WHEN THE BELL RANG for breakfast, the girls walked into the cafeteria single file, with Rowena and the nameless girl at the front, followed by Stephanie and Emily, and finally, at the rear, Sumi and Cora. Silence fell over the room, silence so deep and so unbreakable that even the sound of the oatmeal bubbling in its tureen seemed almost offensively loud.
Cora ignored the way people stared as she moved, with quick precision, to take her place in the breakfast line. Her uniform was meticulous, her tie knotted perfectly enough to make a wardrobe master weep. Her hair, sleek and shining and filled with rainbows, was pulled back with two barrettes, keeping it away from her face. There was nothing loose or fluid about her movements; she walked like she had a purpose, and like she was going to accomplish it, come hell or high water.
One of the matrons was the first to recover. She smiled at Cora—the first smile many of the girls had seen on her face—and said, “Good morning, Miss Miller. You’re looking well today.”
“I feel well today, thank you, matron,” said Cora, and even her voice was level and calm. It was the voice of someone who had considered all their options, and come to the conclusion that an early bedtime, a balanced diet, and flossing were the true keys to happiness. “I appreciate your consideration.”
The matron nodded, surprise and pleasure still written plainly on her face. “It’s always wonderful to witness someone successfully breaking through their troubles. I think you deserve a little reward, to acknowledge such a lovely morning. You may have a spoonful of brown sugar, if you’d like.”
Her expression remained pleasant, even mild. The same couldn’t be said of the other matrons in the room, whose eyes hardened as they watched Cora to see what her response was going to be.
Cora shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but my stomach is still queasy from my past few days of being unwell; it’s best if I stick with bland food for the moment.” She ladled a healthy portion of oatmeal into a bowl and placed it on her tray, offering the matron a polite smile. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
She walked to the table she shared with her dormmates, back straight and shoulders squared, and pretended not to notice the approving glances being sent in her direction, or the way some of the students were starting to whisper behind their hands.
The other girls joined her at the table, each with their bland, approved breakfast. Sumi ate her turkey bacon and eggs with small, precise bites, not looking at the plates of waffles in front of the Logic girls, or at the strawberries on Emily’s plate. Cora ate as if she thought oatmeal was the most desirable thing in the entire world, worthy of being slowly savored. When she was done, she bused her own dishes, placing them in the appropriate basins, before moving to wait by the door for the rest of the girls in her dorm to finish.
Regan watched all this out of the corner of her eye, a look of profound regret on her face. She’d known Sumi would go to solitary for the crime of hitting her, and she’d understood Sumi was taking the blame on her own shoulders to spare Regan; of the two of them, it had seemed obvious that Regan was the more fragile. She hadn’t expected them to punish Cora as well, or as harshly.
Just before the group walked out of the room, in a moment when the matrons were focused on the students who seemed more in need of their guidance and attention, Cora met Regan’s eye and winked. It was a small gesture. By the time Regan processed what it might actually mean, the girls were gone, heading for their first class.
Regan sat alone, surrounded by the girls who should have been her friends, who still had nothing to say to her after the debacle of her near-graduation, and wondered what the hell was going on.
When Cora’s group reached their assigned classroom, the matron waiting for them was one of the ones who had been responsible for Cora during her recent stay in solitary. Cora offered her the politest, blandest of smiles and sat at the front of the room, folding her hands atop the desk and looking attentively to the chalkboard, where a series of equations had been written for them to study.
“Are you well, Miss Miller?” asked the matron.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Cora. “May I answer problem two?”
The matron allowed that she could.
The class progressed according to the structure of such things, with questions being asked and answers being offered. None of the girls acted up, not even Sumi, who kept her head down and participated without causing a disruption, treating the math with the seriousness it deserved. History progressed in much the same way, as did biology.
Midway through the group’s grammar lesson, the door opened and the headmaster stepped inside. All conversation immediately stopped. Even the matron looked startled by his presence, lowering the pointer she’d been using to indicate verb conjugations on the chalkboard.
“Pardon the intrusion,” he said, a smile on his pleasant, forgettable face. “I’m here to borrow Miss Miller, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not, Headmaster,” said the matron. “Miss Miller?”
But Cora was already standing, crisp and quiet and mannerly, looking at the headmaster with the vague air of someone who was sure something interesting was about to happen, and was prepared to pay proper attention to it. She walked to his side without a word, and didn’t flinch or pull away when he settled his hand on her shoulder.
Only Emily, whose seat was at a slight angle compared to the rest of the room, noticed the way Cora’s fingers twitched, like they wanted to form fists, like they wanted to be ready to swing. She continued looking blandly forward, not betraying what she knew. This plan, haphazard and dangerous as it was, depended on every one of them playing their part. Even Rowena, who put her hand up as soon as Cora stood, waiting to be acknowledged.
“Yes, Miss Crest?” said the matron, after a moment had passed without Rowena rethinking her actions.
Rowena lowered her hand. “Will we be giving Cora time to return before we finish today’s lesson? She’s been absent from class for the better part of the week, and I’d prefer not to spend more of my leisure time than necessary helping her catch up. I have essays to write for my other classes.”
“A reasonable question,” said the headmaster, hand still resting on Cora’s shoulder. “Miss Lennox, you have permission to take your class on a nature walk. Something brisk and educational. I’ll have Miss Miller back by the time you return.”
It took most of the class a moment to realize that “Miss Lennox” was the matron. She had been teaching them periodically for months, slipping in and out of the classroom according to whatever private schedule controlled the school staff, and none of them had ever heard her name before. The matron herself looked faintly alarmed, glancing at the headmaster. He didn’t appear to notice. His attention was back on the silently, patiently waiting Cora.
“Shall we go, Miss Miller?” he asked.
Cora tilted her head, offering him a pleasant, perfectly bland smile that was rendered somehow complicated by the way her rainbow-painted hair framed her face. She looked like she was becoming someone else.
“Of course, Headmaster,” she said, and her voice was hers and wasn’t hers at the same time, steady and calm and serene.
The headmaster nodded one more time to the matron—to Miss Lennox, and knowing her name was a kind of heady, breathtaking power that most of the students hadn’t tasted in so, so long—before he turned, pulling Cora along with him, and stepped out of the room.
The hall was empty, as it always was when classes were in session, and their footsteps echoed ahead of them, like tiny sonic bursts mapping their environment. Cora kept her eyes forward, not looking at anything in particular, allowing herself to be led. The headmaster was less sanguine. He kept stealing glances at her, like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing, like he wanted to somehow change it. Like he thought he knew how.
When they reached his office, he led her inside, gestured her toward a seat, and moved to settle in his own chair, behind his sturdy oak desk. It was an imposing thing, that chair, all black leather and polished metal. It was a chair for a powerful person, for someone who made important decisions for everyone around them. It was a chair for a headmaster.
Cora was unable to fully control the small curl of her lip when she looked at it. It was a chair that would have looked lovely at the center of a bonfire. It would probably smell like bacon when it burned, and the castors in the wheels would pop and shimmer in the firelight. Cora’s expression smoothed back into pleasant neutrality at the thought. Everything could burn, if she was willing to put the effort in.
“It’s good to see you doing so well,” said the headmaster, studying Cora as he sat. If he’d seen the brief wrinkle in her serenity, he didn’t say anything. “I admit, I was concerned about you after your most recent readjustment. There was some question of whether we’d been moving too quickly with you.”
“I’ve realized that you can only help me so far before I have to help myself,” said Cora. She held up one hand, showing its complete lack of rainbows. “I’ve faced down some of my demons at last, and I’ll be ready to rejoin the world outside very soon.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not as eager to believe that as some of the matrons.”
“You’ve seen many students come and go,” said Cora. “You have reason to be suspicious when a problem child turns themselves around too quickly. I understand why you’re not going to be immediately convinced of my motivations.”
“You say all the right things,” said the headmaster. “It’s odd, for a traveler to give up on their door so quickly. Many of our students stay here until they age out of the program, and return home unsuited for normal society. Their parents are very disappointed in them.”
“My parents have always supported me,” said Cora neutrally.
“Your admission papers say that they thought you had committed suicide when you first disappeared. Do you have much experience with death, Miss Miller?”
Cora looked at him levelly. “More than I would like.” Sailors whose ships had sailed into the wrong waters, gasping out their last breath in her arms. The deep cold waters of the Moors, where the Drowned Gods had seized her fast and pulled her down, down into the depths, the unforgiving depths, where nothing was forgotten or forgiven.
The sailors had been heroes in their own stories, and the mermaids had been the monsters. But it didn’t matter who wore which label. When monsters met heroes, there were always casualties.
The headmaster might have been a hero, once. He was a monster now. There was going to be a casualty, even if he didn’t kill bodies. The only question left was which one of them was walking away.
“I’ll be frank, Miss Miller: I think you’re trying to trick me. I think your little friend from Miss West’s school came on some sort of ill-conceived rescue mission, and you think you’re going to walk away. I would like to state, in so many words, that it’s not going to happen. You will remain here until you turn eighteen, and at that point, you can choose to drop out, or you can choose to do the sensible thing for your own future, or you can choose to leave. I think you’ll find that it won’t matter if this was a trick: the door you so eagerly seek will be closed to you.”
“I understand,” said Cora. “I assure you, this isn’t a trick. I was right to come here. The rainbows are gone from my skin. My hair will change next, I’m sure, and I’ll be saved. It’s nice to play sometimes. But you can’t live your whole life running toward rainbows. Rainbows won’t feed you or clothe you or put a roof over your head. All they’ll do is shine. Lots of things can shine. I think I’d like to shine. I’ll just do it quietly.”
There was a pause as the headmaster looked at her and Cora did her best to keep breathing, to keep looking at him with calm, untroubled eyes. This was another kind of war. This was a battle, and she knew how to win battles. All too often, the trick was in refusing to be the first one to move.
Finally, the headmaster nodded. “I don’t entirely believe you yet,” he said.
“I can’t blame you for that.”
“But if, as you say, you’re willing to change your behavior, I would be delighted to welcome you back to the fellowship of humanity.” The headmaster smiled. It wasn’t the terrible smile he’d shown her during her intake, all teeth and ill intent, but it wasn’t a kind smile, either, and it only made the slightest of impression on his general air of forgettable blandness.
Cora took a careful breath. This was a gamble, and one that might have been better left for another time … but gambles were risky by nature, and if this one paid off, it might make her position substantially better. That made it worth trying.
“Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Yes, Miss Miller?”
“I can’t … I know you when I see you, but I can’t remember your face when I’m not looking directly at it. Why is that?”
And the headmaster’s smile widened.