9 Settling In

The room was magnificent—as magnificent a place as Terry, at least, had ever been in, including the Hotel Merview in Santa Gianna. Well, it was a suite, really. Mahogany desks and floorboards, silk curtains, sumptuous couches and pouffes and writing desks—add to this the two most beautiful bedrooms she had ever seen in her life, on either end of the main living room, as well as a balcony with incredible views, and this was paradise for both girls.

Gabriela sank onto the sofa, exhausted. She hadn't realised how tired she was from all the travelling, but it had really taken it out of her. She sighed, rubbing her eyes.

'Can you believe this?' she asked Terry. 'Can you believe—we're actually here?'

Terry followed her over to the sofa, sitting down beside her. Gabriela saw that her head was almost as much in a whirl as Gabriela's own was—neither of them were used to this sort of opulence.

Who would have thought, two days ago, that she would now be sitting in a place like this, a student at Coelis? If you had told her two days ago that Terry di Jantsa had masterminded a way to get into Coelis, the most elite school in the world, she would have said you were crazy. Terry, honestly? Terry wasn't even that good a reporter; they had never particularly gotten along back at home. Terry obviously thought she was stuck-up, and she, still more obviously, thought Terry was absolutely incompetent. But Terry was incompetent—she was always late with things, she was unreliable, sometimes she would even lie about how far she had gotten with a project. And now it was all because of Terry that she was here.

It was a turnout for the books, to be sure.

Yes, there was a lesson to be found in all this for her—don't judge people at first glance and all that. Just because you have a certain impression of someone, it doesn't mean that impression is correct. But, honestly, she had to get real with herself. How on earth did the useless Teresa di Jantsa get them here?

'No, I can't,' Terry said, answering her question and pulling her out of her reverie. 'No… I… it's just so overwhelming, you know?'

Despite herself, Gabriela felt a spike of dislike towards Terry when she said that. It wasn't as if she was not grateful to Terry or anything like that—how could she not be grateful. It was just… Terry was so annoying. Like, so annoying that she could barely stick being around her. Maybe it was just something about Terry's voice. Maybe it was something to do with the way she stuttered. Couldn't she form complete sentences? It was not that hard—honestly.

'Yes, it is,' was all she said. She had to remember: Terry was her benefactor. She was supposed to be Terry's maid. She couldn't go bossing her around the way she would like to. It'd be suspicious.

'Anyway, I know it was really cool meeting Emery and everything—I was so shocked to see her when that Coinín fellow was threatening us, I thought I was dreaming. But then when I saw Arbor and her friends—I mean, wow.'

Yes, Gabriela agreed, meeting Arbor was amazing and all that—but, more importantly, when Terry mentioned Arbor's friends, she remembered—she remembered the way Indira looked at her. The way Indira smirked. As if she had something on her.

That was because Indira did have something on her. Her blood ran cold. She only remembered now.

Indira knew she was a journalist. She remembered her from that restaurant in Debens that Dixie brought her to. She remembered her introducing herself as a journalist and Gabriela pestering her—oh, it was so embarrassing, now that Gabriela thought back on her.

In short, they were absolutely screwed.

But why hadn't Indira mentioned it there? Why hadn't she straight-up told Arbor that Gabriela was a journalist? There would have been hell to pay then. She couldn't even imagine what would have happened. But she had gotten lucky—she was damn lucky. Indira hadn't ratted her out. Indira had kept her secret. But why?

'Gabriela,' said Terry. 'Are you alright?'

More pressingly, should she tell Terry? Maybe she should. Sure, she didn't like Terry, but it was because of Terry that she was here at all. This was Terry's thing, ultimately, and she needed to tell her if something was going on that might ruin it for her. However much she hated it, however much she resented, Gabriela was the junior reporter in this situation. Terry was her superior. And the one thing Gabriela knew for certain was that you had to tell your superiors everything­—especially when it concerned things like this.

But, no, no, no. Terry—senior reporter? Terry the Incompetent? She wasn't kidding anyone. This was her project, no matter what she told Terry, and she was the senior reporter, not Terry. Definitely not Terry. She made the decisions around here—and she decided to keep this to herself. What would Terry do? Panic? She certainly wouldn't offer up any helpful solutions. This was up to Gabriela herself to fix—it was her problem. She would deal with Indira Chaudhuri. In fact, Indira Chaudhuri would learn to fear Gabriela Sica—she was a pretty tough nut, after all, and she didn't take anything from anyone, not even Arbor Dove's bestie.

'Yeah, I'm fine,' said Gabriela. 'Just thinking, you know? About… well, about everything that's happened. It's like you said. It's kind of overwhelming.'

Terry stared at her, a look of intense sympathy developing on her face. Gabriela couldn't say she reciprocated the feeling. Then Terry did something Gabriela would never have expected—she leaned in for a hug. In truth, hugging Terry di Jantsa was the last thing she wanted to do, but she couldn't exactly say no, could she?

Unfortunately, she couldn't. And she knew that.

So she leaned in to hug Terry, hoping that it wouldn't last too long.