Paper Confines

ii. And I Bid You Welcome

But sore losers lost twice, and Liv had a reputation to keep. She gritted her teeth, passed a small handful of coins to Nadya (who definitely did not need them) and barely skimmed her hand to shake.

"Good game?" Amoret asked brusquely, carving a path to the front of the crowd.

Nadya's head snapped up and then her white grin widened. It hadn't taken long for the applause to die down and the bickering to begin—she inspired high wagers, and that meant bigger losses.

"You saw it?"

Amoret spared a sidelong glance at the board. "I can see how it ended."

"Landslide, wasn't it? My chessmen are ruthless."

"I can see that too." The red king writhed and clutched its broken leg for good measure. "Wonder who they get it from."

"They don't actually feel pain, you know," Nadya said with a laugh. "They're actors. Hollywood starlets. Think they're still throwing a fit that I didn't play with them all summer; that's why they're being so dramatic."

"I imagine I'd be too, in that sad little pouch you keep them in."

"Hey, I'm still looking for a good box. Quality ones are hard to come by right now, and besides, I ought to teach them a bit of humility."

"You could play with your dad, couldn't you? He likes chess."

"Muggle chess."

"And?"

Nadya rolled her eyes, perpetually narrowed and thick with lashes. "Banks, take your pureblood goggles off for a minute."

"What?"

"You try convincing a muggle stuck six years later on the revelation that magic so much as exists to play violent, animated chess with his witch daughter and tell me how you fare."

Amoret cracked a reluctant smile. "When you put it like that..."

"Exactly."

"Fine. But I did actually come over here to ask you something."

Nadya met her eyes with a crack of her neck, preemptively amused and awaiting.

"I have no intention of becoming a complete cliché any time soon, but—"

"But, you're head girl. So what have I done now?"

Amoret glanced at the dispersing crowd. "The library is for studying, as it turns out."

"Oh, Banks, you are a cliché."

"I'm studying," she amended, "and chess can be played elsewhere."

"Studying can be done elsewhere," Nadya said, slouched in the seat with her legs sprawled out and her shoulders proud, looking lordly, like she should have been on a throne instead. "Or do you intend to leave your figure permanently imprinted in that chair as a monument of your time here?"

"That chair should be grateful for its proximity to my figure. Just—clean up your mess before Gowne runs to Dippet and gets you suspended."