Read Online The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater - Free Book Online Page B

right after that I realize that she knew all along what I was here for and still asked me the first question. Which I think means I need to change how I’m thinking of her, but I can’t, because she still looks just plain and friendly. “There’s no rule, is there? There isn’t any reason I can’t.”
    “There’s no rule, and I told him that for sure. But —” Her smile is gone and suddenly I can imagine her cutting out my heart, in a hard, blank way that means she wouldn’t even notice the blood. “What would your parents think? Have you thought this through? People die, love. I’m all for women, but this isn’t a woman’s game.”
    For some reason, this irritates me more than anything else I’ve heard all day. It’s not even relevant. I give her the fierce look I practiced in the mirror. “I’ve thought it through. I want to add my name. Please.”
    She looks at me a beat longer, and I don’t let my face change. Then she sighs, picks up the chalk, and turns to the board. She starts to write a P and then rubs it out with the pad of her hand. She glances back at me. “I can’t remember your real first name, love.”
    “Kate,” I say, and I feel like everyone in Skarmouth is suddenly staring at my back. “Kate Connolly.”
    There are moments that you’ll remember for the rest of your life and there are moments that you think you’ll remember for the rest of your life, and it’s not often they turn out to be the same moments. But when Peg Gratton turns around and chalks my name on the list, white on black, I know, without a doubt, that it’s an image I’ll never forget.
    When she turns back around, one of her eyebrows is raised. “And your horse’s name?”
    “Dove,” I say. The word comes out too quiet. I have to repeat it.
    She writes it down, no questions asked, but of course — why would she doubt that Dove is a capall uisce ?
    I chew my lip. Peg is waiting.
    “It’s fifty, Puck,” she says. “To enter.”
    I feel a little ill as I dig the coins out of my pocket. For a sickening moment I don’t think I have enough, but then I find the money I’d been carrying to buy flour. I hold it out, not releasing it into her waiting hand.
    “Wait,” I say. I lean across the counter, voice low. “Are there, um, any rules about the horses?” If I get disqualified and lose the fifty, I really will be sick. “About them …uh …?”
    Peg says, “You want a rule sheet?”
    She has to look for it. I feel like everyone is staring at my name on the board while she does. When she offers it to me, a rumpled piece of paper, I scan the front and back. There are only two lines about the horses: Jockeys must declare their mount by the end of the first week at the Scorpio Festival riders’ parade. Swapping of mounts after that date is not permitted.
    I scan for anything at all, but there’s nothing. Nothing to say that I can’t enter Dove.
    I finally let Peg have the coins. “Thank you,” I say.
    “Do you want to keep that?” Peg asks, gesturing to the rule sheet. I don’t really care, but I nod. “Okay,” she says. “You’re official.”
    I’m official.
    As I push outside into the dark, I take big breaths of the cold air. The briny smell of earlier has been mostly replaced by the faint scent of exhaust lingering in the air, but in comparison to the sweat and raw meat smell of the butcher, it’s heavenly. My head feels all spinny and elated and terrified, and I feel like I can see every single little bump on the street in front of me, every bit of rust on the rail before the quay, every ripple in the water. Everything is black — the depthless sky and the inky water — and butter yellow — the streetlamps and light pouring out from the shop windows.
    I realize that there is a discussion going on, a few yards away, and I recognize Sean Kendrick’s jacket. Mutt Malvern faces him, looking massive and sweaty in comparison to Sean. It’s clear from the way that a few people have paused