by Eva Chase
“That’s something.” Declan stopped where the platform had been set up on the day of the summer project announcement and turned on his heel. “You’d have had the best view of the room when you were up here getting your certificate. See if you can settle right into that memory—watch for anyone you didn’t recognize, especially someone who couldn’t have been a student.”
I let my mind slip back to that moment, my senses detaching from the present the way Declan had coached me. It wasn’t exactly a spell, but the technique was related to Insight—a way of sharpening one’s own mental impressions.
“I recognized all the teachers,” I said, my voice sounding oddly detached as I focused on the memory. “And all the students there looked familiar. I don’t remember seeing anyone else. I was looking pretty carefully too, because I was wondering where Imogen was.”
“I didn’t see anyone unexpected either,” Connar put in from where he stood at my other side. “I was keeping a close eye out in case anyone tried to interrupt Rory’s moment. If there was someone who didn’t belong, I think I’d have noticed.”
Declan sighed. “It was a long shot. It wouldn’t have been smart for the culprit to make an appearance here.”
We’d already tried the same trick with my memories outside and by Ashgrave Hall, on the theory that someone might have been standing watch to alert the murderer of my impending arrival. But if that’d been the case, they’d kept themselves well out of view.
Jude caught my attention with a trailing of his fingers halfway down my back. “You’re still owed a prize, aren’t you, Ice Queen? Unless you claimed it without telling us about it.”
“No.” I let out a raw laugh. “I almost forgot.” For winning the summer project contest, I had the right to pick any object in my possession and bring it to the professor of my choice to ask for them to use their expertise to imbue it with a spell. I’d been caught up in the murder before I’d had much time to think about my options. “I don’t suppose there are any innocence-detecting spells I could ask for?”
“Wouldn’t that make life easier?” Declan gave me a crooked smile. “I’d already been considering whether your prize might come in handy, but I can’t think of any spell you could request that’d make a difference to your hearing. There are ways of identifying illusions, for example, but they only work in the moment, not from memory.”
“Save it for when you’re sure of how it can help you the most,” Connar suggested.
Lord knew there’d probably be some new problem I could use help with soon enough.
“Do you know who the judge will be now that the hearing date is set?” Jude asked Declan as we meandered back toward the entrance. “Anyone we could find some way to sway toward more sympathy?”
Declan shot Jude a look. “I don’t think we want to get Rory off the hook through bribery or threats. Something like that could come back to haunt her so easily.”
“I know, I know. I’m just tossing ideas around.” Jude grimaced. He paused for a few seconds and then met my eyes. “I tried to convince my dad to step up on your behalf—for the good of the pentacle and all—but he was being his usual asshole self and didn’t want to hear any ideas coming from me.”
My heart skipped a beat. He’d gone to his dad asking for support for me—his dad who was part of the conspiracy to see me sanctioned in the first place?
But Jude didn’t know that. Because I’d balked at telling him—my chest clenched up at the idea even now. I wasn’t even sure why anymore. It wasn’t as if he or Connar could have much worse opinions of their parents than they already held. Did I really not trust them with the information, after everything?
I had to trust them. I couldn’t let them keep fighting for me without knowing exactly what—and who—we were up against.
“It wasn’t because of you,” I said. “I—There’s something we really should talk about.” My gaze found Declan’s. His jaw had set, knowing what I was about to do and maybe dreading it, but not objecting. “Not here in the gym, though.” Was even the scion lounge secure enough to have this conversation?
“I know a good place,” Declan said. “Somewhere no one would expect students to bother with.”
He led us down the hall and around the corner toward the change rooms that led to the pool. A faint chlorine scent laced the air. He murmured a quick spell to open a maintenance door halfway down the hall, and the smell thickened as we descended a set of stairs into a dim room full of pipes and valves and a mechanical hum. Declan spoke another few words that I assumed were intended to guarantee our privacy and nodded to the space.
“One of the benefits of having studied the school blueprints, among many other things.”
Jude touched one of the larger pipes gingerly to make sure it wasn’t hot and then propped his shoulders against it, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. “What’s all the secrecy about?” His tone stayed light, but a worried crease had formed on his forehead. No doubt it hadn’t been lost on him that I’d mainly reacted to his comment about his dad.
I looked down at my hands and then at Jude and Connar. The Stormhurst scion had stayed near the bottom of the steps as if to guard the door.
“I wasn’t sure how to tell you this, and I wasn’t sure it was even a good idea, so… maybe I let it go longer than I should have.” I swallowed thickly. “You know that my first mentor, Professor Banefield, died. I was there when it happened. It was a spell that’d been cast on him—first to make him sick when he tried to warn me about people who were out to hurt me, and then to make him attack me when I managed to dispel the first part. He killed himself because it was the only way he could stop the magical compulsion.”
Jude’s eyes flashed. “It must be the same people who set you up to take the fall for Imogen’s murder. Fucking bastards.”
“That’s what I’m assuming,” I said quietly. “And that’s the part I haven’t known how to bring up with you. Banefield was able to tell me who’d cast the spell on him before he died. He said it was the older barons. And some people called the reapers, who I guess are working with them.”
All other emotion vanished from both guys’ faces in the wake of stunned shock. Connar recovered first, the muscles in his arms flexing as fury radiated through his voice. “You’re saying our parents are behind all this—that they tried to have you killed—”
“I don’t think they want me dead,” I interrupted. “Not that it makes things much better, but they might have even bigger problems if the Bloodstone line passes to someone they can’t predict. Banefield said they wanted him to destroy my magic. I guess… to hurt me enough so I couldn’t really cast anymore, like what happened with your brother.”
Connar winced at the comparison, but his anger didn’t fade. “Competition within a family in the pentacle is accepted. Barons trying to sabotage an heir to another family on that level, especially conspiring together, is the worst kind of treason. If they were exposed…”
“There’s nothing to expose at this point,” Declan said as the other guy trailed off. “I’ve been watching for the slightest hint, but the barons are keeping their cards close even when they’re talking with me. It’s no wonder they haven’t let anything slip to either of you.”
Jude’s hands were clenching and opening at his sides. “I thought I knew just how low he’d stoop. Fucking hell. He doesn’t deserve the goddamn barony.”
“If it helps at all, I don’t think your mother has been part of the plots,” I said. “Banefield was able to leave some papers for me, including a list of people I’m assuming are these ‘reapers’… and the barons. Both of Malcolm’s parents are on there, and both of yours.” I tipped my head to Connar, and then turned back to Jude. “But only your dad. Whatever meetings they were having to plan out this stuff, he never saw her getting involved.”
“She wouldn’t stand up to him if she found out, though. She’s never been able to argue with him.” Jude kicked at the floor. His expression stiffened. “You don’t think—will
it have made things worse that I talked to him about you?”
“You didn’t mention any of the ideas we’ve talked about for proving my innocence, like the casting word, did you?”
He shook his head vehemently. “Even without knowing he’s a full-out traitor, I wouldn’t have trusted him with that.”
“Then I think it should be fine. For me.” My heart squeezed as I gazed back at him. “If he thinks you’re on my side, I’m not sure what that’ll mean for you—or you, Connar.”
Connar’s face was grimmer than I’d ever seen it before. “If my parents want to take me to task for standing by a fellow scion, they can try. I don’t think they’ll enjoy the results.”
“I doubt my father believes I’d be able to accomplish much anyway,” Jude said with a flippancy I could tell was forced. “He may use it as an excuse to turn on me later—but if he didn’t have that one, he’d find something else. Don’t worry about that when you’re the one on the chopping block.”
I choked up for a second before I managed to speak. “I just don’t want anyone else getting hurt because of me.”
“Hey.” Connar stepped forward and set his hand on my waist, looking down at me intently. “It’s never been because of you. It’s because they’re power-hungry jackasses.”
It was hard to shift the blame that easily when I’d had to watch blood spill from so many people I cared about. I closed my eyes and dragged in a breath. “Whatever it is, both of you should be careful how you talk to them about the case and about me… Until we have real evidence that they’re scheming against me, they have so much more power than we do.” And even if we got that evidence, would the blacksuits really act against three of their rulers? I had my doubts.
Connar made a disgruntled sound, and Jude grasped my hand to give it a squeeze. “I’m not sure I’ll be speaking to my father ever again,” he said. “But I’m still here for you, whatever you need.”
Declan exhaled slowly. “Right now you need to be getting to our Insight seminar, Jude.” When the other guy started to protest, the Ashgrave scion held up his hand. “If they can make a case for Rory being a disruptive influence when it comes to our studies, do you really think they won’t make use of that?”
Jude muttered a stream of scathing words to himself, but he followed Declan in tramping up the stairs. Connar and I trailed behind them, out of the Stormhurst Building and along the path to the main triangle of the tower and the two halls. He took my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles in a gentle caress.
It was getting late in the afternoon, though the late summer sun still shone brightly, and the green was bustling with students heading to their last class of the day or chatting with friends after just having gotten out. Walking among them, apprehension prickled over my skin. I shifted my hand away from Connar’s instinctively.
Jude had declared his affections in public before, but Connar hadn’t made any romantic gestures quite that overt. If word got back to his parents that he’d not only defended me to Malcolm but was actively intimately involved with me…
Connar caught my hand before it’d strayed more than an inch from his. He glanced at me and tugged me around to face him when he saw my expression.
“Listen,” he said, leaning close. “I’ve spent too much of my life letting other people decide what I should be doing, what I should care about… And that’s led me to making the worst decisions of my life. I’m with you, no matter what my parents will think about it. That’s my decision. Let me have it.”
I choked up all over again. “Of course,” I said.
He touched my cheek and closed the last short distance to kiss me, there in the middle of the green with at least a dozen spectators. My pulse thumped, but it was at least as much giddy as it was nervous. I kissed him back hard. If he wanted to show everyone what I meant to him, let them see that I returned those feelings without reservation.
He drew back just a smidge, his nose bumping mine, and gave me a smile that was almost shy. “I told you ages ago that I wanted to take you out someday. It’s really taken me too long to follow up on that idea. Can I treat you to dinner in town?”
I had to smile back. “Are you asking me on a date, Mr. Stormhurst?”
“If you can’t tell, then I’m obviously doing a bad job of it.”
A laugh spilled out of me, a little bittersweet because of the circumstances but happy all the same. “Not at all. I think that’s just what I need right now.”
I needed the reminder that people could change. That no matter how awful a situation seemed, it could still turn around into something wonderful. Even if I couldn’t see just yet how either of those facts would apply to the murder charge hanging over me.
Chapter Thirteen
Connar
Heading up to the dorms after our date, Rory and I had to part ways in the Ashgrave Hall stairwell at my floor. I wasn’t ready to let the evening end just yet. I guided her past the door and nudged her up against the wall as I kissed her.
Rory smiled against my mouth with a pleased hum. The sweet smell of her and her soft form against mine returned me to the backseat of my car less than an hour ago, when her breath had broken as she’d arched beneath me.
A twinge of longing to do that all over again shot straight to my groin. I willed my desire to stay in check. I had no problem being open about my feelings for this girl, but getting caught in the act in the dorm stairwell wasn’t a good look on anyone.
At least I’d taken her away from all the stress that had been dogging her for a little while. I’d given her a little slice of normality in the middle of the chaos. That was what mattered more than anything.
I kissed her again, catching a hint of the red wine we’d had with dinner still lingering in her mouth, and then forced myself to draw back. Rory beamed up at me, even more gorgeous than usual with her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed. I couldn’t resist leaning in to claim her mouth just once more.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said like a promise as she headed for the stairs up to her own floor.
“As much as I can,” I replied. I watched her disappear up the steps before pushing past the door to the hallway outside my dorm.
The common room light was on, but none of my dormmates were around. The first week back at school, it wasn’t unusual for most seniors to stay out late enjoying the freedom of being away from home before the workload started to pile up. On the other hand, a droning snore carrying from one of the bedrooms told me at least one of the guys had already crashed for the night.
I ambled over to my corner room, said a few quick words to disable the security spells I had in place, and stepped inside.
I froze on the threshold with my hand halfway to the light switch. The moonlight seeping past the window silhouetted two figures standing by my desk. Figures familiar enough that I knew them before I flicked the light on, but that didn’t stop my stomach from sinking.
“Hello, Connar,” my mother said in a low, blunt voice. “Let’s take a walk.”
When I’d talked to Rory about my parents this afternoon, I’d dismissed them completely. It was a lot harder to summon that certainty facing them just a few feet away.
These two people had witnessed me at my absolute worst. They’d pushed me to my worst… and I wasn’t completely sure they couldn’t do it again. Baron Stormhurst was used to getting things her way, regardless of who fell beneath her feet.
Whatever they wanted to say to me, I at least agreed with them that it was better to do it away from here. I didn’t need my dormmates hearing the way they’d speak to me.
“Sure,” I said, keeping my cool as much as I could. With a burst of confidence fueled by my growing sense of conviction, I added, “You could have just called.”
“I felt this discussion would be best had face to face.”
They followed me out of the building, my mother stalking after me and my father striding along with heavier steps. Even though he was built like I was and she was much thinner,
her wiry frame exuded even more power than his bulky body. I might be able to look down at her from a few inches, but she hadn’t lost the ability to make me feel small with one cutting glance.
When we’d left Ashgrave Hall, my mother took the lead without hesitation, knowing I’d come along. She veered across the east field, considering the Nary clubhouse with narrowed eyes, and marched straight into the thicker darkness within the forest. I followed her more by sound than sight as the cool night breeze shivered past us. It wasn’t that cold, but goosebumps rose on my bare forearms.
It didn’t take long to figure out where she was going. She stopped and motioned my father and me past her, and then activated the key ward that protected the Shifting Grounds. Physicality had been her primary strength too, the talent running in the family as magical skills so often did. I’d never seen her shift forms, but no doubt she’d made plenty of use of the private clearing when she’d been a student here some thirty years ago.
No one except one of the two Physicality professors could disable that ward once activated. We’d have no witnesses for this conversation.
Dread swelled in my gut as we walked the rest of the way to the clearing. The moon was only half full, but it cast enough light across the cleared circle of grass for me to see my mother’s expression when she spun on me. Her sinewy features were tensed.
“I hear you’ve taken up with the Bloodstone scion,” she said. “Some sort of romance? Really, Connar?”
The things Rory had revealed to me about my parents tickled through my mind, making my jaw tighten. My gaze slid away from my mother for a second, taking in the clearing.
Not that long ago, I’d been here with Rory. I’d let her watch me shift, trusted her not to be unnerved by my dragon form. And she hadn’t been. She’d shown so much faith in me, then and since… I had to be worthy of it.
I met my mother’s eyes again. “Is there any particular reason I shouldn’t get involved with her? It’s not as if I’m going to let it interfere with my duties as scion.”