Private (Private 1)

which stood a dozen white candles of all shapes and sizes. Their desks Ariana. I was half pleased, half miserable to see them.

were twice the size of those in Bradwell, and they had double dressers.

“What? You haven’t even started yet?” Noelle asked, raising an

“It’s not my fault God gave me a photographic memory,” Taylor

eyebrow.

said. “Do you know what percentage of the population has a photo-

“We were waiting for you,” Taylor said.

graphic memory?” she asked me.

Okay. This was sounding more and more frightening.

166

K A T E B R I A N

P R I V A T E

167

“How thoughtful,” Ariana said.

Kiran snorted. “We noticed.”

She walked over to a pair of double doors and slid them open.

“You don’t have to take anything,” Ariana said, sitting on the

“Reed Brennan, welcome to your reward,” Kiran said.

end of Kiran’s bed. “But just try some things on. You might like My eyes widened. The closet was bigger than any I had ever

them. You never know.”

seen, and filled from end to end with lush sweaters, shimmering I was touched by their offer even as I felt chagrined by the

tops, silky skirts. The shoes alone were enough to send a girl reeling—

suggestion that I needed help.

even a girl who had never been all that big on fashion. Now I won-Kiran placed a pair of gray pants below a blue ballet-neck

dered if that had been by choice, or if I was actually a closet clothes sweater. A silver skirt was topped by a white short-sleeved turtle-hound who just never had the money to feed her habit.

neck. She placed a few more outfits, then clucked her tongue and

“I think you’re a summer,” Kiran said, finger to chin as she

moved it all around.

studied her wardrobe. “That means blues, grays, silvers. Oooh. I

“Here. Try this,” she said, shoving an aqua shell at me with a