“This is your story?” Juliet showed, finally, the flash of anger I’d been expecting. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“Not at all.” I dug my fingernails into my palm to keep from giggling. “It is exactly what you wanted. A detailed report and analysis of everything that happened from start to finish, with some added commentary from previous games…”
Juliet glared. “You went looking up my old games?”
“I looked up every game,” I said, sweetly. “How else could I do a detailed analysis?”
“You…” Juliet caught herself. “This is absurd!”
“It is?” It was growing harder to keep from smirking. “It is precisely what you wanted, is it not?”
I went on before she could say a word. “I noted everything. I noted the missed plays. I noted every call the referee made, and the times he should have blown the whistle. I noted how Hendrix made a sweet valley pass in four of six previous games but fumbled it here so the opposing side got control of the ball and had a clear shot at the goal. I think you need to have a long talk with him, because that was an unforgivable flub…”
“And you quit playing sports the moment you could,” Juliet snarled. “What makes you think you are qualified to judge my calls?”
“I researched the game,” I said, snidely. The golden rule hadn’t been hard to figure out, even though it wasn’t written down. “Winning is everything. Anything else comes a very distant second.”
“And if you spent more time playing sports” — Juliet pointed at my belly — “you might lose some of that weight.”
I flushed. “Hey!”
Chapter 5
“Perhaps you should wear a maid’s uniform,” Aniseed suggested, the following weekend. “They’re easy to clean.”
I scowled. Telling her about my assigned punishment had been a mistake. I was a student magician, not a servant, and making me clean a suite of rooms as if I were nothing more than a common-born maid was cruel and unusual punishment. And yet, Juliet had played her cards very well. She hadn’t struck me — or sent me to the Warden, which might have landed her in hot water if the supervising tutors thought she’d overreacted — or anything that might have pushed her authority to its breaking point. I was going to be a laughingstock when the story got out and, worst of all, it had been my fault.
“I’ll wear my casuals,” I said, sourly. There were limits. If Juliet thought I was going to dress up as a maid for her, she could think again, “And you’d better report on the game too.”
“Of course.” Aniseed put on a mocking tone. “It’s the most important game since the last one.”
I nodded and stepped in front of the mirror, looking myself up and down. The rough shirt and trousers looked too big— they’d been passed down from my father — but they were decent as well as easy to clean. Juliet would make the job as dirty as possible or my name wasn’t Jane, Daughter of Gerald. I wondered, idly, just how far she’d go. It was rare for students, even seniors, to have someone else clean their rooms. They were supposed to handle it themselves. I’d only ever heard of one student having an assigned servant and that had been through finding a loophole and exploiting it mercilessly.
And the princess who had the servant was mocked relentlessly, when the rest of the school figured out what her parents had done, I reflected. If she couldn’t take care of her own room, how could she be expected to take care of anything else?
The thought mocked me as I left the room and headed to the senior dorms. It was a weekend, and the school was nearly empty, students either making their way to town or gathering in the grounds to wait for the arena to open. Juliet — damn her — had been telling everyone she expected to see them at the game, picking her words carefully to make sure it was taken as an order while giving her room to deny it if someone challenged her. I doubted anyone would. A word from her in the right — or rather the wrong — set of ears could make someone’s life a misery. Or keep them off a good sports team.
Oh, how terrible, I thought. It was hard not to dawdle. I didn’t want to get to her rooms. How many of the sporty players are going to keep playing well into adulthood?
I made a mental note to research it — it might be interesting to see what the figures actually were — as I made my way into the dorms, then down to the Captain-General’s suite. I didn’t try to fight the surge of jealousy as I looked at her door. I had to share a room with two other girls, while Juliet got three rooms all to herself…? It wasn’t fair. I would have loved some actual privacy. Aniseed and Suzie weren’t bad roommates — I’d had worse — but we were living in each other’s pockets, and clashes were inevitable. We’d all be happier with rooms of our own.
The door opened. I rolled my eyes — I hadn’t even knocked — and stepped inside, looking around with undisguised interest. Juliet had a comfortable armchair, a sofa, a large writing desk, a trunk, a private bathroom… her rooms were so far superior to mine, both at school and at home, that it took me a moment to realise she wasn’t alone. Blair and Thomas sat on the sofa, wearing their sporting outfits. They looked at me and laughed. I flushed, despite myself. I looked like a poor commoner, not a student of magic.
Juliet stood. “I see you’re dressed for the part,” she said, with a sniff. “You’ll find cleaning supplies in the bathroom, under the sink. I want every last inch of these rooms cleaned so thoroughly I can’t find a single speck of dust, or you’ll regret it.”
Blair accidentally knocked over his glass. It fell to the ground and shattered, splashing a dark red liquid everywhere. “Oops.”
“Clean that up too,” Juliet said. She didn’t try to hide her amusement. “I do trust you’ve been keeping up with your domestic spells?”
I gritted my teeth, not trusting myself to answer. I had, but admitting as much would only open me to more mockery. Domestic spells were looked down upon by almost everyone, save for the domestics themselves. It was odd — a spell to clean windows had quite a few other uses — but no one seemed interested in trying to improve their reputation. I looked around instead, trying not to wince as I noticed the mess. It looked as if Juliet hadn’t bothered to so much as wipe the tabletops, let alone mop the floors and change the bedding, in the months since she’d started her final year. I hoped she was just a slob. If that was true, she’d be in some trouble if the housemothers noticed.
And she’s left dozens of papers on the desk, I thought. Textbooks, notes, chat parchments — some primed, some still sealed — it was so messy I had no idea how she thought she could find something when she needed it. How does she plan to pass her exams?
“Perhaps you could let me borrow her, after the match.” Blair leered at me. “Seeing she’s so keen on following orders…”
“If she does a good job.” Juliet didn’t seem amused by his remark. It was probably the one thing we’d ever have in common. “If not, we will see…”