“Have they said who will take over from the deputy headmistress?” I add.
It must be the first time the Titan twin has considered this question, because he shuffles on his feet and puffs up his chest. “I could do it.”
To prevent myself from saying something rude, I simply nod and push my way through the handful of teachers to the circle of soldiers. Blaze stands at the center, seeming unperturbed by the situation, cleaning one of his front paws with his giant tongue. A tongue that’s length is nearly equal to my height.
He spots me, or perhaps he smells my scent, and his head swings my way. He gives a low rumble I’m beginning to suspect is his way of saying hello. The soldiers are obviously less convinced this sound is a friendly gesture, all of them taking a step back from the dragon.
“Hello, Blaze,” I tell him.
The nearest soldier sniffs. “Don’t talk to the dragon,” he says. “You don’t have permission.”
I turn slowly towards the man. He’s a foot shorter than me and a little skinny. His magic is prickly in the air but weak.
“What are your orders here, soldier?” I ask him.
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information,” he says with deluded self-importance.
I nod slowly, then turn my gaze back to the dragon. He’s watching me with those golden eyes.
“Go back to your cave, Blaze,” I instruct him. “Briony will call you if she needs you.”
He tosses his head and snorts.
“You can’t talk to the dragon!” the soldier yells at me.
“I already did,” I reply.
I can feel the soldiers bustling around me, feel their magic crackling. My own pulses in response, a warning I’m sure each of them feels in their bones. The dragon paws the ground and then stretches out his huge wings. With another rumble, he flaps them once, twice, and then he’s lifting into the air. The soldiers look at each other, panicked, clearly unsure what to do.
“Where’s he going?” the first soldier says in alarm.
“Somewhere safe,” I tell him. And before he speaks again, before any of them can attempt something they might regret, I march away.
I’m halfway back to our tower when I change my mind – and my route – heading for the tower where Fox’s lodgings lie instead and making my way down the cold stone steps to his room.
It’s been sealed back up again, but I use my magic to break through the spells easily, and then I step back inside his classroom. It’s a mess from where the Empress’s guards ransacked the room looking for clues. I pick my way through discarded books and toppled benches and find my way to his private apartment instead.
There, I hesitate for a moment, hand on the handle, knowing I’ll be violating his private space. Then I open the door and step inside.
The room is nowhere near as bare as that prison cell Briony had in her academy tower, but it’s nowhere near as luxurious as the rooms we occupy in ours either. There’s a bed, a desk, a fully stuffed bookshelf, a wardrobe. I cast my eye over it all. No photos. No pictures. No reminders of home at all.
This room has been searched too. The covers stripped off the bed, the contents of the wardrobe tossed onto the floor, the drawers upended. If there was anything to find in here, the guards would have found it already.
But I want to be sure.
I strip the leather glove off my right hand, hang it on my belt, and then I do the same with the left. I close my eyes and let my shadows race from my fingertips. I feel them streaming across the room, swerving and swooping like angry bats, rummaging through the discarded possessions that litter the professor’s room and searching. They alight on one object close to the wardrobe.
I snap open my eyes and walk that way. It takes me just a moment to find the object they’ve found. My heart hammers in my throat. I’m not as convinced as Dray is that the professor is our enemy. I recognize something in him. I’m certain he has feelings for Briony.
I also know that sometimes people choose power, greed, and money over love. That they cast it aside. That they give in to other desires. I’ve seen it first hand.
I crouch down, find my shadows spinning around the object in question. A small box. Plain, wooden and rudimentary. The lid has already been prized open but the contents remain inside – of no interest to the soldiers. A letter. A picture. A lock of golden hair. I recognize it immediately. The lock belongs toBriony. I take it into my hands and lift it to my face, inhaling. I don’t have the olfactory powers of Dray or the professor, but I still catch our mate’s scent buried in the strands of silky hair. Yes, Briony.
Maybe Briony is right. Maybe we should trust the professor.
When I return to our tower, I find our mate has been instructed by Beaufort to go to bed and rest. Of course, Briony would never accept an order like that from Beaufort, so it seems she’s taken her two friends, Fly and Clare, up to her bedroom with her, leaving Dray and Beaufort alone in the kitchen.
They’re whispering quietly to one another when I enter the room.
