It was hard to blame her.
She turned to Angela again, smiling in that gentle way.
No. Sophia was prettier than the doll. Just as quiet, but definitely prettier.
“Will you be trying to kill yourself today?” she said, her tone matter-of-fact.
The words were like a sharp knife, cutting through Angela’s leftover dreams. All too quickly the dazzling stairway, the light, even her beautiful angel, seemed like ridiculous details. So wrong in such a dreary world.
Angela sank back into the sheets, her skin sticky from the humidity. Winter couldn’t come fast enough. “I don’t think so,” she said after a minute had passed. “There are a few things I have to do around here first.”
“Oh? I was hoping you would say that.” Sophia left the bed and glided over to Angela’s desk, picking up a folder stuffed with papers, one of them Stephanie’s sorority invitation. But instead she pulled out a letter printed with font in an expensive signature-style script. The school seal had been embossed in gold leaf at the top, its large Tree glittering beneath the wall sconce that guttered above Angela’s desk. Most of the dorm’s chandelier candles had already melted to stumps, their wicks burned into little ash piles. “Today is the official introductory ceremony for incoming students. I was afraid I’d be attending it alone, but perhaps we can go together?”
She looked back to Angela, hopeful.
“Do the novices attend?”
“They preside.”
Angela kept silent for a little while, listening to the creaks and groans of the attic floorboards. Now that Sophia had moved upstairs, the lower levels of the mansion were cavernously empty. Any leftover noise probably came from the wood, expanding or contracting in the wet weather.
Probably.
“I guess I’ll go,” she said at last. “My classes don’t start until tomorrow anyway. It would be better than wandering around the city with nothing to do.”
“Wandering in Luz alone”—Sophia was staring out the window again—“is not recommended, you know.”
“Because of the serial killer?”
Sophia put the folder back on the desk. “There are less sensational ways to die on this island. More people fall through the ocean grates on the city’s lowest tiers, or ignore the signs near the bridges and topple into chasms when the lamps are close to burning out. Of course, that’s in the areas without electricity. Most of the Academy streets have lamps with bulbs.”
“They should set up fences around the chasms. Barbed wire would keep people out.”
“Not everyone is afraid of barbed wire.” Sophia shook her head, curls bouncing. “Some even think of it as an invitation.”
“True. I know I certainly would.”
It was just her luck that drowning never worked out. She’d likely take all that trouble to jump, then merely float in the chill sea until somebody fished her out, her brain slipping in and out of unconsciousness. The air would be salty and thick with brine, but not suffocating or foul enough to murder her. She might as well stay in the bedroom, pretending that she’d already gone through the process.
Angela sniffed, wrinkling her nose.
A sour odor seeped throughout the dorm.
It had to be the blood. Blood on the broken knife in the trash bin. Blood staining the blouse she’d thrown on top of it. But mostly the smell of blood from that damned rat lying outside the door. Nina had left, and Angela still hadn’t bothered to dispose of the corpse, hoping that the cat would do it for her and lick up any remnants. She slid out of bed, looking for the towel she’d dropped next to the dresser the other night. Her floor-length pajamas thankfully hid the scars on her arms and legs, but the lace scratched at her feet when she walked, irritating new, tender skin. “Let me get rid of this rat outside, and I’ll get dressed. If we’re going to go to the ceremony, we should get there early. I’d like to find a seat where I can see but not be seen.”
“Oh, the rat?” Sophia said over her shoulder. She busied herself making the bed, straightening its silver-and-red comforter. “It’s gone. Since very early this morning.”
“Really?” Angela dropped the towel, immediately aiming for her dresser where she kept her tights and arm gloves. Those would—absolutely had to—go on first. “Thanks. I don’t like dead animals, especially throwing them out. I’m always afraid of contracting mites.”
Not a virus, though. Or bacteria. Angela, very disappointingly, couldn’t get sick.
Even when she deliberately tried.
“Oh, no, I didn’t touch it.”
Angela tugged open her bureau doors, grasping another blouse with the opulent Tree symbol. Her black-and-red skirt hung next to it, the gold buttons near the pocket snatching at the light. “So the cat came back sometime before this morning?”