Page 53 of Flickerstate

“So, what, guilt by association?” Griffin snorts. “Better they spend their money on us than…well. Anything else they might spend their money on. Like, say, political campaigns. Dr. Langmore is doing the world a favor.”

“Donors get to make demands. I’d like to know what they’re demanding.”

“She wouldn’t agree to anything shady,” Griffin says. “And you can talk all the shit you want, but her junior seminar on practical applications of nav was like—transformative for me.”

“Ah, yes,” Vik says as he spins the ball on his finger. “Her junior nav seminar. Where she gathers her twelve apostles.”

“She selects twelve juniors randomly—”

“Which is why her little favorites always end up in the seminar. You, Mirabel, Elena—”

“Little favorites?” Griffin flips Vik off, but they’re both smiling. I’m intrigued enough by the dynamic—is this what male friendship looks like, or are these two high-key weird?—that when Griffin invites me to get dinner with them, I say yes, though I’d been planning to take a meal to go and sulk somewhere private until bedtime.

Vik and I change clothes first, and Griffin waits for us, but when we walk into the dining hall thirty minutes before it closes, Bree’s still eating at a low table with Aria and Peyton, telling a boisterous story, flailing her hands around. I feel sharp guilt and jealousy and smallness, and I have to look away.

I feel even worse when Mirabel joins Griffin, Vik, and me at our bar top, impeccable in a dark green shirtdress. “Why isn’t yourteam eating together?” she asks, pulling up a chair.

“Are we required to?” I ask.

Mirabel’s eyebrows jump. “You’re the only transfers left in the trials. I’d expect you to celebrate. Besides, you and Candace are always joined at the hip.”

“We invited her to eat with us, Mir,” Vik says quietly.

“Fine,” she says.

When she walks off to the food stations, Griffin glances between me and Vik, mouth curling in amusement. “You could try being nicer.”

Vik bites into his grilled cheese, chews, and swallows. “What did I do?”

“You were fine,” I tell him. “Shecould try being nicer.”

“She’s nice to me,” Griffin says.

“So the most important person is taken care of?”

He pouts. “You say it with such sarcasm.”

“Let’s move on,” Vik says, “before you hurt his feelings.”

We’re all in Classic English Novels, and we just started a unit onDracula. Griffin claims to like it because it’s a fast read, Vik thinks it’s drivel, and I have complicated feelings. When Mirabel returns, she ends the debate: “Stoker’s tedious and sexist. I don’t care if he’s classic. Thank you; next.”

“Are we going to Zipporah’s party next Thursday?” Mirabel asks.

“Of course,” Griffin says. “It’s Vik’s party too.”

“It’s not,” Vik says.

“It’s the September Birthdays party. Your birthday is in September. Ergo, yours. You coming, Supergirl?”

“I wasn’t invited,” I say.

“It’s a birth-month party. Our whole year is invited,” Griffin says. “Academy tradition. You like dancing?”

“She doesn’t,” Mirabel says, as if that should be obvious to anyone.

She’s right. I’m not sure how she knew. Uncomfortable, I change the subject. “Do the RAs not police our partying at all?”

Griffin laughs. “Don’t wave a Solo cup around in the hall and you’ll be fine.”