little harder. Somehow I doubt he has a passion for art. The only thing he seems interested in is teasing people and pulling the wings off butterflies.

So it baffles me why my heart flutters every time those boy eyes flick my way. He's watching my easel, waiting for me to reveal my art. If I didn't know better I'd say he was a fan, but clearly he's just hungry for something acerbic and insulting to say.

One by one, Rainbow—our teacher's accurate name—goes down the line and selects students to stand up, face the class, and present our art. My heart does a little flip as the student right before me is called, and I count down the seconds until it's my turn, barely able to hear anything going on around me."

"Brenna." Unlike the other teachers, Rainbow hasn't treated me any differently since discovering I'm Silas Wilder's twin sister, a fact that I appreciate more than anything. "Why don't you show the class your piece."

It's now or never. There's nothing Cole can say that will ruin this moment for me—I promise myself that if nothing else. Taking a deep breath, I stand up, turn my easel to face the rest of the class, and tear the thin piece of paper covering up my watercolor to reveal what's beneath to everyone.

"This piece is calledFireflies." I blush at how literal the name is, even though there's nothing else I could have possibly called it. "It's a memory that's dear to me, and I wanted to capture it somewhere it would last."

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