by Eva Chase
Viceport frowned. “Causing major harm to a scion or baron is one of the highest offenses in our society. They’d have to be insane to attempt it, and I haven’t gotten the impression from them that they’re quite so desperate as that.”
“But they are desperate. Why?” When she hesitated, I leaned forward in the chair and played the last but possibly best card I had. “Let’s say I’m not asking as your student. I’m asking as the heir and pretty much baron of Bloodstone. I’ve been out of the loop for a long time, and I need to know everything I can.”
She didn’t like me invoking my status. I could tell that from the pursing of her lips. But she sighed and folded her hands on her desk, and I knew I’d won.
“I’m not sure there’s a very concrete reason why,” she said. “The Evergrists have always been a fairly powerful family, but from what I’ve seen, they’re rarely satisfied with what they have. They’re always seeking out more influence, more connections, more wealth.”
“And they’re willing to go to some questionable lengths to get that,” I filled in, thinking of their blackmail attempts with Declan, the fact that they’d shouldered their way into my life in the first place.
“Well…” Professor Viceport looked at her hands and then back at me with a hint of a grimace. “There have been rumors. And occasional problems in the past. I would rather not say anything that could be construed as an attack—”
I waved off her concern. “It’s fine. I’m sure I said worse things to them the other day than you’d even think of saying.”
The corner of her lips twitched into something closer to a smile at that comment. “It was my impression,” she said, “that their efforts at heightening their status escalated after your parents’ marriage. And that they skirted the line of the law more than once, but the transgressions were small enough that the blacksuits ignored them in favor of avoiding conflict with a ruling family.”
“They committed actual crimes?” I said.
“I don’t know the details. I simply observed and overheard.” Her expression turned grim again. “I trust these comments won’t be repeated with my name attached to them.”
“Of course.” But her need to add that last remark told me a lot about the dynamics that could have allowed my grandparents to get away with who knew how many “transgressions.” I wasn’t sure how I’d go about finding out details of their crimes or what I’d even do with that information, but it at least confirmed that my instincts to avoid them were one hundred percent correct.
“Thank you,” I added. “That’s something I’ll want to keep in mind.”
“If you have any questions about your actual schooling…”
I shook my head and stood up. “No, I think I’ve got everything else under control. Unless you have any suggestions about my performance in Physicality?”
For a second, I’d have sworn she glowered at me before her face turned impassive again. “You’ve been doing quite well the last few weeks. Continue in the same vein, and I’ll have no complaints.”
I guessed that was progress.
I headed out of the staff wing and down the stairs to the main fore-room. I was just coming through the narrower hall between the two sections of the building when Malcolm stepped into view at the other end.
My legs locked automatically. Malcolm froze on the threshold of the hall. His usual expression of cool confidence came over his face, but his stance stayed uncertain.
“Bloodstone,” he said in a tone I couldn’t read.
“Nightwood,” I replied tightly. The thought of squeezing past him, my shoulder nearly brushing his in the narrow space, made my skin shiver.
He wavered there a moment longer, and then he… backed up a couple steps. Out of the hall into the room beyond, so I could walk past with plenty of space.
For a moment, I was too startled to move. Was Malcolm Nightwood actually giving way to me? How was that even possible? Then I walked forward cautiously, every sense on high alert in case he tried some sort of magic on me.
He didn’t raise his hand or cast a single spell, though. He just waited for me to go by. I slowed as I passed him, not really wanting to leave my back open to him while I walked on, and he cleared his throat.
“You might want to keep an eye out,” he said brusquely. “Victory looks like she’s on a rampage out there.”
Without another word, he ducked down the hall and was gone.
I stared after him, letting the words sink in. He’d stepped aside for me, and he was also warning me about one of his biggest devotees? Had I stumbled into a parallel universe between Viceport’s office and here?
Whatever was going on, I should probably go find out what the hell Victory was doing. I’d just proceed with caution, in case this was some kind of trick.
I passed a couple of professors in quiet conversation and slipped out of Killbrook Hall. It only took a second for me to spot my nemesis stalking across the other end of the green.
Victory’s expression was taut, her hands moving restlessly at her sides as if waiting for the chance to cast. As I watched, lingering in the shadow of the broad doorway, she glanced toward Ashgrave Hall, then the field beyond where the clubhouse stood, then back to the hall. She stopped and brought her hands to her mouth. It looked like she murmured something into them, her eyes narrowing intently.
I didn’t know what she was up to, but the vibe she was giving off and the direction of her attention made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Whether Malcolm had hoped I’d clash with her or been trying to help me avoid a collision, he clearly hadn’t been lying about her state of mind.
A couple of Naries left Ashgrave Hall, and Victory’s gaze followed them while they gave her a wide berth, either from past experience or picking up on her current mood. They were heading toward Nightwood Tower, though. She made a face and folded her arms as she waited… for whatever she was waiting for.
After Cressida’s assault on Benjamin the other day, I didn’t think I wanted to give her the chance to act on her intentions. But how could I head her off? The second I started casting any magic on her, she’d notice, and the situation would only escalate.
Another few students came around Killbrook Hall—a couple of fearmancers walking together, and Shelby, trailing a careful distance behind them, clutching a bag of groceries she’d slung over her shoulder. I hurried over to catch her before she walked onto the green into Victory’s realm of attention.
“Hey,” she said. “What’s going on?”
I tipped my head toward Victory. “One of our roommates looks like she’s prowling for victims. Here, I’ll walk with you over to the dorms. She’s less likely to bother you if you’re not alone.”
“Okay, thanks.” Shelby peered toward Victory and shuddered. “I don’t know how people like her manage to get away with so much. She’s got to be breaking some kind of school rule, the way she hassles people.”
I paused, a spark of inspiration lighting in the back of my head. Victory wasn’t breaking any school rules by harassing the Naries—she was doing exactly as we were taught. But there were other rules she’d be sanctioned for.
I didn’t have to cast any magic on her at all. I just had to convince an authoritative witness that they had to intervene.
The plan unfurled in my head, but I couldn’t do it alone. I touched Shelby’s arm to stop her. Victory had noticed us skirting the green, but she hadn’t left her spot at the far end. All we got was a sneer that looked way too self-satisfied for my liking.
“What if we could get her in the kind of trouble she deserves?” I said. “I think I can make that happen, if you’ll help… but she might figure out it was us.”
A slow smile stretched across Shelby’s face. “What can she do that’s any worse than how she already treats me? Of course I’m in. What do you need me to do?”
Her eagerness steadied me. I tipped my head toward Killbrook Hall. “Run in there and tell the first teachers you see that Victory’s saying crazy
things, you don’t know what’s wrong with her. I saw a couple of them talking in the fore-room—they’re probably still there. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Shelby nodded with a sly gleam in her eye and jogged back to the hall. I drew farther back from the green so the buildings blocked me from Victory’s view.
As soon as Shelby had disappeared through the door, I started murmuring a spell. An illusion, capturing Victory’s voice. I’d heard that caustic tone when she was angry enough times to reproduce it pretty accurately, I thought.
I cast the spell toward the entrance to Killbrook Hall so it would echo through the door, projecting it only in that direction. If Victory heard what I was doing, she’d realize the trick in a second.
“I can crush all of you feebs if I want to,” I made her conjured voice screech. “You think you’re so special because you got to come here? You’re nothing. We’ve got all the power. We can bend you to our will just like that. You want to see? This is what we call magic.”
I let the spell fade. At the squeak of the door’s hinges a second later, I cast another, brief illusion—a thunderclap of sound intended to make Victory flinch and look unnerved.
The two professors I’d seen burst out of the hall and charged across the green toward her. “You need to come with us,” one of them said.
“What the hell?” Victory said, out of my sight around the building. “What are you talking about?”
“The problem is what you’re talking about,” the other said. “A visit with the headmistress is in order, now.”
I slunk even closer to Ashgrave Hall as they ushered Victory past, protests continuing to sputter from her mouth. Several seconds after they’d tugged her inside, Shelby emerged with a triumphant grin. She loped over to rejoin me.
“It worked, right?”
“It worked perfectly.” I grinned back and raised my fist to bump it against hers.
Right then, it didn’t matter that this girl had no magic and couldn’t know about mine. She couldn’t have been a better friend. And what were friends for other than conspiring together?
Glancing back toward Killbrook Hall, the ploy we’d just pulled off stirred another idea. We’d gotten ahead of Victory’s scheming by pre-emptively bringing down sanctions on her.
What if there was another way that strategy could be put to use to save a whole lot more than one clubhouse?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rory
It wasn’t hard to pick the right time to drop by the teacher’s aide office. I’d had enough sessions with Declan there last term that I was familiar with his hours—and which of those hours he usually had there alone.
At least, alone as far as other aides went. When I slipped into the office that afternoon, Declan was sitting at one of the tables in the large room, talking through something with another student.
They both glanced up at me, Declan’s expression tensing for an instant and the guy he was tutoring only looking mildly curious. My first instinct was to turn around and hightail it out of there, but then I might as well hold up a sign declaring I was up to something untoward. So I gave a little nod in greeting and went to sit on one of the chairs near the door, as if I was there for the same reason the guy was.
“I can wait,” I said.
Declan had a lot of practice at keeping a cool head. He returned the nod, his expression carefully neutral again, and turned back to his student. I tried to relax into the firmly padded chair as the drone of the air conditioner hummed in the background.
To my relief, the other tutoring session wrapped up quickly. Declan got up as the guy headed out. He didn’t say anything until the door had closed solidly behind the other student.
“Rory…”
“I know,” I said quickly, holding up my hands as I came over. “I just need to ask a couple of quick questions about the Insight work, and Professor Sinleigh is busy with classes this afternoon. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
I had confirmed that I had a good excuse for going to Declan instead of the professor, who’d been giving me some additional instruction as I asked for it during the summer. He made a bit of a face at the cover story, but his shoulders came down a little.
“Fair enough,” he said, his hazel eyes intent on my face. “What’s the problem?”
I inhaled slowly as I gathered my words. “It’s more a possible solution than a problem. To the issue of my grandparents. I was talking to Professor Viceport about them yesterday, and she suggested they’ve committed some minor crimes in the past that were overlooked because of their connection to the barony.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” Declan said. “The blacksuits are going to be a lot more hesitant to pursue leads involving one of the ruling families, in case it turns out they’re wrong and there’s backlash from the baron.”
Or backlash even if they were right, I suspected. “Well,” I said, “I know you’ve studied the laws backwards and forwards to make sure your aunt can’t trip you up, and you’re obviously good at doing that research… If you looked, you could probably find one of those crimes and some evidence for it, don’t you think?”
Declan gave me a puzzled look. “And I’d do that because…”
“Because then you could see them charged for that crime, and that would get them off our cases. Or at the very least, once you’ve initiated that investigation, they can’t make accusations about you and me without it looking like retaliation rather than a legitimate concern. They don’t have any proof. And the only Bloodstone around who could get upset about them being investigated is giving you her blessing.”
Declan’s eyes had widened. “You really want me to try to get your grandparents arrested?”
An uncomfortable twinge ran through my gut. “Don’t look at me like that. If they have committed crimes, it’s their own fault. And they’ve proven they’re dangerous while they’re walking free. I’m protecting the people I care about.”
Me. Shelby. And the guy in front of me, whose expression softened at the comment. “Okay,” he said. “That’s actually a pretty good plan. Having seen them in action, I’d be surprised if they haven’t left a trail to one illicit dealing or another somewhere. Overconfidence can screw a person over awfully fast.” He paused and gave me a little smile. “We’ll still have to keep our distance from each other.”
“I know,” I said. “I just don’t want them to be able to threaten either of us—or anyone else.”
“Thank you.”
I wasn’t sure how he’d react, but I couldn’t help reaching out to grasp his hand. That one small point of contact, his warm skin against mine while he gazed back at me with the affection he was trying to restrain, brought back the moment in his bedroom not that long ago when I’d gotten to be so much closer to him for the last time. He squeezed my fingers like a promise, and I eased back before he had to break the moment himself.
“You’ll know when it’s done,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be harassing you for support the second they realize they’re in trouble.”
The corner of my lips quirked up. “And they’re going to be so very disappointed.”
My grandparents weren’t my biggest concern. I still had the matter of a mysterious key to work out.
The traffic on the city street rumbled by as I sat in my parked car. I studied the building on the corner ahead of me, readying myself for what I hoped would be the last step in my quest for answers. A step I had to take completely on my own.
The back of my neck had prickled more than once as I’d driven out here to this spot about halfway between the campus and Professor Banefield’s home. Sudden worries about being followed had crept up through my thoughts. But I’d been parked here for several minutes, and I hadn’t noticed anyone else stopping nearby. I hadn’t seen any car behind me for an unusual amount of time during the drive over.
It was just hard not to be nervous when so much might ride on this moment.
I got out of the car and headed up the street t
o the post office the address in Banefield’s note had led me to. It wasn’t the only building with that street address in the whole state, and his note hadn’t included any other details, but the others had been a daycare center and a bridal shop in other cities. This seemed to be the most likely of the possibilities.
A bell dinged over the door as I stepped inside. They had the air conditioning up high—my skin broke out in goosebumps within seconds. I resisted the urge to hug myself and veered around the line of customers waiting to mail something.
A wall of PO boxes stood at the far end of the space. And it was a whole wall—dozens and dozens of them, some small and some larger. I eyed them from the side of my vision, wandering over to the rack of envelopes and packing materials for sale nearby. My hand dipped into my purse to close around the key Professor Banefield had given me.
I couldn’t go sticking the key in every box until I found a match. The post office staff would notice that weird behavior pretty quickly. They might have been able to look up the key in a database from the digits on it… but I wasn’t sure what they’d do if they saw it was registered to an Archer Banefield who definitely wasn’t me.
But I was a mage, so there had to be a better solution I could think up.
I ran my finger over the ridges on the key and considered the rows of locks. This felt like a physicality problem. Find the matching shapes among those holes.
After several sweeps of my thumb tip over the key, I had a solid image of the pattern in my mind. I reached to the magic thrumming behind my collarbone and molded it into an invisible copy of that pattern. Then I cast it off toward the rows of boxes with a murmured, “Fit.”
An echo of sensation rippled over my skin as the spell slipped across the boxes. I felt it twitch into each opening and jerk back out when the grooves didn’t match.
Halfway across the second row, a little jolt hit me and the rippling stilled. I stepped toward the wall of boxes with a skip of my pulse.