by Eva Chase
Thankfully, the other girl had no problem getting to the point. “You’ve always been a fan of the feebs,” she said.
The comment rankled enough that I had to hold back a glower, even though it was technically true. “I don’t think Naries are lesser human beings than mages, if that’s what you mean.”
She flicked her hand through the air as if what we’d said was exactly the same. “I have some… concerns about the way the staff have decided to handle the current batch. I finally found out the details of what Sinclair was babbling about.”
And she’d come to me. My apprehensions shifted in a new direction, more for my fellow students than for me. “What are you talking about? How are they being ‘handled’?”
Victory gave me a narrow look. “Ms. Grimsworth has been convinced to loosen the school rules. I think you know how much shit I got in when someone set me up to look like I was talking about magic in front of the feebs. Well, now some of the professors are leading some of their students to reveal exactly what we are to the Naries, to terrify them out of their wits with magic, and then to put some kind of spell on them so they won’t remember after. Until they do it all over again, I guess.”
Every inch of my body went cold. “What?” I said, but the question was more horror than disbelief. The pieces clicked into place far too easily—the Naries mingling with the fearmancer students, the daze I’d seen them in, the blur in the one girl’s thoughts.
“I know,” Victory said with a sniff. “It’s ridiculous. One stupid show-off doesn’t handle the memory wipe properly or decides to go for extra points in the wrong place, and we could all be exposed. Lord knows what’ll happen to the school or the rest of us then.”
Of course she’d be more worried about how it’d affect her life and not the immediate torment the Naries were going through. My hands balled in my lap.
“Why are you telling me?” I had to ask. “Why not go to Ms. Grimsworth or whoever?”
Victory appeared to stop herself just short of rolling her eyes. “Who do you think they’re going to listen to more—me, or everyone’s favorite four-strengths scion? I’d rather not get involved at all.”
Sure, why not stand back where she wouldn’t face any consequences and let me rain down hell on those involved? I couldn’t exactly argue with her logic, as self-serving as it was.
I rubbed my brow. “Do you have proof of this? They’re obviously keeping it somewhat quiet. I’m not going to get very far if I confront Ms. Grimsworth and she denies the whole thing.”
“I’m sure an outstanding mage like you can figure out how to tackle that problem,” Victory said, unable to keep a hint of a sneer from her tone even while she was coming to me for help. “I overheard a couple of the idiot students who are in on it talking about it. Use that story if you want—let them know how badly people are keeping the secret already.”
Yeah, that would probably be enough. If I made it clear I knew rather than suspected what was happening, Ms. Grimsworth might not want to risk lying anyway.
Did the other scions— No, if they’d been aware of what was going on, we’d have talked about it already. Declan and Jude knew how I felt about the Naries’ safety here and had shown they shared my concern. They wouldn’t have hidden something like this from me.
Malcolm’s attitudes in that area I was less sure of, but even if he wasn’t all that worried about looking after the Nary students, he’d realize it’d matter to me. I couldn’t see him jeopardizing the still-tentative partnership we were developing over a change in school policy.
So, the staff had kept the development secret from all the scions, unless Connar was aware of it in his addled state. I’d definitely have a lot to say to the headmistress on that subject.
Victory got up and made for the door. “Now you know,” she said in a tone that washed her hands of the matter. Then she looked back at me, and her lips curled with what might have been the first genuine smile she’d ever aimed my way, sharp as it still was. “Bring all that righteousness down on them, and for once it’ll be put to good use.”
Chapter Fourteen
Rory
Shelby didn’t get back to the dorm until just before six, lugging her cello case beside her. The second I saw her, I sprang off the sofa where I’d been waiting. I was supposed to meet the guys downstairs in a matter of minutes, but I’d been hoping I could check on my Nary friend first.
“Hey,” she said to me, at least looking more alert than she had at breakfast the other day. She set down her cello with a thump so she could open her bedroom door.
“Hey.” I picked up the case so I had an excuse to follow her in. A couple of my other dormmates were eating an early dinner in the common room, and I wasn’t sure it’d be a good idea to show my concern in front of them. For all I knew, they were in on this terrorizing-the-Naries scheme.
“How are you doing?” I asked as the door swung shut behind us. I set the cello against her desk where I’d seen her leave it before, and Shelby tossed her book bag onto her bed.
“Oh, same old. The non-music classes are kind of a drag, but we’re starting a new unit in orchestration that I’m loving.”
That gave me the perfect opening. “Have you had any classes with Professor Crowford? Tall guy, mostly gray hair, very smooth talker?”
Shelby tipped her head as she considered. “I think I’ve seen that guy around, but he doesn’t teach any of my classes. Why?”
He probably wasn’t the only teacher involved in the new approach to the Naries… or she might simply not remember. “I thought I saw you with a bunch of other students he was taking somewhere off campus the other day,” I said. She hadn’t been in the group I had actually seen heading off the green, but there could have been other occasions. “Just wondered where you all were going.”
Shelby’s gaze went abruptly distant, her mouth jerking into a frown. A tremor ran through her. Then she was laughing, if a bit shakily, as if nothing had come over her. “Mustn’t have been me. All my classes have been in the tower. I wouldn’t mind a few more field trips.”
A shadow of uncertainty lingered in her face despite her jokey attitude. She’d experienced something that had affected her, even if she had no conscious awareness of it. My teeth gritted with the thought of all the hell I’d like to rain down on Professor Crowford for messing with my friend and the other Naries this way.
There didn’t seem to be any point in pushing her harder on that subject. I’d only stir up more uncomfortable reactions.
“No kidding,” I said with a laugh of my own that probably came out a bit weak. “Well, I’ve got to get back to work. Lots of catching up to do.”
“Of course. Let me know the next time you’re up for going down to town for lunch or dinner.”
My smile at that suggestion came more easily. “Let’s see if we can make that happen next week.”
My horror and anger over what had been done to her and the others chased me down the stairs to the scion lounge. I burst in right behind Malcolm, who turned at my arrival. His expression darkened as he took in my expression.
“What are the assholes up to now?” he asked, his stance shifting as if he meant to go tackle whoever might have attempted to hurt me this exact second. I hadn’t wanted to try to explain what Victory had told me through texts, so I’d only told the guys that it was urgent that we talked.
Declan and Jude hustled over from where they’d been talking by the espresso machine. Declan’s forehead furrowed. “Did you have a bad run-in with Connar?”
Jude made an elaborate show of cracking his knuckles. “Whatever’s gone wrong, they’ll have to deal with a lot more than just you.”
Their automatic show of support steadied me, even though they weren’t at all on the right track. “It’s not about me, actually,” I said. “I just heard a disturbing story from Victory about why the extra Nary students have been brought on campus.”
I related what she’d told me and added in my own observations that lined up w
ith the story. By the end of it, Jude was holding my hand with a reassuring pressure, Malcolm’s expression had turned even darker, and Declan was pacing the area in front of the TV.
“That’s incredibly disturbing,” the Ashgrave scion said. “It’s bad enough the way the staff allow some of the students here to treat the Naries, but to be messing with their heads in ways that are causing long-term effects… There’s no way it won’t harm them to be continually memory wiped, not to mention the terrorizing beforehand.”
“Why the hell didn’t anyone notify us—or our families, anyway?” Malcolm demanded. “Secrecy about our magic is one of the fundamental tenets of fearmancer society. Playing around with the Naries like this could hurt all of us. Who gave Ms. Grimsworth or the professors involved permission to throw caution to the wind?”
“So none of you had any idea this was happening?” I said. It was a relief to know my instincts had been correct.
Jude shook his head. “They’ve obviously been keeping it very hush-hush. And they must have known if any scion found out about it, we’d bring it up with our parents.”
“I was getting the impression earlier this term that a few of the other families were encouraging their kids to push back on the secrecy issue,” I said. “We had a debate about it in one of my classes because this one guy brought it up. Maybe those families somehow convinced—or forced—the staff to go along with it, and they’re planning on using it to prove their point once they’ve been at it for a while.”
Declan stopped his pacing, his narrow eyebrows drawing together. “You said Professor Crowford is definitely involved. He’s on the list you got from Professor Banefield—the people he said are plotting against you. With the barons.”
“Yeah.” I paused. “But—if the barons were in on it, even if they wanted to keep it from us, wouldn’t you at least have had to be part of that conversation? They couldn’t make a change that big without all the barons being on board, could they? I thought that was the whole reason they were so set on getting control over me.”
“You’re right. They couldn’t have made any official changes in policy without my go-ahead.”
“Who says Crowford isn’t playing more than one side?” Jude pointed out. “That’s hardly unusual in this community. In the end, he’ll have his own interests at heart before anyone else’s. And apparently he’s especially interested in tormenting Naries.”
“He’s not going to be very happy with where that lands him when the barons do find out,” Malcolm muttered.
“Should we bring it up with them?” Jude’s hand squeezed around mine, his tone doubtful. I couldn’t imagine he was in any hurry to go running to his supposed father, even with a problem that had nothing to do with his own life.
“No,” I said. “Crowford might be an asshole, but Ms. Grimsworth has always seemed to at least try to look out for me. I don’t think she’s happy about the situation. If the staff have been pressured into this, we should find out the full story before we set them up to face sanctions or whatever.”
Declan made a face. “Fair. We know the barons aren’t always careful to make sure they’re bringing down their brand of justice on the people who actually deserve it.”
“We can all go and confront her,” Malcolm said. “She can’t lie in our faces when she’s got four of her future barons in front of her.”
Or maybe that would be so intimidating the headmistress would be less inclined to tell us the truth. People didn’t make the best decisions in a panic.
“I think that might be overkill,” I said. “We don’t need to terrorize her. She’s seen me work on behalf of the Naries before. She’ll know it’s them I’m concerned about—that if she’s concerned too, she can be honest about it. Why don’t I see what I can get out of her before we bring out the big guns?”
“I don’t know,” Jude teased. “I think you’re selling yourself short if you figure you’re not a ‘big gun’ yourself.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Rory has a good point,” Declan put in. “This is a fraught situation and a potentially precarious one for everyone involved. But I don’t think we should leave it any longer than we already have. Lord knows what damage they’ve already done.”
“I’ll see if I can speak to her tonight.” I glanced at the time on my phone. “I’d better go right now before it gets any later. I’ll let you all know how it goes as soon as I’ve gotten what I can out of her.”
“I wouldn’t want to be our headmistress right now,” Jude murmured as I headed for the doorway.
Night was starting to fall when I made it outside. Lights gleamed around the doorways of the buildings that bordered the green. I hurried through the swiftly chilling air to Killbrook Hall, which held the offices and living quarters for all the teachers and administrative staff.
Ms. Grimsworth’s office stood at the end of a long corridor past those of the professors. I knocked once and then again, harder. Even if she wasn’t on her office hours, that room connected to her personal apartment. I’d just have to make enough noise to bring her back to work if she wasn’t on the job already.
I didn’t need to escalate the situation any farther. A few seconds later, the door clicked open. The headmistress peered out at me, her graying blond hair loosened from its usual tight coil to hang across her shoulders. Her slightly beady eyes fixed on me with a flicker of worry.
“What brings you to my door at this hour, Miss Bloodstone?” she asked in her usual prim way. “Out-of-hours visits from you haven’t boded well in the past.”
I guessed this time wasn’t any different. “I wanted to talk to you about something that’s been happening on campus. Something I think has already been going on for too long, so it didn’t feel right to wait.”
Her face tensed, partly exasperation but I thought there was some guilt in there too. Nevertheless, she stepped back and opened the door wider. “Why don’t you come in and explain what this is about?”
I found myself sitting in the same chair where I’d perched almost six months ago when I’d first arrived at Blood U—where Ms. Grimsworth had explained who I was and why six people in black had slaughtered my parents and brought me here against my will. The girl I’d been then felt incredibly far away right now. What would Mom and Dad have made of me if they’d seen who I’d become as I’d caught my stride with my magic?
I didn’t want to think about that. At the very least, they’d have been proud of me for taking this stand on behalf of the people who couldn’t defend themselves from the threats this school posed.
“It’s come to my attention that there’s been a change in school policy regarding Naries,” I said. “I understand that at least a few of the professors are allowing some of their students to reveal their magic to groups of Naries with the intent to frighten them as much as possible and gain power from them, followed by tampering with their memories so they won’t be able to share what they’ve seen. I’ve got to assume you’re aware of this, since you had to be involved in accepting more Naries to the school this term in the first place.”
Ms. Grimsworth pursed her thin lips. She looked down at her desk and then back at me. “I have some say in how the school is run, but I’m hardly the final authority,” she said. “The adjustment in policy wasn’t my initiative.”
“Well, whoever’s it was, there’s got to be some way to stop them,” I said. “A change this big affects everyone in our community. I might not be a baron yet—and maybe I won’t be for a while now that my mother has returned—but I know there are certain standards for what—”
Ms. Grimsworth cut me off with a raise of her hand. She studied me appraisingly for a moment before she spoke.
“I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. The decree to alter our handing of the Nary students came from the highest authorities. It was a decree from the barons themselves. Frankly, Miss Bloodstone, as one of those baron’s heirs, you’re in a much better position to challenge it t
han I am, but you’d need to take it up with them rather than me.”
I blinked at her, my thoughts stalling before they could catch up. But—without Declan—without breathing a word to any of us scions… My own mother hadn’t said anything about major changes during the time we’d spent together. How could they?
I didn’t sense any deception in the headmistress’s demeanor, though. It certainly couldn’t help her to tell a lie like that. And she couldn’t answer any of the questions now racing through my head as my gut sank.
“I see,” I said, reaching for the implacable air of calm that had gotten me through more than one shaky situation in the past. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry for bothering you unnecessarily.”
As I stood up, I tensed my legs so they wouldn’t wobble. The enormity of this transgression gaped wider with each passing second I thought about it.
If the barons had gone this far, this quickly… what else might they be planning? What else had they already done?
Chapter Fifteen
Rory
Spying on someone in one of the Nightwood Tower classrooms wasn’t the easiest thing. Most of the rooms were small, holding no more than a dozen students, and contained little furniture other than the desks and chairs and possibly a storage cabinet that wouldn’t have made an ideal hiding spot. To avoid curious Nary eyes, the doors were solid and windowless.
My one saving grace was that Connar’s insight seminar was being held on the fifth floor—farther than I’d have liked to climb, but not so high it was impossible. I’d ended up getting a lot of practice at climbing to and from windows over the last few months.
I’d already slunk out to the tower early in the morning to compel a couple of the stones beneath the window into growing wider so they’d make a decent foot ledge once I got up there. I’d also conjured most of the rope I’d climb up and cast an illusion that would show only the plain wall to anyone looking that way, other than the lower several feet so that no one would stumble on either by accident just walking by. Right before the seminar, all I needed to do was surreptitiously draw the illusion and the rope down to the ground.
