Cassian

I was taught three things about the Voss family. Never trust them. Never owe them anything. And, under no circumstances, fall in love with one of them. My grandmother repeated those rules so often that, by the time I was old enough to understand what they meant, they had become as familiar as my own reflection. The Voss family had money, influence, and a rather impressive talent for making people disappear from conversations, photographs, and sometimes even entire cities. They were old money. The kind that didn't need to announce its existence because everyone already knew. And Cassian Voss was their most unpleasant achievement. I had known him since I was eleven. At twelve, he told me I was too emotional to be intelligent. At thirteen, I beat him in a national academic competition. At fourteen, he made sure everyone knew that the judges had made a mistake. At fifteen, I poured an entire glass of orange juice over his expensive school uniform. At sixteen, he got me suspended for three days. At seventeen, I made him lose the academy's most prestigious scholarship. At eighteen, he stopped pretending that he didn't hate me. I suppose I should have been grateful. Hatred, at least, was honest. The first thing I noticed when I entered the Great Hall was that the heating was still broken. The second thing I noticed was Cassian Voss. Of course. He was sitting at the centre of the Slytherin— No. That was precisely the sort of mistake I intended to avoid. He was sitting at the centre of the western dining table, surrounded by people who seemed to find his existence fascinating. His pale blond hair was perfectly styled, his white shirt immaculate, and his black jacket fitted so precisely that I suspected it had been made specifically for him. He was laughing at something one of his friends had said. Actually laughing. I stopped walking. I had known Cassian for ten years, and I could count the number of times I'd seen him laugh without being cruel to someone on one hand.