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“If?”

She stopped, and I turned to look at her. She smiled, and it wasn’t unkind.

“Once they know where you belong,” she said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Where. Not if.

What if they decided I didn’t belong anywhere though?

“Dinner’s at seven sharp,” Pippa said, drawing me from my thoughts. “But don’t be first, that’s gauche, and don’t sit at the High Table, that’s for professors and their guests.” She gave me a little wave and disappeared through the door.

I stood in the middle of the room and listened. Old buildings were never silent. Pipes shifted, wood creaked, wind nosed around the window. Somewhere far off, laughter rose and fell. A trunk bumped against a wall. A bell chimed once, low and sweet.

I set my duffel on the bed. Unpacking took ten minutes, which was embarrassing somehow, a whole life that fit into one drawer and half a shelf. Some shirts, two pairs of jeans, the robe still folded in academy paper, one good sweater, running shoes, socks, underwear, bras, and of course the uniforms we had to wear under the robes. I was not thrilled about that discovery. Under all of that I found the sewing kit my mother had hidden beneath a note that said, Just in case, as if just in case had not been the organizing principle of our family since I was born.

I spread the clothes out in the wardrobe at first, one shirt to each hanger, jeans folded on separate shelves, shoes placed apart, making my little amount look like a choice instead of a fact.

Then I saw what I was doing and hated myself for it, and shoved everything into one drawer. Honesty looked worse, but at least it was mine.

The robe stayed on the bed, charcoal wool, soft and heavy, and when I lifted it, it fell in a long dark sheet from my hands, the sleeves were ridiculous, and the hem was clearly built for someone who had never carried anything heavier than a family name. I put it on, and the mirror by the wardrobe showed me a girl half-swallowed by tradition, pink hair above a river of charcoal fabric, sleeves past my knuckles, the hem pooling around my boots.

Beautiful, probably, on the kind of girl it had been made for, but on me it was a trap. I lifted one foot, and the hem caught under my toe. How the hell were people supposed to walk in this thing?

Nope.

Absolutely not.

I sat on the floor, opened my mother’s sewing kit, and took four inches off the bottom before supper. I did not do a good job. The stitches were small but uneven, because I had learned mending from necessity, not patience. Still, when I stood, I could move. I could run if I had to.

The robe looked wrong now. So did I. We matched.

Supper was in a hall big enough to have weather. Long tables and high windows, candles floating in iron rings overhead because apparently fire had better manners here too. The room smelled like bread, roast meat, beeswax, and wool damp from mist. Students filled the benches in clusters that rearranged themselves according to rules I did not have.

I stood at the doorway one second too long, not long, just long enough, and heads turned. Pink hair helped, and so did the hem.

Vivienne Mallory, if I remembered her name correctly, was three tables away, her eyes dropped to the line I had cut across the robe, and her mouth went tight.

The place wasn’t like a normal cafeteria where I would have grabbed a tray and then picked out my food, no, they had servers meandering around giving out food and taking away dirty plates. With nothing to occupy my hands I walked through the room and found an empty place at the end of a far table. Three students already seated at the other end looked up. One saw me. Then the robe. Then the hem.

They stood, all together, not hurriedly and not dramatically, and simply took their plates and left. I sat down because leaving would have given them something.

A server approached with a silver dish. I reached for it. He corrected me gently, showing me how to hold my hand above the plate instead of taking the spoon myself. The spoon lifted on its own, settling roast meat and potatoes onto the china.

“Thank you,” I said.

He nodded and moved on.

I ate alone at a table meant for at least twelve people and told myself the food was good.

Which annoyingly, it was.

And that only made it worse.

After supper, I went back to my room by the longest route possible. I found myself counting things, something that I tended to do when I was feeling overwhelmed or anxious, and considering I’d never lived away from home before, it was fair to say I was both things.

There were eleven stairs from the east range entrance to the landing. Four doors between my room and the side exit. Two windows in the corridor big enough to climb through if the old latches opened. One narrow service stair Pippa had not pointed out and probably did even realize existed. I wrote all of it down in the notebook I had brought from home.

Not because I was scared. Because I was paying attention. Those were not always different things, but I preferred the second sentence.