“Questions: Was that your bro face? Because I super don’t like it. More importantly, your Page?” I exclaim, eyes narrowing. “Like I belong to you? Your servant?”

“No!” Nick says, flushing. “Of course not. Sorry. Not that kind of Page. Here—” He fishes under his collar and draws a long silver chain up and over his head. “A medieval Page’s service was voluntary, honorable, and mutually beneficial.” He nods toward my neck. “May I?”

I eye the jewelry in his palm. “I guess.” He drapes the necklace over my hair. A heavy silver coin like the one on Sarah’s bracelet drops down to the center of my chest. I run my fingers over the engraving on the still-warm surface: a circle with an elegant diamond shape etched in the center. A line with no end, and four points stretching beyond its curves.

“Calling you ‘mine’ means I’m the one who tapped you. That my bloodline—my family and I—vouch for you, and you have our protection and blessing.” He holds a hand up to stop the question on my lips. “Later. I’ll go along with you competing for now, only while I figure out an alternative. But if we’re going to do this—and I just need to state for the record, one more time, that this is a bad idea—then we’re doing it together. You and me. And on my terms. Agreed?”

I cross my arms, but he tilts his head expectantly. “Fine.” I relent. “What ‘terms’?”

“We literally just came up with this plan, Bree, gimme a second.”

The lights above us flicker once, twice. Outside, Sarah announces that the event will begin in ten minutes. When I look back down, Nick’s eyeing me speculatively. I can’t help but feel like he’s measuring me for a coat that I’m not going to like.

“Okay. First rule…”

When we leave the room ten minutes later, there are over twenty students milling in the foyer. Some are dressed like Nick and me, in jeans and T-shirts; others wear cocktail dresses and suits. Some Pages assess me with not-so-subtle glares, while others stare at Nick, blinking twice as if he’s a heaven-sent mirage.

Nick sports an expression I’ve yet to see on him. With each step into the crowd, he becomes some new iteration of himself: a combination of the confident, warm charmer from the first time we met and… something I don’t recognize.

A curvy, short girl with wavy red hair and a tall, lanky boy with cropped brown hair approach us. Although they walk close together, they seem like polar opposites: she’s dressed in loose slacks and a paisley blouse while his jeans and wrinkled button-down shirt look like he’d plucked them from a sad pile of clothes on the floor. Interestingly, they wear matching red leather cuffs on their right wrists with identical silver coins in the center.