“Are you even listening to me?” Two spots of colour appeared on Penny’s cheeks. “This is important.”
Nanette said nothing for a long moment, carefully planning her next move. Penny could be manipulated, but… it had to be done carefully. Manipulation was never easy, particularly when it had to last. Thankfully, Penny was a type she knew. She understood Penny. It would be a great deal harder to manipulate someone who was satisfied with their lot. Or someone like Emily. Nanette had watched Emily closely, at both Whitehall and Mountaintop, but she didn’t understand the girl. She just didn’t make sense.
“Nadine!” Penny’s voice rose. “Are you even listening to me?”
Nanette gave her a languid smile. “That’s Princess Nadine to you, commoner.”
Penny’s face flushed. She reached down in one smooth motion and removed her wooden clog, brandishing it like the weapon it was. “Bend over the bed and raise your dress,” she ordered. “Now!”
That was quick, Nanette thought. She smirked. She’d goaded others into overstepping themselves, but it normally took more effort. I must really be getting to her.
She shaped a spell in her mind, then cast it. The clog became a giant spider. Penny yelped, dropping the animal and jumping back. Nanette cancelled the spell, trying desperately to look as if she’d made a mistake. Penny would see she’d made a mistake. But would she draw the correct conclusion?
Penny swallowed, hard. “You’re… you’re better at magic than they say.”
“Yes.” Nanette tried to look as if she’d really made a mistake. “Don’t tell anyone. Please.”
She concealed her amusement as a calculating look washed across Penny’s face. The Young Head Girl — the system made a certain kind of sense, Nanette supposed — wouldn’t want to admit she couldn’t handle her roommate. She certainly hadn’t threatened to call her friends to hold Nanette down while she beat her, if only because admitting she needed help was tantamount to admitting she couldn’t handle the job. Nanette would have called her bluff and she would have been weakened still further, but she would have resented it. Instead… if she thought she knew a secret, if she thought she knew something Nanette was trying to conceal, she would use it to regain control. And she wouldn’t realise until later — much later — that the secret was effectively worthless.
“You show me proper respect in public and I’ll keep your secret to myself,” Penny said, carefully. “Agreed?”
Nanette dropped a perfect curtsy. “Agreed.”
She waited, wondering if Penny would push further. The girl had to be on very thin ice. If she really was a low-ranking aristocrat, she wouldn’t have much room for mistakes. She couldn’t afford to give the staff a reason to remove her, not when there had to be dozens of other possible candidates for the job. Or to lose face in front of the rest of the girls. Nanette had been to boarding school too. A student who lost face lost everything.
“In public,” Penny said. “You don’t have to overdo it.”
“Just keep your mouth shut,” Nanette said. “And I’ll show you all the respect you want.”
Penny nodded. “And you can help me with something else,” she said. “I need etiquette and dance lessons.”
Which you could get easily, if you were prepared to admit you needed them, Nanette thought, wryly. She felt a flicker of rueful admiration. Penny thought she had blackmail material and was moving, ruthlessly, to capitalise on it. And you think I can teach you without demanding anything in return.
“In private,” Nanette said. “Please.”
“Of course,” Penny said. She gestured to the drawer under the bed. “If you’ll have a look inside…”
Nanette opened the drawer. “Clothes,” she said, disdainfully. “They don’t suit me.”
Penny shot her a look. “Get them out,” she ordered. “And put them on the bed.”
Nanette obeyed. The outfits were black. Black dresses, black shirts, black socks, black underwear… the only thing that wasn’t black were the blazers, which were grey. She frowned as she picked through them, noting the resizing charms that had been cunningly woven into the material. The uniform reminded her a little of Mountaintop’s, but… it wasn’t quite the same.
“As a new student, you have to wear a grey blazer,” Penny said. “Everything else… it’s what you’ll wear, outside sports classes. You have the right to wear other clothes outside classroom hours, but you can lose them if you misbehave.”
“So we walk around in the nude?” Nanette raised her eyebrows. “It doesn’t seem a very good idea to me.”
“If only you were the first person to make that joke.” Penny sighed heavily. “No, if you’ll wear school uniform outside classroom hours and everyone will point and laugh and know you’re being punished. Believe me, a few hours of wearing the uniform will make you think it was designed by a sadist who wanted to punish us.”
“I saw a man get hanged, once,” Nanette said, evenly. “I saw another being stretched on the rack. And a girl being whipped bloody for adultery.”
Penny gave her a discomforted look. “Your father let you watch?”
“My father is not a very nice man,” Nanette said. In truth, she had no idea if Nadine’s father had let her watch anything. Commoners were often ordered to watch executions, just to remind them what awaited them if they dared to disobey their betters, but noblewomen were often sheltered from the harsh realities of life. “And my mother could never gainsay him.”
“Oh.” Penny shifted, uncomfortably. “I’m sorry to hear that, really.”
Not as sorry as you’re going to be, when you discover I tricked you, Nanette thought. She would have felt sorry for Penny, if she hadn’t been an aristocrat. I wonder what your superiors will make of it.
She stood and peered into the washroom. It was smaller than she’d expected, nothing more than a toilet, a shower, a charmed mirror and a washbasin. It didn’t seem large enough for an adult, really. There wasn’t even enough room to swing a cat. She rather suspected they were meant to change clothes in the bedroom itself, rather than the washroom. It wasn’t as if there was a risk of a boy walking in the door. There were no boys staying in the school.
“You’d better get changed,” Penny said. “You’re expected to wear the uniform for your first school dinner.”
Nanette shot her a sharp look. “I thought you said we’re allowed to wear other clothes outside classroom hours.”
“We are,” Penny said. “But this is your first school dinner. And you have thirty minutes to get dressed.”
“Hah,” Nanette said. She undressed rapidly, silently glad she’d taken the time to charm away the calluses on her feet. It would have given her away, if someone with a working brain had seen them. “Is there anything else I ought to know?”
“Plenty,” Penny said. “Lady Damia is strict. I heard she once turned a student into a frog and ate her. Mistress Greenstone is a man in woman’s clothes…”
Nanette looked up, sharply. “What?”
Penny coloured. “Probably not, but she’s a very masculine woman. She could pass for a man, if she tried. The rumours are… stupid.”
She waved her hand, dismissively. “There are no servants here. You’re expected to help clean this room, if only by casting cleaning spells every weekend. You may or may not be expected to do chores… junior girls are, but you’re a little older. Keep your head down and the staff might not realise you’ve skipped an important part of your education.”