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"Look at you," Ella sneered at me. "So poised, so perfect, so much like a Du Sang."
"I know you're furious I left for boarding school instead of Queens but-"
"Do you know why Father never punished you for your decisions? Why he never raised his voice or cut you off?" Ella slammed the table with tears in her eyes. "Did you ever wonder why?"
"Why?" I asked quietly, rattled by her sudden violence.
"He punished me instead."
x
"Who are you?"
On my first day of school, I tried to not appear unapproachable but it had taken until lunch for someone to breath a word to me. Most unexpectedly it was a girl who dressed too well for a student to be the first to speak with me.
My fingers tightened slightly against my books. "Vesper."
"Camilla Vanderbilt." The corners of her eyes wrinkled upward in kindness when she heard the tightness in my voice. "I'm assuming you don't want to share your last name?"
I had forgotten how people in our tax bracket placed so much importance on last name. After all, you couldn't buy your bloodline. "You would be right assuming that, Camilla."
"Sorry, it's a reflex asking," she shrugged in acceptance to my answer, though the curiosity in her electric blue eyes never faded. "Anyway, we're all just curious of who you are."
I stowed my books away in my black sleek locker and started making my way down the hall. "Really? I didn't think anyone would notice me in such a huge place."
There were no locks on the lockers. It was the academy's not so subtle way of saying "our students are too rich to steal."
Camilla followed me and I found that I didn't mind her presence. Eyes trailed toward me but I didn't make any indication of being uncomfortable. Camilla gave me a wry smile at my surprise. "No one unimportant can transfer to Queens Academy two whole weeks late. Speaking of which, how did you get to transfer?"
"Legacy," I shrugged, trying to play off the half lie. "My parents knew people."
"Oh," Camilla nodded, but I knew she wasn't convinced. Everyone's parents knew people. "So, are you a year seven like me?"
"Yeah, I am." Though I didn't mention that I skipped a grade. The less she knew about me, the better.
The grading system was different here. The standard was four years of high school, but in the upper circles, we had seven years of education. However, when we enroll for elite schools like Yale, for example, we get enough credits to skip to third year if we didn't want to be freshman.
Honestly, colleges like Harvard were basically a guarantee for people like us.
A brief silence passed over us as we walked past several prep school students and turned through hallways, hoping she would take the hint to leave me alone. I had only one reason attending this school, and it wasn't to make friends.
However, I didn't have the heart to tell Camilla to leave.
I also couldn't help but think that she looked like Ella, the way she was before everything that happened.
Camilla broke the silence between us by remarking, "You don't have a lot to say."
I glanced at her sideways. "I didn't realize I was supposed to talk a lot."
"No, I'm sure you didn't," she rolled her eyes out of good humor, waving her perfectly manicured nails. "Anyways, the reason why I approached you was because I thought maybe you wanted to grab some lunch with me." Before I could respond, Camilla quickly added, "We don't have to sit with my friends. It can just be the two of us."
I considered her offer. To be very honest, I needed to go to the mess hall anyway but after last week's tour, I wasn't sure about my plan anymore. Camilla's offer, however, was tempting, which set my alarms off.
It was too tempting.
Camilla seemed like a nice girl, but I also knew that she was raised like I was, or at least, similarly. No one in this building did anything without an intent to gain something, and I knew that Camilla wanted to benefit off of me.
I just didn't know what.
But then again, I needed something from her. And that was insider information that the Dean could not give me.
"Sure, as long as it's just us. I don't really like a crowd." I made up some excuse and thankfully, she didn't question it.
I guess I was expecting some other dramatic confrontation like last week but there was no screaming or crying when we entered the mess hall.
The mess hall was more of a cafeteria with a wide selection of restaurant bars to choose from. It was decorated elegantly with counters serving dishes on one side and huge framed windows on the other side. The ceiling was painted in a dark Michelangelo style, never losing the school colors of black, royal sage green, and silver.
As we lined up to the several bars that offered a variety of selections, ignoring the several glances our way, I asked Camilla, "What happened to the girl from last week?"
Camilla grabbed a Mediterranean salad packaged with silver foil paper and biofriendly material when we passed the salad bar. She answered with a casual shrug, as if what happened to her wasn't that bad.
In comparison to all the scandals here, it probably wasn't.
"You mean Rosa? Her whole student cadre voted her out immediately after that happened but it didn't matter. She was already flying back towards Italy."
"What did she even do that was so bad?" Though the whole thing had been off-putting, I was very curious of what actually happened.
Camilla paused for a split second. "She messed with the wrong people. Or more specifically, she tried to become one of them."
Her words only confirmed my suspicions. This school was a pool of sharks.
"She'll be back, right?" My lips tugged down as I asked a question I already knew the answer to.
"Vesper, darling," Camilla sighed, "You have a lot to learn."
There were so many different menus that made it hard for me to choose. In the end, I grabbed a platter of dragon sushi colored like the rainbow and a thick green smoothie. Camilla asked for a sugar-free iced latte served in delicate a glass cup. We chose a table, lined with cloth, by the large windows to eat at alone, as she promised.
"So," Camilla said after taking a bite of her salad, "what cadre do you want to be in?"
Though I could really care less, I answered, "I don't really see the significance of them. Besides, I really don't know what cadre is what."
Camilla's eyes glittered and then I wondered if her motive was perhaps to influence me with biased information. "I can help you narrow down your ideal cadres right now."
"You really don't-"
"No, no, no," Camilla shook her head, cutting me off, "I insist, Vesper. Now, tell me what you like or something about yourself."
Oh hell no. "I don't really like anything."
"Come on," she urged, "there has to be something you like."
When it was clear that there was nothing I liked, Camilla sighed in exasperation, "Fine. Tell me about your family or something." She saw my expression and her lips tightened. "Fine, fine Ms. mysterious. How about we just do the process of elimination."
"Sure," I tried my green smoothie and found that it tasted really good. "This tastes really good."
"And really high in calories. Good metabolism." I could have sworn she muttered that but she perked up. "Cadres eleven to twenty are eliminated."
"Huh?" I blinked, trying to process everything. How did she eliminate fifty percent of the cadres already? "Why?"
"If all goes wrong, you can join cadre ten, which is the cadre for seventh years who don't get invited to higher cadres. By the way, cadres go by Latin numbers on paper, but you can just say the number." Camilla was all business, but her eyes trailed off to the side for some reason.
"What cadre are you?" I watched her carefully, taking in the way her laser focus was suddenly stolen away by something. Or someone.
Camilla responded, distracted, "Oh, uh, cadre-"
"Camilla," I nudged her, "Cadre?"
"Oh!" She caught herself from drifting off. "Right. I'm cadre nine."
Interesting. So she wasn't very high up there. That somehow made me more wary around her.
"What are you looking at-" I trailed off when I looked to the direction she did.
The beautiful blonde that I had seen ruin Rosa the last week was walking pass everyone to the far end of the room. She wasn't alone, with a guy just as attractive as she was, that was walking in front of her, leading them. I recognized Helen speaking to another Asian girl with striking features and very willowy hair.
"Where are they going?" I asked Camilla, feeling a sour taste on my tongue at the sight of them.
"Cadre one likes to eat with themselves," she explained to me. "They don't like outsiders."
For some reason, I felt like she was warning me.
When they started going up one of the grand curved staircases, it was clear that they were going to eat on the balcony. Since it had been empty when we came in, I had thought it was off limits. Now, it was clear that it was off limits, but not to Helen.
"There's only three people in cadre one?" I asked while realizing that Camilla wasn't the only person staring.
"Of course not," she finally looked at me, breaking from her longing gaze. "They'll join soon."
As if on cue, three tall guys entered the room with another cocoa-colored skin girl on her phone, calling someone as she made her way up the stairs quickly. The three guys took their time, laughing with each other.
"Who are they?" My eyebrow raised at Camilla, who was blushing but then turned serious.
"We call them the blue bloods."
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