Page 120 of Architecti
A dangerous creature, I swear it was designed by demons as a form of torture.One sent to lure you in, taunt you with possibility, with futures never meant for you.
I keep searching.Lex’s hand slides into one of mine.Bastien’s on the other side.
“Oh, my gods,” Lex whispers.
I reach the top ten students, and I still haven’t seen my name.
A swell of something warm and bubbly nestles in my chest like birthday cake and hugs from friends.My eyes sting, everything blurs.
Top five.Still my name hasn’t appeared.
4th: Silvana Danswick
Surely… not.Can I really have a chance of winning the favour next month?We’re thirty days out.But what if I’ve scored close enough…
3rd: Mercedes Midnight.
The bubbles pop.The cake turns sour, and the hugs vanish, leaving me cold.
“I knew it was too much to ask,” I say, dropping Lex and Bastien’s hands and turn my back on the scroll just as Hadrian shoves past me and sees his name next to first place.
The worst bit wasn’t Hadrian.It was…
“Listen, she’s not even going to be in your final exam.Not when it counts,” Bastien says.
“Oh, please.It all counts.And top student isn’t just top of their own subject.It’s top of everything.And Aurelia is in the top three of every fucking subject she’s taken,” I bark.
I’m going to have to study harder, longer.More hours in the library.I’ll drink more coffee, cut sleep.I don’t care what I have to do to get to the top of the student rankings.An absurd thought occurs to me that at this point, if I hadn’t already sold my soul and was trying to get it back, I’d consider selling my soul to win.
Gods.What the hell is wrong with me that I value my soul so little?Or perhaps it’s that I valued someone else so much that I’d have done anything for them andthatcost me everything.
Caring.Love.
Maybe Lucy is right, we should quit while we’re ahead.
Aurelia strides past me, her hand locked in her new girlfriend’s.She doesn’t even look at me.The pair of them are dressed beautifully, but that’s about as much of a compliment as I can muster for the bitch who stole everything from me.
She can’t win that favour.She just can’t.
The music behind us at the ball kicks up a beat as Aurelia gasps and claps her hands together behind me.It sets my teeth on edge.Lex and Bastien must notice because they sling their arms over my shoulders and drag me away.
“She’s not worth it,” Bastien says, handing me a glass of some sort of booze, which I down in one.He blinks, takes the glass and exchanges it for another, which I also down.
“Okaaay, maybe we won’t have any more of those just yet,” he says.
We stroll around the tower, doing a full loop, examining the bars and food stalls.Bastien eats enough for all of Ora City, and Lex picks at the odd thing, preferring to steal bites of Bastien’s food than actually order her own.
I’m too pissed off to eat.
A couple of students stroll past me, and I double take.Must be the booze.But I don’t recognise them, and they’re wearing uniform, tonight of all nights.
“What’s wrong?”Lex asks.
“You ever seen those two before?”
“No?”she says.“Maybe they started term late.”
“Is that a thing here?”Bastien asks.
