“I am not!” Mags said.

“I’ll win in three moves.”

“You will?” Mags looked at the tiles. “You little snot. I, at least, am so glad you turned Pol down, Elene,” Mags said. “But it does leave you without an escort to our party.”

Elene had abandoned the quill and buried her face in her hands. She sighed. “Do you have any idea what I wrote to him last year?” She stared at the blank paper in front of her.

“I didn’t know Pol could read,” Ilena said.

“Not Pol. My benefactor.”

“Whatever you wrote, he didn’t stop sending money, did he?” Ilena asked, ignoring her sister’s murderous glance. Ilena Drake was only fifteen, but most of the time, she seemed in pretty good control of Mags, if not her oldest sister Serah.

“He’s never stopped. Not even when I told him that we had more than enough money. But it’s not about the money, Lena,” Elene said. “Last year I told him that I was in love with him.” She couldn’t quite bear to confess that she’d smudged the ink with her own tears. “I told him I was going to call him Kylar, because Kylar’s nice and I never found out my benefactor’s name.”

“And now you do like Kylar . . . who you’ve also never talked to.”

“I’m totally hopeless. Why do I let you talk to me about boys?” Elene asked.

“Ilena can’t help but talk about Kylar,” Mags said with the air of a big sister about to pull rank. “Because she has a crush on him herself.”

“I do not!” Ilena shrieked.

“Then why’d you say so in your journal?” Mags said. Mags’s voice lilted, mimicking Ilena’s, “‘Why won’t Kylar talk more to me?’ ‘Kylar talked to me today at breakfast. He said I’m sweet. Is that good or does he still just see me as a little girl?’ It’s gross, Ilena. He’s practically our brother.”

“You wytch!” Ilena yelled. She leaped over the table and attacked Mags. Mags screamed, and Elene watched, frozen between horror and laughter.

The girls were screaming, Ilena pulling Mags’s hair and Mags starting to fight back. Elene got to her feet, figuring she’d better stop them before someone got hurt.

The door crashed open, almost blowing off its hinges, and Kylar stood there, sword in hand. The entire atmosphere of the room changed in the blink of an eye. Kylar exuded a palpable aura of danger and power. He was primal masculinity. It washed over Elene like a wave that threatened to yank her from her feet and pull her out to sea. She could hardly breathe.