Page 41 of Winterveil

A: Yes.

Q: So what you’re telling me is that you were able to buy and sell shares with such strategic precision and market intuition that you amassed nearly ten million dollars in profit? By reading the Wall Street Journal?

A: Yes.

Q: You sat alone at lunch every day and read the Wall Street Journal.

A: Yes.

Fourteen

Spring 2037

Rural Virginia

Following the simulation, Klaudia found it even more difficult than usual to sleep. She had won her match, and rather easily, too—another victory for her, another loss for Carter, yet another guarantee he would not outpace her.

But it wasn’t Carter she was worried about now. It was Julian.

She had been naive to write him off in the beginning, to think that his name and privilege would work against him. Even if Julian were half the preening idiot she sometimes wished him to be, it wouldn’t make a difference. No matter how hard she worked or how clever she proved herself, she would never be a man, the heir to an American dynasty, blond and pretty. The scandal had dulled his shine, but it hadn’t blunted his mind. He was smarter than she thought, hidden behind all that arrogance and vanity. Being around him felt like standing on a thin surface of ice: the cracks forming beneath her feet made her pulse race, but in a way that was as thrilling as it was terrifying. Yet the knowledge that Julian Joyce-Young III could move her to such extremes was galling.

She still had two trump cards: the fact that she’d seen him crying, and the fact that she’d helped him win his simulation. But she didn’t want to play by winning dirty; she didn’t want to be like Carter. To lower herself would be almost worse than losing outright. Her reputation depended on the fact that she never had to sink to her opponents’ level.

Klaudia was growing increasingly worried about how she was perceived. Despite his initial attitude, Julian was as popular at Valeran as anyone would expect someone with his looks and pedigree to be. He could be confoundingly articulate, charming, and social—more things that Klaudia could never be. In efforts to keep herself safe and above her peers, she may have doomed herself by alienating them.

Her position, seemingly favorable from the outside, suddenly felt frighteningly unwinnable.

Thymos provided her with another outlet. When Mikhail had described his game as “orders of magnitude more complex than chess,” he hadn’t been overselling himself.

He had created more than one hundred characters, which he called pieces, another homage to chess. Each player built a team of six, customizing their pieces by adding points to certain statistics and equipping them with certain items. Each piece had its own unique ability and spread of statistics. There was also a type matchup chart and field effects like weather and terrain to consider.

As Klaudia built her team and tested it against the AI, she would have felt significantly more at ease if she hadn’t been able to see Julian online, too. The green check mark beside his name pulsed every time she opened the game. Whatever he was building, he was spending at least as much time on it as she was.

She was adjusting the speed stat of one of her pieces when there was a knock on her dorm room door.

“I’m kidnapping you,” said Jane, when Klaudia opened the door to see her in the threshold.

“That’s illegal.”

“I don’t care. This is ridiculous. I’ve hardly seen you this week. Have you even eaten?” When Klaudia didn’t reply, Jane let out an exasperated breath. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Too weary to argue, Klaudia allowed herself to be led to the dining hall. The sunlight was surprisingly vivid for a morning in April, and she had to raise a hand to shield her eyes.

Pausing briefly on the tree-lined path, Klaudia said, “I assume we’re meeting Mikhail.”

“Yes. And Julian.”

Klaudia tried to keep her tone casual. “They’ve gotten to be very good friends.”

“It’s fine, Klaudia,” Jane said. “I know there was some drama at first, but he’s not all high-and-mighty. And he’s not going to claw the number-one spot from you.”

Her stomach clenched. She hated that her discomposure was so obvious.

“He seems quite determined to do so,” she said, after a moment.

“He just wants the weekend furlough.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed he’d be so eager to return to a city that despises him.”