We swept in companionable silence for a long time, while I tried to work out exactly what Colly was doing in the kitchen late at night. Was it simply that he had work duties in the evening as well as in the morning?
Clearly he must, or he wouldn’t be doing it. Did his work have something to do with how he had discovered me hanging from the side of the tower? That didn’t make a lot of sense, but I supposed it was a possibility.
I continued to sweep and think, and before I realized how fast the time had gone by, the whole place was spic and span, even the dark corners. Colly grinned at me and nodded. I nodded in return.
“Okay, well, now you’ve interrupted me hanging off the edge of a tower and I’ve interrupted you sweeping. I suppose we’re even. Maybe tomorrow night we’ll meet somewhere in the middle,” I suggested.
He raised a surprisingly delicate eyebrow at me.
I glared back at him and stammered, “No, I wasn’t suggesting we should meet.”
My face suddenly burst into flames and I felt incredibly awkward. It might have been even worse than the way I’d felt earlier when I failed to answer Clouda’s question.
I had turned on my heel and started to walk away when Colly’s voice interrupted me, deep and clear and calming.
“We should meet tomorrow night. I can teach you how to read,” he murmured.
I stopped dead and slowly turned around to glare at him. He had discovered my secret, the one I had been keeping all year.
That was why I hadn’t done the homework: I didn’t know how to read. Okay, the idea that I would have done all the homework anyway might have been far-fetched, but I would have done at least some, maybe the bits about topics that sounded downright interesting.
Not that I would ever have admitted to the teachers that their topics were interesting. But if I had known how to read, I wouldn’t have been forced to gather snippets of information where I could, to listen to conversations in class and hope I had understood enough to get through the hour. Because it never felt like I did.
Colly watched me from across the room, leaning on his broom.
“I know how to read,” I said.
He shook his head slightly, pushed off from the broom, and walked toward me.
Feeling the need to lash out, I said, “How does a lowly bodyguard learn how to read, anyway? Aren’t you busy protecting the prince?”
“The prince has his own rooms. He’s safe in the evening. There are other guards for that space anyway. He’s very well protected. Sometimes he gets sick of my presence,” said Colly.
I took that in. Basically, in Colly’s world he had just read me a novel; I had never heard him speak so many words at one time.
“And you want to spend your free evening teaching me to read?”
“Are you admitting that you don’t know how?” he asked.
I glared at him again. The man was infuriating. He barely talked, and he still managed to enrage me. I had a rudimentary ability to read!
“What makes you think I don’t?” I demanded.
He shrugged. His eyes never left mine. How did he manage to be so cocky, damn it?
“Okay, let’s say you’re right,” I offered.
He raised his eyebrows.
“Let’s say I take you up on your offer. Very hypothetically speaking,” I hastened to add.
He nodded.
“Let’s say all of that. And if I take you up on your offer, what do you want in return?” I demanded.
Now, for the first time, something crazy happened. His face really did break into a smile.
“You’ll know it when you see it,” he murmured.
Chapter Twenty
I woke up feeling better than I had in a long time. Maybe it was because of my agreement with Colly. I didn’t think what he wanted was too crazy; I had been expecting far worse, and he had known it. I was surprised at what he actually said, and he had nearly laughed at me. He didn’t actually laugh, however, because that would have required him to make more noise than he usually did in a month.
That morning we were scheduled to do a session of outdoor training with magic, obstacles, weapons, and the water. It was supposed to be our biggest and most demanding training day since we’d arrived, because midterms were coming soon.
You had to pass the midterms, otherwise there was no point in taking the final. Or, for that matter, in staying at the academy.
I wasn’t feeling confident, but I thought I could accomplish any of the outdoor goals I needed to in order to pass.
I was theoretically one of the most physically capable students in the place, but I hadn’t had years of training like many of the others. The streets were just not the same kind of training ground as noble houses and palaces. That much was clear from the months I’d already been at the academy.
I was just about to leave for the kitchen when Wayllin showed up looking for me. She wanted me to know that our kitchen work had been canceled for the day. With all we had to do, there was no point in tiring ourselves out in the kitchen.
I wasn’t going to complain. It was going to be a long day. I just hoped I’d have the energy to work with Colly on reading when evening came.
As we headed to breakfast in the atrium, something I wasn’t used to doing, everybody was subdued. I didn’t know whether they were trying to conserve energy or if something else was wrong.
Just before I reached the atrium, someone bumped into my arm. It turned out to be Cuthbert, whom I had mostly managed to ignore. He hung out with Nerys and was therefore unpleasant by definition.
“Watch it,” he hissed, adjusting his sleeves and his gold jewelry.
I let him go first. There was no reason not to, and I was still in a good mood as I made my way into the hall.
Breakfast was short and sweet, but just as I was finishing my porridge with apple and cinnamon, the clouds started to darken the room. The sky didn’t go black like on the first day, but it did become muted and ominous, and a delicate rain started to patter down. I had trouble maintaining my composure.
“Looks like bad weather,” said Vayvin.
“I hate this weather,” I muttered.
“We all know. You hate the rain. We’ve heard,” said Esmeralda.
“It can’t be said enough. We can’t do our day outside in the rain,” I said.
“Why not?” Fallyan asked, happening to pass our table.
Vayvin turned to him and grinned. “A little rain never hurt anybody,” she said.
“What would you know about it?” I demanded.
“Don’t be a sourpuss,” said Esmeralda, shoving her glasses higher up on her nose. “It’s better to train in all conditions. We don’t get to choose what the conditions are when we’re fighting for real.”
“Let’s go,” said Vayvin. She slid out of her seat and the rest of us followed.
As we were leaving the atrium, Lewis walked up next to me.
“No way am I going out in that rain,” I muttered.
“We all are,” said Vayvin. “You don’t exactly have a choice. We have to train.”
“Yeah, we have to train,” said Lewis, glancing at my friends. I had introduced them once, but he had been too afraid to talk to them.
Vayvin glared at him, while Esmeralda seemed oblivious. Lewis had just started to say something else when Vayvin pretended to lunge at him.
Lewis squeaked and hurried away.
“Did you have to scare him?” I asked her.
“No, but I really enjoyed it,” she said.
I shook my head.
“Fine. Just don’t make a habit of it. He’s nice,” I said.
“Since when do you care if they’re nice?” Esmeralda asked.
I rolled my eyes.
Just then it started to rain harder. “This is terrible,” I said.
“Nobody else thinks so. The Shadow isn’t going to be able to see us under these conditions, so it’s a good thing from that point of view,” said Esmeralda.
Vayvin nodded. “Remember when the prince w
as nearly shot with an arrow on your first day? Yeah, I don’t want to repeat that. “
I still didn’t like it. I hated the rain. I had changed my plans when I was running from the law to avoid the rain. I had risked capture in order to avoid the rain. The idea that I was suddenly supposed to submit to it at this stupid academy pissed me off.
I shook my head. “I’ll catch up with you guys in a few,” I said.
Up ahead I saw Prince Connor, surrounded by fawning attendants as usual. And also by girls. He was doing tricks with fire for them as they clapped in delight.
All the students were streaming out the main doors, prepared for this weather even if I was not.
I waved to Prince Reidar and his guards as I passed them. The prince looked as if he wanted to ask me what I was doing, but because of the crowd he had to keep moving.
I had just reached the stairs heading up to the second floor, rehearsing my excuse for not joining the others right away, when an explosion sent me rocketing into the wall and searing heat burned through my back.
Then everything when black.
When I came awake, the hallway was filled with smoke. I coughed, and as my groggy senses started burning through me, the ball of magic inside me exploded. The next instant, the hall was clear of any debris. The wellspring inside of me burned.
I sprang to my feet and started running. My ears were ringing as I reached the main entrance to find the rain still pouring down, but nothing else the same.
My jaw dropped at what I saw. The bodies of my fellow students lay everywhere. Many of them had been knocked to the ground, but some of those were still moving. It was what I imagined a war zone would look like, fae stricken, and stricken down. For many of them, it was too late for me, or anyone else, to help them.
The blast radius was clearly visible, and outside of it the students were fine. It was there that I searched for students I knew. Some were sitting up after having been knocked down, whether by the initial blast or by the students near them as they fell.
To my relief, I saw Prince Reidar standing with Lewis, Colly, and Batham. The guards’ faces looked murderous as they scanned their surroundings for another potential attack. Reidar was coughing, but otherwise they all appeared unharmed.
Okay, except for the fact that Lewis was bleeding from one arm.
The prince locked eyes with me for only a moment. Then my gaze swept around and I saw Prince Orlando as well, looking positively terrified. His face was pale as he lay on the ground, shaking uncontrollably. I could barely see him through the crowd of guards that surrounded him.
My eyes continued to sweep the area until I saw who was actually on the ground inside the blast radius. I had been avoiding looking for him, but there he was: Prince Connor, still resplendent in his fine clothing, lying still in death. I sucked in a desperate breath. Many of his attendants and guards were scattered around him. A couple of them were moving painfully, while others were either knocked out or dead.
Then the teachers came running from every direction, all heading toward the hole in the ground where Prince Connor and many other students lay, unmoving.
The rain swelled, and despite the noise of the downpour it felt as if the roar of the waterfall was even louder than usual. My eyes sought out the foothills, where I thought I saw something move. With my sharpened vision I thought maybe a rider on a scraggly steed was watching us. He didn’t move as my eyes locked on him.
I thought about chasing him down, then changed my mind. What was the point? He’d be long gone before I got there. He knew those hills much better than I did.
I looked back at Prince Connor. He was dead, all his magical fire extinguished. The biggest, strongest Prince had been brutally murdered.
Students had streamed out of the castle in daylight, despite the rain, believing that the weather would give them cover from attack.
They’d been wrong. Horribly wrong.
More guards had tried to fight their way to Prince Connor, but Prince Connor was already gone. He’d been killed with a brutal efficiency.
We were down to two princes.
But that thought was sidetracked when Vayvin and Esmeralda came into view, both looking dazed but otherwise uninjured. I hurried over to them.
“Are you all right?” I yelled to Vayvin.
She shook her head and pointed at her ear to indicate that she couldn’t hear. I glanced at Esmeralda. She shook her head as well.
All I could hope was that their loss of hearing was temporary.
Esmeralda looked worse off than Vayvin, so I grabbed her arm and slung it over my shoulder. “Let’s get inside,” I said.
I glanced back at Prince Connor, who was now surrounded by teachers. His body would be brought inside, I knew that much, and I also knew the order that was coming. We would all be sent to our dorms and told to stay there.
If security had been tight before, it was going to be even worse now. If it used to seem like walked past a guard in every hallway, now there would be two or three. I wondered if they’d even let us out of our rooms.
This was the first killing of the year.
That was a maybe good thing, at least from some points of view. But all in all, it wasn’t.
I saw it as a dark omen. The strongest prince had been killed without difficulty. The rest of us didn’t stand a chance.
When we returned to the dorms, I helped other students because I was one of the only ones left uninjured.
It was a long time before we finished washing up and changing our clothes. Because uniforms were rationed, there would be extra laundry to be done that week. We were expected to do our own laundry for the most part, but there was plenty of support required in the laundry room, so I pitied the students who worked there. At the best of times it was the only job I thought might be worse than working in the kitchen, and this certainly wasn’t the best of times.
Except, of course, I had come to enjoy working in the kitchen. Maybe it was because of the particular fae I had been placed with, but I was grateful regardless of the reason.
I wasn’t going to think about that at the moment, though. A flash of Prince Reidar’s face looking terrified skirted through my mind. I told myself he had a right to be terrified.
I waited on my bunk bed while Vayvin finished up her shower. She came back looking pale but steady, but Wayllin came in just then so I didn’t have a chance to say anything.
Wayllin looked all business, but there was a pallor to her skin that I wasn’t used to seeing. “There will be an assembly tonight,” she said, her words clipped. “In the atrium. Everybody is to attend.”
That was all she said before turning on her heel and walking back out the door.
The most injured students were being seen to by healers, who moved from bed to bed checking on fae. I watched them work their magic for a while, then lay down on my bunk. I was holding on to my own wellspring of power as gold danced inside me like a bird soaring through the air. My magic appeared at the strangest of times, but no one’s magic had appeared to save them today.
As I lay there, I sensed layers upon layers of shields being put over the academy. Everything would change now. Not only had there been the first murder of the year, we had lost one of the three princes. It wouldn’t surprise me if the other two princes left. Prince Orlando already had so many guards I didn’t think he could have any more, but it had just been shown as clearly as possible that no number of guards could make anyone safe at the academy. Or maybe Prince Orlando would simply stop coming to classes.
After Wayllin left, Vayvin came over and sat on the bed next to mine. I leaned over from my perch on the top bunk so I could see her better.
“I can’t believe that happened,” she whispered, staring vacantly into the distance as if seeing the explosion again.
“Nothing good happens in the rain,” I said.
The girl in the bunk next to mine was named Londa. Her arm was bandaged and she had been resting, but she couldn’t help but hear us. She had sharp f
eatures and long black hair that said she was both beautiful and dangerous. Her body was well muscled, and the few times I'd heard her speak, she had used either threats or sarcasm to make it clear that she wanted to be left alone. She looked away from her work and said, “I don’t think the rain had much to do with it. This place is cursed.”
“Maybe it is,” I agreed, glancing around the room. Unsurprisingly, everyone was subdued.
Chapter Twenty-One
We were supposed to practice our magic and exercise our physical powers outside, but everything was canceled after the explosion. All we had left to do that night was eat dinner and make our away to the atrium for the assembly.
I wondered if I’d still be able to go to the library afterward to meet Colly and get some help with learning how to read. I wasn’t sure I could learn enough by Friday to finish the paper Clouda had assigned, but I had to try.
I didn’t like the alternative. Not that I was willing to admit it.
I saw Nerys on the way to the dining hall looking remarkably unscathed, given that everyone else was injured. Unlike many of our fellow students, she wasn’t bandaged anywhere.
She glared at me, then turned away. I didn’t bother to glare back. She wasn’t worth my time.
I walked into the atrium with Esmeralda and Vayvin to find the big space even more packed than usual. Everybody had been ordered to show up at the same time instead of straggling in over the course of a couple of hours, as they did for meals.
The amount of security took my breath away. The walls were lined with guards. If they’d had trouble hiring guards before, they certainly hadn’t today.
There were even a couple of winged fae flying up around the ceiling. Not only that, but the windows had been covered over. If there was an archer outside trying to see in, he wouldn’t be able to.
Every single teacher I had ever seen was there. Everyone from the kitchen was there. Not a single individual I knew at the castle was missing.
I took my seat with my friends. Like many of the others in the hall, I sought out the location of the princes. Prince Orlando and his entourage of protectors had a table to themselves, and he was wearing full armor, complete with helmet.
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