“Mere moments from reaching the surface, and in a crisis of excruciating doubt, Orpheus succumbs to the temptation to glance back to see whether Eurydice is truly following.”
Click. Another image, an expression of unmistakable despair painted on Orpheus’s face at the edge of the Underworld, mad with grief.
“Orpheus has broken his bargain with the rulers of the Underworld, and so Eurydice is lost to him forever.”
The room was struck silent by this declaration. At the permanence of one moment of weakness. A prickling unease was working its way over my limbs, turning my intestines into coils of dread. Orpheus had violated the terms of his bargain. And the result was an irrevocable severing.
“Now,” Skinner said curtly, “I’m going to break you all into groups of three to discuss the crux of this story: the pivotal moment where Orpheus looks back to see if Eurydice is following him to the surface. Is their love doomed by fate, or choice? Write your responses to these questions and submit themby the end of class.” He began to assign students into groups by pointing to each of us in turn. “Penbury, Yu-Ri, and Langburg. Riordan, Abernathy, and Sterling. Sinclair, Prescott, and Farrow.”
My heart plummeted. Skinner had grouped my name with August’s. Fuck. Was there anyone on Earth with whom I wanted to discuss love and betrayal less than him? Bitterly, I wondered if this was Skinner’s plan all along. Ouverham college was small enough that even the pettiest dramas reached our teachers’ ears, and I suspected the old reptile put us together just to watch me squirm.
Everyone began shuffling about to find their groups. Resigned to my fate, I accepted a textbook from Skinner and turned my desk to face the back of the room, my eyes darting up briefly to meet August’s as he lowered himself into the chair opposite mine. I recognized the other boy in our group as Montague “Monty” Prescott. I caught a mouth full of shiny white teeth as he beamed at the pair of us. His gelled-back sandy blonde hair and sun-kissed freckles looked very out of place in the dead of winter. Another member of the old guard and a Gilded Circlite. I’d run into him once over the summer when August and I?—
No, I couldn’t afford to think about that right now. I swallowed down the memory, burying it with all the others. I needed to keep my emotions tied down as tightly as possible until I could escape this classroom. Oh, how I longed for a supply closet to hide in at this moment.
Training my features into an expression that I hoped resembled polite interest, I glanced around at my assignment partners. Under no circumstances could I betray any sign of what had happened in the Tusk only last night. August avoided catching my eye. Monty, as if determined to solidify my suspicion of his idiocy, gave the pair of us a doltish smile and bellowed, “HelloSinclair, Farrow. How the hell are you two? It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper conversation.”
I held back a grimace. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d ever had the displeasure of having a conversation with Monty Prescott, apart from that one incident I was trying to forget. Not for the first time this morning, I fought the urge to roll my eyes.
“Fine,” said August flatly. “We’re fine.”
“Tremendous!” Monty beamed, giving him a thump on the back, oblivious to the fact that August’s tone had implied the exact opposite.
For his part, August gave no indication that he planned to utter another word on the subject. Monty, however, continued grinning like he’d entered a local competition for “Ouverham’s Whitest Smile,” and, ignoring August’s palpable discomfort, he gave him a friendly chuff on the shoulder with his elbow. August winced at the contact. But Monty was not to be denied.
“Haven’t seen you on the fencing piste lately, old boy,” he remarked with another friendly thump on August’s back. “What have you been up to these days?”
What could August possibly say? Oh, not much. What with initiating myself into a cult run by Daemons who like to torture me for fun, I haven’t had much time for hobbies.
August dragged his gaze from the desk and glared at Monty. “Been busy with school,” he muttered vaguely.
“Ah,” said Monty with a slap to his tweed-clad knee. “We’re all busy, you rogue. You do look a bit pale though, Auggie. Been spending too many evenings getting cheeky at the Whale’s Rib?” He winked and gave a hearty laugh that filled the room.
It was the kind of free, open laughter that could only belong to someone who’d never once been denied anything in the whole span of their life. I could only stare at Monty, torn between disgust and amusement. How freeing it must be to be Monty Prescott, to be so blissfully incapable of receiving anything butaffability from every interaction. He was a gormless idiot, to be sure, but I almost envied him that, too.
Offering Monty a noncommittal grunt that neither confirmed nor denied his assumptions, August said, “Erm—shall we begin the assignment then?”
I dared a glance at August’s face and felt my stomach swoop as I caught him staring at me. He quickly averted his gaze.
Gwen, whose chair was back to back with mine, elbowed me sharply in the ribs.
“Ouch!” I hissed, wincing in pain. “What?”
She jerked her chin toward someone seated a few rows behind us. “Who’s that?” she whispered.
I swiveled around in my seat to see who she was talking about and my jaw fell open.
Reposed at a desk near the back corner of the room, his dark silhouette as still and perfect as if his figure were cut from marble, was Casimir. Since when had he enrolled in Skinner’s class? But there he sat, in all his staggering beauty. He surveyed the classroom with a kind of haughty boredom. As if on cue, my skin prickled over the spot where his name was tattooed on my thigh.
To my dismay, Skinner strode over to our desks, which had been pushed together in a kind of lopsided circle. “Ah,” he said. “I forgot to mention that we have a new student joining us today. If you would be so kind as to welcome him to your group…”
My stomach lurched. No. Oh no. “Oh, Mr. Wrayburn…”
This could not be happening. I wanted to bury my face in my textbook to conceal the flush creeping up my cheeks. I reminded myself that August didn’t know about the bargain between Casimir and me. With a lazy, graceful movement, Casimir pulled up a chair next to mine and sat down. I felt his piercing gaze hit the side of my face for a brief, burning moment before his eyes slid to August. My heart sank as a slow, feline smirk crept over his lips.
Oh no.
Gwen, noting my sudden intake of breath, abruptly stopped jabbing me in the ribs, but continued to hiss questions into my ear until I batted her away with a hand.