Paper Confines

viii. Otherworld

PAPER CONFINES.
08. / Otherworld

✶

       Amoret had no intention of apologizing for what they made her. Before her letter to Hogwarts turned up, wax-sealed and glorious at her doorstep, the only survival she'd known was one with her head down and her mouth shut. Do you remember what your mother taught you? father whispered. Yes, Amoret answered. (Stick close to your sisters. Never go out alone past dark. If you defy powerful men they'll make chandeliers out of your bones. If you fight the girls with claws they'll cut you open and bleed you dry. Be kind. Always. Don't play games with the monsters in the woods—not even the pretty ones. Whatever they bargain is code. They speak in tongues. Fangs retract from dull teeth. Cyanide tastes like almonds before the poison sets in. When the Fae offer you honey, don't eat it. When the merrows beckon you to the river without asking for a meal, run. You're the meal, Etta.)

Were all the girls trained for cruelty? Amoret wanted to ask. No, she could hear her mother say. Some of them were trained to be cruel.

She steered through the corridors with Nadya's words rusting the clock in her brain. Thirty minutes until her Transfiguration exam. She'd been counting on her father's watch, loose on her wrist despite her constant charms to fix it. Now the number was embedded in her skull. It counted down fast, but Nadya's outburst had wrenched through the digits, crooked the little hand south and altered time entirely. Amoret was going to fail if she didn't get rid of her voice.

She followed a crowd of yellow-robed girls into the basement below the Great Hall, and without needing knock on the Hufflepuff door or make an attempt at their involuted entry sigil, Colette exited the common room abreast a brunet boy whose head barely reached her neck.

Colette's hair fell in perfect rolls over her shoulders. She was red-nosed with cold and bundled up in her treasured pink peacoat. At her side, the brunet boy sounded enthusiastic about the Hufflepuff versus Gryffindor game on Friday and she nodded in accord. Amoret scarcely remembered him to be named Alexander, who had spared no expense on his house pride—a canary sweater peeking out from his robes, Hufflepuff scarf tucked under his arm. Amoret assumed he either had a free period or lacked general care for his appearance. There were yellow paint stains on his breeches and she wondered momentarily if Claude was starting some sort of art movement.

Amoret found her voice squeaky when she greeted Colette at the door. "Morning."

Colette perked up at the sight of her. "Banks!"

"Morning," she said again, and was truly sick of herself.

"How are you? Did you get my last batch of tea?"

"Oh, yes. Thank you for that."

"Are you coming to the game on Friday? Me and Alex were going to arrive early for better seats. Apparently Dippet has decorated the pitch for Halloween. Very festival."

Festive, Amoret could hear Nadya correct.

"Oh, I don't know. I have a lot of studying to do..." And I've got a man from the Ministry coming Thursday who wants to interrogate me even further on the girl everyone thinks I murdered. "Anyway, I had something I wanted to ask you, if you didn't mind."

Colette furrowed her brows. "What's wrong?"

Amoret glanced between her and Alex, mouth hesitant to open as she tried to find a polite way to tell him to go away.

"Ah." Colette placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'll be right there. Just one minute?"

"'Course." Alex lent her a smile and a salute and shuffled away.