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If I was going to guess, Leo’s favorite thing aboutmeis probably that I don’t take shit from anybody. It feeds his desire for chaos. Plus, Leo’s a steamroller. He can’t be friends with anybody who gives in to him too easy—they’d be chewed up and spat out in his wake in a matter of days.
Bram is not nearly as amused as Leo. His top lip is curled, practically snarling at me. I can tell he wants to push this further. But the odds aren’t quite as good anymore—Leo, me, and Ares against Bram and his five buddies.
It’s Leo who speaks up first, cutting the tension.
“Why don’t you come sit with us?” he says to Ares. “I’ve never heard of—where did you say you were from?”
“Syros,” the boy says softly.
“Come educate me,” Leo says, his bright smile flashing in his lean, tanned face.
“Yeah,” Bram scoffs. “Go sit with the Americans. Maybe they’ll pay for your dinner.”
“You don’t have to pay for my dinner,” Ares says as he follows us back to our table. Glancing over where he was sitting, I can see that he only ordered a small plate of stew, and that he already ate all of it, not a bit left in the bowl. There’s no way that was enough food for a guy his size.
“We’re not gonna pay for your dinner,” I say, wanting to spare his dignity, “but you should eat some of our food. We ordered way too much.”
Sure enough, before we’ve even sat down, the waiter carries out a heavy tray full of mussels, Leo’s beef, and a half-dozen side plates of what looks like spinach pastry, marinated salad, pickled vegetables, and fragrant rice stuffed full of nuts and raisins. It smells phenomenal.
Ares sits across from me, looking awkward and embarrassed. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, lean and rangy. His skin has anolive tone, but when he looks directly at me, I see that his eyes are a surprising shade of blue-green, like a turquoise sea.
“I’m not afraid of them.” He gives a little jerk of his head back toward Bram and his friends, who are seated at their table once more, laughing and talking with obvious jeers in our direction.
“Of course not,” Leo says. “We didn’t come over to save you. Just the level of doucheyness caught our attention.”
Ares chuckles. “I was on the same flight over with them. Can’t say I was enjoying my first introduction to Kingmakers students.”
“Do you know anyone else coming?” I ask him curiously.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I barely know anybody. What Bram said is true—my family’s tiny and poor. Syros is tiny and poor. We’re mafia in name only. My father works as a tour guide. I only got accepted because the Cirillos have been going to Kingmakers since it was founded.”
“You’re one of the first ten families,” I say with interest.
“Yeah.” Ares shrugs. “The smallest and least impressive, though.”
“Who gives a fuck! That’s still cool!”
“Anna loves history,” Leo tells him. “She probably knows more about Kingmakers than the rest of us combined.”
“No, I don’t,” I correct him. “I’ve never even seen it, and I’m sure some of the other kids have.”
“Anyway, tell us more about Syros,” Leo says.
“It isn’t very interesting.” Ares takes an enormous bite out of a spinach pastry. “Just a little Greek island. Not as pretty as Mykonos or Santorini. You said you two were from Chicago?”
“Yeah.” Leo nods proudly. He loves Chicago more than any place on earth.
“Have you ever been there?” I ask Ares.
“I hadn’t even been on a plane before today,” he admits.
I can’t help laughing at that. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah.” He smiles a little. He has a nice smile—slow and warm. I think Ares is a gentle giant. I like him immediately, though I don’t know how gentleness will fare where we’re about to go.
“There must be something cool in Syros,” Leo says, spearing a huge chunk of beef and stuffing it in his mouth.
“Well, I really do have a whole farm full of goats,” Ares says. “But not for what Bram said. They’re fainting goats. If you startle them, they stiffen up like a board and keel over. It’s kind of adorable.”
