Page 51 of Spearcrest Queen

“Mm.” Alice drops her eyes towards the food, giving us both a tiny reprieve as she tilts the oyster shell to her lips, dabs her napkin against her mouth. “And did you see him?”

She doesn’t say his name—maybe she’s giving me an out should I need one. But I’ve been bleeding for six months; I know how to handle the mess of my own emotions by now.

“No,” I answer curtly. “I haven’t seen him since the gala.”

Alice’s dark eyes hold mine for a moment. The truth is that I don’t know what Alice wants to know, or why. And even though we’re only going to be in Harvard together for two more years,we’re going to know each other forever, and the world of Harvard alums is smaller than most people realise.

So Evan is a subject that stays firmly off the table. Alice, as if agreeing with this, simply nods.

“Well, since you had no distraction, what did youactuallythink of KMG?” she asks.

“It was good. Useful, fast-paced. Challenging.” I take a bite of food and glance back up at Alice. “Educational.”

“Meaning?” she prompts.

“Meaning I spent the summer watching a billion-dollar company use the law as a weapon to protect their own interests.”

“Did you expect anything else?” Alice says. “I know you’ve been paying attention in class. If you had any illusions, you’d think they’d be all decimated by now.”

I almost laugh. “It’s one thing to study the law. It’s another thing to see how it actually operates.”

Alice chews, considering me. “And?”

“And it’s Spearcrest all over again. Rules apply to some but not others, money is king and power is god.”

“Only this time,you’rethe one with power.”

I shake my head. “That doesn’t make it less corrupt.”

“The world is corrupt whether or not you win,” she says. “So why not win?”

My knife slices into my steak, pink juices oozing.

I could tell Alice that my plans for this year go beyond networking events and law review competitions. That I have debts to settle. That KMG taught me how to pick my battles—and how to win them.

But I’ve learned from people like her. People like Max. You never lay all your cards on the table. No matter how good you think your hand is. Not when the game is rigged.

Not when you’re playing to win.

25

Final Quest

Evan

Looking back, I thoughtrunning away from the US for the summer would make me feel better, as if distance, like time, could do its job and make the pain fade faster.

Just my luck: the opposite happens.

Although I start off in the UK visiting Zachary and Theodora in Oxford, we end up in the French countryside to spend the summer at the famousChâteau Montcroix.

And to be fair, the chateau is beautiful, the kind of thing you’d never see in the US, like something out of a storybook. Mornings start late, with coffee and pastries on the terrace, the stone still cool underfoot. Afternoons are slow and drowsy, spent by the pool or wandering through the vines, breathing in the smell of sun-warmed grapes.

Evenings are candlelit dinners under the plane trees, Theodora and Zachary arguing over books or classes or politics, Sev pouring expensive wine into crystal glasses, spilling it whenever his gaze lingers too long over Anaïs.

I want to be happy for them: they don’t deserve to be miserable any more than I do, and they’ve earnedtheir happiness. But watching them throughout the summer is nothing short of torture. Having to see Zachary pour Theodora her morning tea, or spotting them draped over a velvet couch, reading books with Theodora’s head resting on Zachary’s lap and his hand moving idly through her pale gold hair, or hearing Sev, wine-drunk and giddy with excitement, sneak away with Anaïs in the middle of the afternoons and return hours later, dishevelled and mischievous.

Iakov joins us for a couple of weeks, and that helps, the two of us bonded over lonely misery. We go for swims and for workouts, competing pointlessly just to feel some sort of satisfaction, or staying up late to play video games while our friends are spending their nights entangled with the women they love.

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