“Wait, didn’t they already have proof?” the auburn-haired mage asked, looking between Bones and Voltaire. “I heard he sent a letter to a relative or something?”
“He did,” Voltaire confirmed. “His half-brother. He spilled all kinds of shit in that, too, stuff he should’ve kept his mouth shut about, including things he shouldn’t have known about at all. Luckily, that wanker brother of hiswasloyal. He contacted Lord Greythorne at once, and turned him in. That’s when Alec got yanked out of school… but then his father didn’t report him for weeks, so now his father’s in the shitter, too.”
I glanced at Bones, but his face didn’t visibly react. His fingers massaged my thigh as he adjusted himself under me so that I sat directly in his lap. I wrapped my arms and hands around his where he held me.
“How did you hear about it?” Bones asked Voltaire.
“I just told you. My father.”
“You saw your father recently?”
“No, he told my aunt,” Voltaire clarified.
When Bones quirked an eyebrow at him, Voltaire shrugged.
“It’s not like he announced it publicly,” Norrick said, a touch defensive. “He told myaunt.She’s loyal. Anyway, they want us to keep an eye on the other students here, especially anyone who’s fraternizing with the hybrid, or one of the teachers they’ve got their eyes on. They’re looking real hard at Forsooth, of course, not like that’s new.”
When Bones didn’t answer, Voltaire shrugged. “I’m surprised your father didn’t say anything to you.”
My heart was hammering in my chest.
While it wasn’t exactly shocking that Headmistress Voltaire, Norrick’s aunt, would be working for Dark Cathedral outright, it still managed to disturb me. Malcroix Bones Academy wasn’t the safe place I’d somehow pretended it was. It was literally beingrun by someone who wanted me and probably everyone I cared about dead.
Bones’s arm tightened around my waist.
His other hand rubbed the small of my back, kneading the muscles with his fingers. His mouth brushed against my neck, making me shiver.
“Why would my father need to say anything to me?” Bones asked Voltaire lazily, raising his eyes to the other mage. “He knows none of those teachers would tell me anything. Forsooth barely tolerates me in his classes. I’m not exactly chumming around with the hybrid, either.”
Maskey let out a gruff laugh.
“You see her every fucking day, Bones,” he scoffed.
Bones looked at him flatly. “She’s not exactly talkative while I’m throwing her to the mat, or watching her butcher the ancient forms, however amusing it might be. Or did you expect me to murder her before the war’s even begun, Scarpen? Spend the first half of the conflict rotting in the Pyramid, after G.O.R.E. or the B.M.E. show up to arrest me?”
Voltaire glanced at Scar, as if to warn him silent, then looked back at Bones. “You pick up on anything with Greythorne over the summer?”
Bones shook his head. “I barely saw him,” he said, his voice still bored. “My father had me pretty busy with other things.”
I kept my expression still, stroking Bones’s fingers where he held me.
“You didseehim, though?” Panzen pressed.
Bones shrugged. “A few times, sure. I mirrored to London the odd night off, and occasionally ran into him. We got drunk. Trolled for pussy. It’s not like he was ranting to me about his support for the entrenched government, or telling me about his new best friend, Gideon Forsooth, leader of the anti-Dark Cathedral faction.”
The auburn-haired mage grunted a laugh.
Voltaire’s eyes never left Bones’s face. “Why aren’t you more hacked off?” he asked, frowning. “Doesn’t it bother you he’s a bloody traitor to the cause? That he was probably reporting everything we said to––”
Bones scoffed, cutting him off.
When Voltaire’s expression darkened, Bones rested his chin on my shoulder.
“Alaric’s no resistance fighter,” he said derisively. “He’s completely apolitical. His father probably volunteered him for the ground forces, so Alec panicked and wrote his brother to see if he could sit out the war in Greece, getting drunk and getting his cock sucked until the worst of the fighting finished. I’ve known him since we were kids. He’s no spy. Whatever they think they’ve got on him, they’re wrong.”
Maskey and Voltaire exchanged looks.
Then Maskey leaned past Voltaire, giving Bones a cold stare.
