CORIN

  Someone broke rank and thought they were above the system.

  Above Corin.

  Cruelty was never permitted inside Billard's walls unless it came from her. It was the lone exception, the only sanctioned violence. Today she would remind them what happens to those who overstep.

  She entered the corridor with the mallet dragging behind her, its wooden head knocking steadily against the polished floor. Each hollow thud ricocheted off the stone, counting down the seconds before judgment.

  She didn't rush. Corin never rushed punishment.

  The private clubroom waited at the far end, door closed, warm light spilling from the frame. She reached it, lifted the mallet behind her leg, and pushed the door open.

  All three boys were inside.

  Faust sat nearest the window, sipping tea over a stack of assignments, his glasses low on his nose as if this were any other evening. Alistair sprawled across the couch, head tipped back, making perfect smoke rings. Victor stood by the fireplace, a lollipop in his mouth, posture loose and annoyingly satisfied with himself.

  Corin didn't waste breath. She went straight for Victor.

  The crack of the mallet hitting his face tore through the room. The lollipop launched from his mouth, skittering across the floor as Victor toppled backward with a grunt.

  Faust jolted upright, nearly spilling his tea.

  Alistair sat forward, cigarette dangling between his fingers, shock breaking across his face as he instinctively put it out into the tray—like he thought he might be next.

  Victor tried to sit up, blood blooming along his lip, but Corin planted a heel square in the centre of his chest and shoved him back to the carpet.

  "Stay down." Her voice was quiet, not even winded.

  Victor wheezed. "Are you out of your bloody mind!"

  The mallet's tip pressed to his throat as she leaned in.

  "The headmaster lets you run wild because you're the current Holder. Fine. But don't forget there are rules even you can't break, Vicki."

  He sneered through the pain. "And what rules are those, you brat?"

  She pushed the mallet harder until he coughed. "Mine."

  Behind her, Rothwell was already moving. He stood, walked to the door, and locked it with a firm click, making sure no startled prefect or curious student would wander in.

  Victor let out a breathless laugh of a madman finally entertained with the situation. "I see. This is about your damn pet. He gets jumped in the bath and you think it was me?"

  Corin slid the mallet from his throat to his cheek, tapping once. "Why? Was I wrong?"

  "You're preposterous," Victor snapped, eyeing the mallet as if he wanted to bite through it. "You're bleeding me over a charity case!"

  He tried to get up again.

  Corin pushed him flat with her heel, planting him like a weed.

  "This isn't about him," she said. "This is about you cheating."

  Victor stilled. That word carried weight.

  She leaned down, eyes gleaming. "Are you so frightened that someone poor can take your ranking?"

  Victor's jaw flexed tight. A perfect hit on his pride, she could feel it.

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  "Answer me," she murmured, tapping the mallet lightly against his face. "Are you scared, Vicki?"

  Victor opened his mouth, fury ready to spill. Alistair shook his head once, warning him to keep quiet.

  For once, Victor listened.

  He shut his mouth and glared up at her, hatred radiating off him like heat from a furnace.

  Corin scoffed.

  It was the same as always with him, big threats, big talk. He loved imagining himself dangerous, but he would never risk blood on his own hands. Never throw the first punch unless someone else could take the fall.

  Cowardice, polished with privilege.

  She stepped off him and straightened her skirt. Then she handed the mallet to Alistair without looking back.

  He took it immediately, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping off her prints with the efficiency of a man who had done this sort of thing before.

  The room was silent except for Victor's panting and the soft scrape of wood against cloth.

  Corin's strike had not been impulsive, not a petty hit over suspicion. Patrice had checked the scene after her encounter with Lucien. Spotless, innocent. But even without a camera in the room, cameras lined the hall outside.

  The rewind showed her the faces of the culprits before they hid behind the black cloth. She saw the one who shook their hands and ordered the brutality. Victor had been stupid enough to think she wouldn't trace it. Stupid, arrogant, and exposed.

  He accused her of some sort of kindness—she couldn't even stomach the thought—toward Lucien.

  She didn't protect students because of sentiment, because of who they were, or how pitiful their faces looked after a beating. She protected the rules, the structure, the order that allowed them all to compete.

  Especially if they were competing for her crown and her hand.

  Still, she could not deny the sting of satisfaction. Seeing that insolent and entitled Vandercourt, look up and squirm under her heel, and feel the consequences. That was always satisfying. It was not for anyone. It was for her.

  Patrice was already waiting inside Corin's suite when she returned, hands tight behind her back, posture too careful.

  "Turn all the cameras back on," she said, shrugging off her blazer. "I'm done."

  Patrice's bow was sharp with relief. She made the call to security control at once. Corin listened to the clipped exchange, the series of confirmations, the faint static hum of technology obeying her command. Soon every hallway, every floor, would return to its state of watchfulness.

  "Would you like some tea, Miss?" Patrice asked when she ended the call.

  Corin just nodded. That small motion was enough. Patrice cleared her throat, reached for the phone again.

  "Should I check on him as well?" she asked. "Mr. Green?"

  Corin looked up slowly. The question annoyed her in a way she didn't bother hiding.

  "Why would you think I'd want that?" Her tone wasn't raised, but it slid like a blade.

  "I just thought—" Patrice began.

  Corin laughed, soft and perfectly controlled, irritation poured in something sweet. "Don't mistake my thoroughness for something else. You know me better than that."

  Patrice's mouth pressed into a line. She looked like she wanted to speak, then thought better of it.

  "What," Corin asked, watching the hesitation flicker across her face. "Say it."

  "Nothing, Ms. Clarendon. I'll check your tea downstairs."

  She left quickly. Perhaps too quickly.

  Corin rose from her seat, fingers itching with faint leftover adrenaline, and walked to the washroom. Water glided over her fingers, pale against the porcelain. A speck of red stained the cuff of her uniform. A single pinprick of Victor Vandercourt's pride.

  The memory drew a slow smile to her lips.

  But then she stilled.

  Her reflection tilted her head at her—her mother's eyes stared back, that same poise and composure. The same dangerous allure that had charmed and destroyed in equal measure.

  Corin's breath caught, barely.

  Everyone was drawn to her because of this. Boys, the faculty, even the shareholders. They all circled around Corin the way they did to her, and she let them. Because power was easier when they wanted you.

  She touched her reflection lightly, fingertips grazing the glass.

  There he was too—the other monster in her family.

  Her father.

  The Chairman.

  In the cold glare. In the appetite for control she couldn't seem to tame. In the strange, spiralling satisfaction she felt seeing Victor crumple under her heel. In the stern line of her jaw that promised she would always strike first, because she couldn't stomach being struck.

  The Clarendon blood.

  She imagined cutting her skin open and watching the cruelty slip out, dark and thick, staining the basin. She imagined digging it out with her nails, purging herself of all they'd given her. But the truth was simpler and far more merciless.

  There was no escaping it.

  It lived inside her bones, her breath, and the way she stood. She had spent years trying to carve out a version of Clarendon that was better, more human.

  And still she always ended up here—looking exactly like the people she swore she wouldn't become.

  "I should be horrified by it by now," she whispered to herself.

  Corin let her hand fall, her reflection steadying into focus again. Her smile returned—colder, clearer, yet still undeniably lovely.

  She was learning to love the monster in the glass.

  What else was she supposed to love?

  To be less than this, would be to walk into the world naked. To be less is death.

  So, she straightened her collar and lifted her chin to the reflection. She would stop treating her blood like some curse that clung to her. She would wear it and use the monster.

  Because anything gentler would never have survived being Corin Clarendon.