To Best the Boys Read online

  Advance Praise for To Best the Boys

  “Atmospheric, romantic, inspiring. To Best the Boys is my favorite book by Mary Weber yet!”

  –Kristen Ciccarelli, internationally bestselling author of The Last Namsara

  “Smart, determined, and ready to take on the world: Rhen Tellur is an outstanding heroine with every reason to win a competition historically intended for boys. To Best the Boys is an addicting read.”

  –Jodi Meadows, New York Times bestselling author of the Incarnate Trilogy and coauthor of My Lady Jane

  Praise for the Sofi Snow Novels

  “A smart, intriguing adventure of high-tech futuristic gaming. Mary Weber takes readers on an intergalactic journey intertwined with complicated family issues, politics, loyalty, secrets, and betrayal.”

  –Wendy Higgins, New York Times bestselling author, for The Evaporation of Sofi Snow

  “Mary Weber spins a compelling tale with lyrical beauty and devious twists. The Evaporation of Sofi Snow is the kind of book teens and adults will devour and talk about–endlessly.”

  –Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Mars One and Rot & Ruin

  “A cool vision of future Earth that realistically reflects an increasingly multicultural world.”

  –Kirkus for The Evaporation of Sofi Snow

  “Weber creates a fascinating future with a captivating gaming aspect, complicated political and personal relationships, and a constant watchful alien presence. Suspenseful and romantic, this intense story should intrigue teen and adult fans of Caragh O’Brien’s Vault of Dreamers series.”

  –RT Book Reviews, 4½ stars, TOP PICK! for The Evaporation of Sofi Snow

  “[The Evaporation of Sofi Snow] offers the best of both science fiction and romance.”

  –Booklist

  “An action-packed kick in the pulse. Mary Weber kills it with this conclusion to Sofi Snow’s story. You will hit a point where you just. Can’t. Stop. Reading. And when you finally turn that last page, you’ll be ready to jump into round two.”

  –Nadine Brandes, award-winning author of Fawkes, for Reclaiming Shilo Snow

  “In this sequel to The Evaporation of Sofi Snow, Weber takes a darker tone, delving into alien abduction, experimentation on children, the machinations of power-hungry politicians, and black-market corruption . . . This is a well-paced page-turner.”

  –Kirkus for Reclaiming Shilo Snow

  “This spellbinding conclusion to Sofi’s story has all the intensity of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner, the horror of Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave, and an enduring hope that will leave readers inspired to look outside of themselves to see how they can help those in need.”

  –RT Book Reviews, 4½ stars, TOP PICK! for Reclaiming Shilo Snow

  “Told in multiple perspectives, [Reclaiming Shilo Snow] is a twisting, electrifying read. Weber delves into human trafficking and deals with anxiety in ways many readers haven’t seen before. This thrilling sequel is unlike anything else.”

  –Booklist

  “[Reclaiming Shilo Snow is a] heartbreaking sequel of love and triumph. Weber’s sequel offers timely explorations of themes of family, compassion, genetic engineering, and human trafficking. Highly recommended for sci-fi fans.”

  –School Library Journal

  Praise for the Storm Siren Trilogy

  “Storm Siren is a riveting tale from start to finish. Between the simmering romance, the rich and inventive fantasy world, and one seriously jaw-dropping finale, readers will clamor for the next book–and I’ll be at the front of the line!”

  –Marissa Meyer, New York Times bestselling author of the Lunar Chronicles

  “Intense and intriguing. Fans of high stakes fantasy won’t be able to put it down.”

  –C. J. Redwine, author of The Shadow Queen, for Storm Siren

  “A riveting read! Mary Weber’s rich world and heartbreaking heroine had me from page one. You’re going to fall in love with this love story.”

  –Josephine Angelini, internationally bestselling author of the Starcrossed trilogy, for Storm Siren

  “Elegant prose and intricate world-building twist into a breathless cyclone of a story that will constantly keep you guessing. More, please!”

  –Shannon Messenger, author of the Sky Fall series, for Storm Siren

  “Mary Weber has created a fascinating, twisted world. Storm Siren sucked me in from page one–I couldn’t stop reading! This is a definite must-read, the kind of book that kept me up late into the night turning the pages!”

  –Lindsay Cummings, New York Times bestselling author of Zenith

  “Don’t miss this one!”

  –Serena Chase, USATODAY.com, for Storm Siren

  “Readers who enjoyed Marissa Meyer’s Cinder series will enjoy this fast-paced fantasy, which combines an intriguing storyline with as many twists and turns as a chapter of Game of Thrones!”

  –School Library Journal Teen for Storm Siren

  “Weber builds a fascinating and believable fantasy world.”

  –Kirkus for Storm Siren

  “A touching and empowering testament to the power of true love and of knowing who you are, Siren’s Fury is a solid, slightly steampunky follow-up to the fantasy-driven first book that will leave you with a sigh–and a craving for the next volume in the series.”

  –USATODAY.com

  “A perfect conclusion to this delightfully brave trilogy, Siren’s Song will leave you eager to read whatever falls from the pen of talented author Mary Weber next.”

  –USATODAY.com

  Other Books by Mary Weber

  THE SOFI SNOW NOVELS

  The Evaporation of Sofi Snow

  Reclaiming Shilo Snow

  THE STORM SIREN TRILOGY

  Storm Siren

  Siren’s Fury

  Siren’s Song

  To Best the Boys

  © 2019 by Mary Christine Weber

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Epub Edition January 2019 9780718080976

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Weber, Mary (Mary Christine), author.

  Title: To best the boys / Mary Weber.

  Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Thomas Nelson, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018040689 | ISBN 9780718080969 (hardback)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3623.E3946 T6 2019 | DDC 813/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018040689

  Printed in the United States of America

  19 20 21 22 23 LSC 5 4 3 2 1

  For the girl who’s been told to quiet down,

  calm down, sit down, or just leave

  it to the men—this is for you.

  And to those who told you such things?

  Watch. Us. Rise.

  Also, for Judah-bear Meade & Jonathan Ulibarri.

  CONTENTS

  Advance Praise for
To Best the Boys

  Other Books by Mary Weber

  The Invitation

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  A Recipe for Labyrinth Cakes

  About the Author

  THE INVITATION

  No one needed to bother opening the letter to know what it said.

  * * *

  All gentlepersons of university age (respectively seventeen to nineteen) are cordially invited to test for the esteemed annual scholarship given by Mr. Holm toward one fullride fellowship at Stemwick Men’s University. Aptitude contenders will appear at nine o’clock in front of Holm Castle’s entrance above the seaside town of Pinsbury Port on the evening of 22 September, during the Festival of the Autumnal Equinox.

  For Observers: Party refreshments will be provided at intermittent times. Watering facilities available at all times. Gratitude and genial amusement are expected. (Those who fail to comply will be tossed out at our amusement.)

  For Contestants: Those who never risk are doomed never to risk. And those who’ve risked previously will be ousted should they try again.

  For All: Mr. Holm and Holm Manor bear no responsibility, liability, or legal obligation for any harm, death, or partial decapitation that may result from entering the examination Labyrinth.

  Sincerely,

  Holm

  * * *

  Each family had received the scripted invitation every year for the past fifty-four years of good King Francis’s reign, exactly one week before the autumnal equinox. And every year with its annual arrival, each family breathed a sigh of relief, signaling that whether they had a male youth of university age or not, their status as members of the strange little community had been remembered and, more importantly, recognized. The chance for a scholarship to the top secondary school of Stemwick University in the Empyrical kingdom of Caldon was the highlight of most men’s lives (aside from the annual Cheese Faire, obviously) since it was the one time of year such things as mental and physical prowess trumped the favors of wealth and political leverage.

  To the odd, underprivileged people of Pinsbury Port, the contest was seen as a step up in equality. To the wealthy, it was a good-natured rivalry among themselves. And neither cared how any of the other provinces of Caldon saw it, so long as they played hard and fair, and cleaned up their mess before returning home.

  Still, despite knowing the letter’s contents, each recipient opened it anyway. The wealthy wives to check the parchment type—to promptly order it for their own fashionable invites to winter solstice bazaars and their husbands’ hunting parties. The poor to check and double-check the wording—to ensure nothing had changed.

  Rhen Tellur opened it simply to see if she could scrape off the ink and derive which substances it’d been created from, using her father’s strangely fashioned microscope. Which is how she discovered that this time the lettering was created from two types of resin, a binding paste, gold flecks, and a drop of something that smelled quite remarkably like magic.

  1

  The problem with siphoning blood from a bloated cadaver is that sometimes its belly makes an involuntary twitch just as you’re leaning over the discolored skin.

  The problem with being the girl currently stealing the sticky blood is that while logic says there’s an explanation for such phenomena, the rest of me says it must be one of two things.

  Either the good king’s clerics are out somewhere trying to raise the dead again . . .

  Or I’ve just discovered the town’s first certifiable vampyre right here in the cloying cellar of the local undertaker’s.

  Either way, it hardly matters because—while a bloodsucker would be an interesting twist on my day—the cadaver just moved, and the fact that I’m not keeling over from heart failure right now is rather magnanimous of me. Instead, I stay alive and spring backward. “Of all the—” Only to ram into another cadaver-laden table behind me. The table creaks loudly inside the tiny room of our even tinier seaside town that sits on the border of a tiny green kingdom that believes itself the center of the Empyral world.

  I freeze. Drat. I’ve bumped the table so hard the thing’s starting to tilt away from my hindside (which the cadaver’s face is now ungraciously pressed up against), and when I flip around, the whole thing’s suddenly tipping, and the dead lady laid out on top is tipping with it.

  I reach out to grab the slab. But deadweight and wood are heavier than you’d think, and the next second the table upends between my fingers and—No, no, no, no!—unceremoniously dumps the old gal’s stiff body onto the sloped floor. Like a white oak dropping a tree branch in summer.

  I stall and wait for the sound to fade. Except—

  Oh you’ve got to be jesting.

  The dead lady starts to roll.

  With a lunge, I shove a hand out to grab the edge of the table she’s headed for, but my blood-slicked gloves graze the wood just as the lady’s body clips the base and promptly sends it rocking.

  That table pitches and slams into the next.

  And that one into the next.

  And so on and so on, until five of the eight dead people in here have suddenly taken the phrase “from dust to dust” literally as they join the old gal on the ground in what looks like a dramatic retelling of The King’s Fair Predator.

  This, of course, is when Beryll starts to scream.

  Not just scream, but the kind of bloodcurdling wail that’s used by pregnant mountain basilisks just before they give birth, or by the sea sirens out hunting sailors. Both of which our town is famous for, because apparently being famous for things that can kill you is better than no fame at all. In fact, Mum says it’s like our own version of township pride. What doesn’t kill you makes you compelling.

  Except for Beryll, who I doubt has ever been compelling in his life.

  I swerve toward his yelping face to find it turning the color of heifer’s milk beneath his high-cut bangs and lengthy nose.

  Oh for the love of—“Beryll, be quiet!”

  His gaze veers to mine with an expression promising I’m definitely going to the underworld and he’s got a mind to help send me there. That, or he’s about to lift his impeccably pressed knickers and scurry for the back door, outside of which my cousin, Seleni, is keeping watch in the village alley.

  Unfortunately, he neither attacks or scurries.

  He just keeps screaming.

  With a groan, I grip my glass vial and scramble toward him beneath the low, curved ceiling that’s already got the wretched air locked in too tight, and thrust my other hand over his mouth. “Beryll, shut up! You’re gonna get us caught!”

  He pulls away to shove his dainty handkerchief back over his lips, while his screeching stumbles into a strangled falsetto.

  He locks his brown eyes on mine in the stuffy space that’s lit like a halo by the two oil lanterns hanging from the rafters. “Miss Tellur. That thing’s belly just moved. I think expressing nerves at such a time is completely acceptable, considering it’s still . . .” He tightens his fingers on the linen covering half his face. “Alive!”

  “It’s not alive,” I hiss, my mind finally wrenching into gear. “The body’s just bloated. The belly was reacting to my abdominal incision. But if you keep up your whining, we’ll l
ikely join him on these slabs!” I point the glass vial I’m still holding toward the narrow, oil-stained door in front of us, where the sexton’s quarters lie beyond and a shiny copper bell hangs above, and hold my breath. That bell’s made to ring if anyone enters or exits—mainly in case the dead in fact ever do rise. Whether it’s the religious rapture or an outbreak of undead, the good folk of Pinsbury Port believe it’d be equally important to know which they’re specifically missing out on.

  Beryll’s voice sharpens to a whistle. “What do you mean reacting? Dead things don’t react!”

  I shake my head, recalling Da’s mention of such things. “Sometimes they move. It’s the nerves or gastrointestinal system. Now for goodness’ sake, Beryll—you wanted to come.” I put a finger to my mouth. “So shush!”

  He shushes, although I’m guessing it’s only because he just got a good inhale of the extra-thick decomposition fumes.

  I flick my gaze back to the sexton’s door and count six heartbeats as I watch and wait. The spiritual man has yet to catch me. Still, he’s heard my disturbances often enough to believe the room’s haunted. Thinks it’s our dead armies—the ones that still rise on the moor at night because some fool forgot to tell them the war ended two hundred years ago.

  I wait a moment longer. No movement of the handle or metal bell. Then release my breath, ease my shoulders, and turn to Beryll, muttering, “Are you trying to get Seleni and me sent to the workhouse?”

  “Of course not.” He edges toward the rear door on which Seleni’s now tapping sharply from the outside. The sounds of horse and carriage clipping by emerge, then fade. “And they wouldn’t send you there anyway. Your cousin’s father would bail her out and just convince the constable you’re off your head. Best case, they’d post a sign on your parents’ house to warn folks—and really, I’m not sure I’d blame them, Miss Tellur.” He tugs at his shirt cuffs and waistcoat, then swallows as he turns an unusual shade of green.

  I purse my lips. I start to tell him to pull himself together, but I abruptly end up bent over.