Royals of Villain Academy 8: Vicious Arts
Page 6
Especially when I had more than one thing I needed to address today. I girded myself. “I thought it was the best option, considering the circumstances. And—I think you should know, I don’t go by Persephone anymore. I know that’s the name you gave me, but I grew up without knowing that. I’ve been Rory my entire life that I can remember. I’m a Bloodstone now, I’ll never deny that, but I can’t just become the person you expected me to be back then.”
She blinked at me with a wince she couldn’t quite suppress. “That’s the name your jailors gave you.”
“They didn’t treat me like a prisoner,” I said. “They never made me feel as if they thought there was anything wrong with me, even though they knew who and what I was. I disagree with plenty of things the joymancers have done, but they are people too, and some of them are good people. Even if it wasn’t right for the ones who attacked us to take me in the first place, they made the best of a bad situation. I’m not going to forget that.”
Her lips pursed in a thin line. Looking at her face-to-face, I saw even more than before how much I took after her in appearance. From our dark brown hair, though hers was silvered, to our height and our slim frames, anyone could have marked us as mother and daughter in an instant.
What had I gotten from my father? Where was there any confirmation in the mirror of who that man had been?
Questions I wasn’t ready to ask quite yet, not when there was so much else hanging over this conversation. I’d stayed standing, not wanting to feel my mother looming over me, so she had her pick of the room’s seats. Possibly unsurprisingly, she slipped behind the desk and dropped into the chair where the professor who normally would have used this space would have sat. I let myself sink into the chair opposite.
“You have a lot of opinions on many subjects,” my mother said, picking up a pen that had been left on the desk. She tapped it against the wooden surface. “Perhaps you should consider that you have far from all the facts from which to draw your conclusions. You didn’t grow up in this world. I did, even though I was torn from it for a time. I know our people. I know what we need. You should let me guide you. This resistance—it’s not a good look.”
“I’m not concerned about how it looks. And maybe I don’t know everything about the community, but I know there are plenty of people who grew up in it who feel the same way I do. I know the fact that I didn’t grow up here might let me see things from a broader perspective.” I hesitated and then tried one last-ditch effort to appeal to her emotions, even though I doubted it would work. “You even said yourself that things have been moving too quickly for you to really think them through.”
She tossed the pen back onto the desk with a dismissive flick of her fingers. “If I did, it was a moment of distraction and confusion—because of the horrors imposed on me by the people you say can be good.”
My voice came out quiet but steady. “And what did you do to some of those people just yesterday? They weren’t the same ones who kept you captive, were they? But you didn’t show them any mercy.”
My mother’s gaze sharpened into close to a glare. “They came into our territory, attacked us, and destroyed what we were building. They deserved every wound we dealt them. Are you defending them too now?”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t have been angry with them, or that you shouldn’t have taken steps to make them leave. I just think… taking them by surprise, with no ability to defend themselves, and going straight for the slaughter—we should be better than that. It wasn’t even sinking to their level, because they didn’t descend on any of us in our beds. It was sinking lower.”
“They were vermin here, and we exterminated them,” she snapped. “You have to take a firm hand if you want your enemies to know the consequences of meddling. We weren’t going to risk any more casualties on our side than we’d already taken.”
I could imagine other options that might not have risked fearmancer deaths without resorting to instant slaughter, but it was too late for those now, and my mother clearly wasn’t in the mood to hear them. “And what are you going to do to the Naries you’re targeting now? Did those kids in town the other day deserve to be slaughtered too—because they threw some rocks and dirt at us?”
Her shoulders stiffened. I’d seen how she’d reacted to the one little boy one of the blacksuits’ crew had killed. She hadn’t enjoyed witnessing that death any more than I had.
But she couldn’t admit even that much. “They had to learn. They will learn. And you will see, once we remake the world for you, how much better it is for you after all.”
“Why can’t you explain it to me first?” I said. “Why can’t we hold off on messing with their lives until we’ve all really talked about it—until you’ve given all of the fearmancers you’re supposed to be serving a chance to say their piece without having to be afraid they’ll be punished for it? If this plan is so great, you should be able to make a convincing case for it.”
“You clearly won’t believe that we belong at the top of the hierarchy until you’ve gotten to experience it for yourself.” My mother pushed back the chair and stood up. “Is this all you brought me here for—to badger me about my decisions? I thought you were better than that, Persephone.”
Her tone was so caustic in combination with the criticism and her insistence on using my birth name that I flinched. My hands balled at my sides. “I just want to talk about it instead of you insisting that you know what’s best. You hardly know me at all.”
There was something a little sad in the tight smile she gave me then. “Or maybe you don’t fully understand yourself yet. You’re a Bloodstone. I know what that means. I could keep showing you if you’d let me.”
I didn’t think Maggie would agree that the baron had sole ownership over how one could be a Bloodstone, but I wasn’t going to reveal any of the secrets my cousin had told me. That comment did give me an opening into the one other topic I’d hoped I could bring up.
“Am I just a Bloodstone?” I said.
My mother paused, tipping her head to one side. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve heard rumors that you might have been… especially close with one of the other barons way back then.”
I didn’t need to spell it out any more than that. No more than a flicker of confusion crossed my mother’s face before understanding dawned there instead. She let out a bark of a laugh and covered her mouth to contain the giggles that followed it.
“Oh, darling,” she said. “I don’t know who’s been filling your head with ridiculous speculations, but I can assure you I took every care when it came to your conception. I valued your future ahead of my own happiness. Your father… was not everything I could have wanted in a partner, but he was an impressively strong master of insight, which has never been a great strength of mine. And clearly that line ran true alongside mine, considering that area of magic became not just one of your strengths but your specialty.”
Her amusement at the idea convinced me with a trickle of relief. She didn’t sound defensive or anxious about being exposed, only a little offended that I might have believed such an absurd idea. And when she put it that way, it did seem absurd. Persuasion was her greatest strength, and it was Baron Nightwood’s too. If I’d gotten my heritage from the two of them, surely I’d have gravitated toward the same area no matter what my upbringing had been. I didn’t even consider it my secondary strength—that would be Physicality.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, managing a little laugh of my own. “I just wanted to hear it from you, to be sure.”
My mother’s gaze rested on me for a moment, with a touch more warmth than had been there before. God, how I wished our conversations could be more like that brief exchange—that I could ask questions and get straight answers, and we could laugh together at the turns the discussion took.
If I’d just given in and gone along with her plans, maybe I could have had that. I’d bet that was what she was thinking right now: how much she’d given to me a
nd why I was giving back so much less than that. I didn’t know how to explain to her why I couldn’t be who she wanted in any way she’d understand.
But damn it, what I wouldn’t have given for a real mom again.
Then she shattered that moment of longing with a snap of her fingers. “I think this foolishness has gone on long enough. Persephone, you will come with me now.”
The persuasive spell rammed into the magical barrier around my mind with so much force I jerked back in my seat. If I’d only been relying on my own strength, I could tell it would have smashed straight through. But contrary to appearances, I wasn’t alone. I had the combined strength of three other scions bolstering my shield—and they’d have felt the impact from where they’d been waiting for this talk to end a few rooms over, lending their power to protect me in the meantime.
A tingle of energy rushed over me as their castings wrapped around me to bolster my defenses even more. My mother frowned, her eyes turning piercing as she examined me. “You let others fight your battles for you. You should be better than that, too.”
If I’d been “better,” she’d have had me walking out the door with her already. I stared right back at her. “They’re not fighting the battle for me; they’re fighting it with me. Our pentacle stands together.” Unlike hers, from what I’d seen.
Her jaw worked. I suspected she was tempted to try again, but she’d put a huge effort into that first casting when she’d thought she’d also had the advantage of surprise. I could almost see the gears turning in her head as she decided that no, it would make more sense to wait for a fresh opportunity.
“It doesn’t matter what you think or how you behave,” she said, “you’re still my daughter.” And with those words left hanging in the air, she stalked out of the office.
The moment she was gone, I slumped in my chair. The tension of the meeting had left me drained. But from their vantage point, the guys wouldn’t know anything about how the conversation had gone, only that we’d fended off a spell. After a moment, I peeled myself out of the chair and made my own way to the doorway.
Ms. Grimsworth was just stepping out of her office at the far end of the hall. She looked me over with a solemn expression. “I gathered your conference is finished.”
“Yes.” I drew myself straighter, hoping my weariness with the conflict didn’t show. “Thank you again for the use of the office.”
“It was no trouble at all.” The headmistress walked a little closer and stopped, folding her arms over her chest. For a second, with her strict expression, I thought she was going to chide me for my lack of daughterly respect.
“I know you haven’t been happy with recent developments here on campus,” she said instead. “Unfortunately I haven’t always had final say. But I can tell you that I intend for you and your fellow scions to be able to count on this university as a secure place no matter what else is going on in your lives, and if there’s anything I can do to make it more secure, I hope you’ll tell me that.”
My throat closed up at her offer, gratitude and apprehension mingling inside me. Gratitude that she was making that offer. Apprehension at what might be ahead of us that made her feel she needed to say it in the first place.
Chapter Eight
Rory
The last thing I expected to see when I walked into the common room was Cressida and our new Nary dormmate, Morgan, sitting at opposite ends of one of the sofas, having what looked like an at least somewhat friendly conversation.
“It’s just been hard to wrap my head around, you know?” Morgan was saying, her hands twisting together on her lap. She startled a little at my arrival.
Cressida let out a light chuckle. “You don’t have to worry about her. Rory has been championing the nonmagical students here basically since she arrived. Which hasn’t always made her a whole lot of friends with the rest of us, but…” She offered me a crooked smile. “Some of us are starting to see her point. The way things have gotten is definitely beyond the pale.”
It was one thing for Cressida to want to avoid having to get into combative situations against the Naries in town, which was how she’d ended up on the Scions’ Guard in the first place. I hadn’t expected her to actually reach out to any of the Nary students and make an effort to get to know them. I had to admit I was a little impressed.
I came over and sat gingerly on a chair near Morgan. “Have you been holding up okay? I’ve done my best to at least get the other girls to hold off on harassing you while you’re here in the dorm.”
But I hadn’t reached out to her directly—until the past week, I’d been too worried about keeping up a front of supporting my mother, and since I’d officially spoken up against her plans, I’d been so caught up in figuring out how to tackle the barons that I’d let other considerations slide. Now that the scions were openly opposing terrorizing the Naries for fun and power, we could take steps to make things more comfortable for them here on campus too.
“I’m surviving.” Morgan’s arms came up to hug herself. “I’m kind of terrified every time I have to leave the dorm. But… the weird thing is I do still love the actual program. I’m learning a lot when I can concentrate.”
“What are you studying?” I asked. The only Nary disciplines Blood U offered that I was at all familiar with were the music and architecture programs, but I knew there was at least one more.
Morgan flexed her fingers. “Computer programming. Which makes it even more embarrassing that I can’t seem to reach out to anyone back home… I can do pretty much whatever I want on the internet with my laptop, but whenever I try to send someone an email or anything, it’s like I just freeze up.”
I grimaced. “The mages who took your phones probably cast a spell on all of you to make sure you couldn’t reveal what was going on here in any other way. I’m so sorry. We’re trying to fix that. It’s never been great here at the university, but the way things were before, no one would have thrown magic at you this openly.”
“I guess we could…” Cressida slipped her hand into her purse and withdrew her phone with its pearly case. “The blacksuits never figured any of us would offer our own phones.”
She gave me a questioning look, a worry line forming on her forehead. If Morgan could use our phones, then that would mean potentially letting her tell people beyond campus about magic and everything else that was going on here. I didn’t like seeing the Naries cut off from their support systems, but I wasn’t sure that kind of revelation would be a good thing in the long run. How would the barons respond to that information breach?
Morgan must have been able to guess the reason for my hesitation. “I won’t say anything about magic or the craziness here,” she said quickly, her face brightening with eagerness. “It’d be amazing just to let my family and friends know I’m okay and find out what’s up with them. If it even works.”
That was a big question, after all. If she started to say anything I thought might bring the barons’ wrath down on her or the people close to her, we were right here. I could intervene. I nodded to Cressida. “We might as well try.”
She unlocked the phone and handed it to the Nary girl. Morgan hovered her thumb over the touchscreen, her hand trembling. Her thumb twitched—and veered off just shy of tapping the phone icon. She tried again with the same result and lowered the phone with a rough laugh.
“It figures if I can’t make myself do it with the computer, it applies to every phone too. Even if you dialed the number for me, I bet I wouldn’t be able to make myself talk.”
She was probably right. “We’ll get it figured out as fast as we can,” I said. “And in any case, the staff were never planning on keeping you all here away from the rest of the world forever. You’ll get to make trips home for the holidays and all.”
Just with their memories wiped of anything incriminating… unless it was into a world where the barons had already brought fearmancers into the light as humanity’s new dictators, however exactly they were planning on doing that.
“We’ve got to get going,” I said to Morgan. “Just… hang in there as well as you can. And if there’s something you think we might be able to help with, let me know.”
Cressida stayed quiet as we headed down the stairs.
“You decided to make friends?” I said lightly after we’d passed the first two landings.
Her lips twisted. “I don’t know. I figured… if we’re going to all this work and taking all these risks to try to protect these people, maybe I should get a better idea of who exactly we’re doing this for.” She paused. “She wasn’t actually that different to talk to than another mage.”
How many Naries had she bothered to really talk to before? Maybe none. “They are still people like us,” I said. “The only difference is the magic.”
“I suppose.” She flicked her braid back over her shoulder. “I’d still rather have magic than not.”
I had to laugh. “Fair enough.” I couldn’t say that I wasn’t glad I had my magic too.
We were among the first to reach the basement room. Malcolm motioned me over to where he was standing with one of the guys from his guard. He rested his hand on the small of my back, with a possessive sweep of his thumb and a gleam in his eyes that was much more his usual self than I’d been seeing in the past week. I’d told him what I’d heard from my mother as soon as I’d gotten out of that meeting, and his relief that no huge stumbling block existed in our relationship still radiated off him.
“It looks like the barons have made their first move,” he said, with a nod toward the laptop his friend was holding. “Probably by way of the underlings they sent out to Washington, from what Jude’s uncle said. There’ve been some very strange things happening in Nary politics today… Stranger than usual, anyway. I’m pretty sure they’re stirring up trouble there.”