Even the murmurs ceased once we began to leave.
Despite how loud it had been just minutes before, no one made a sound as I passed by their tables. When I glanced towards the teachers, and the raised dais of Headmaster Voltaire, I saw them all following our procession as wordlessly as the students. Voltaire stared openly from her higher elevation, her posture rigid, the Malcroix Cross hanging on a heavy chain around her neck. The violet crystal on the bone cross glinted in the overhead chandeliers.
I didn’t let myself look for Bones.
I didn’t let myself wonder how he might be reacting.
7
Relations
“Cousin.” Valor stopped me around ten meters outside the doors to the Hall, right after the sound inside resumed and gradually grew louder. His deep voice sounded painfully apologetic. “I must apologize. I should not have come for you in the main hall like I did. I confess… I did not consider how it would look.”
Something in my chest hitched, then jerked sideways.
My heart, which I must’ve been strangling with my magic, fought to start beating again. I expelled a slow breath, fighting to keep my expression still.
He wasn’t telling me he was arresting me.
He hadn’t pulled out handcuffs, or the Magique equivalent.
My cousin glanced back towards the tall doors we’d just walked through. A faint anger shone in his eyes where they caught the torchlight.
When his head turned back, those stunning eyes met mine.
“I do feel very bad for this, cousin,” he repeated, his words even more apologetic. “It’s clear you still arouse a certain amount of…” He hesitated. “Curiosity? I haven’t helped in that, have I?”
“It’s all right.” I felt that intense fear in me, the part that’d been sure I was about to go to Magical prison, still struggling to relax. “I doubt it’s made anything worse,” I lied.
His skepticism shone clearly in his eyes.
Even with that, he still looked like a fairytale prince.
“It’s all right,” I repeated. I tried to smile, then to change the subject. “Did you go to school here, cousin?”
His eyes met mine in surprise.
I felt my face warm.
“Never mind,” I said hastily. “What is it you needed to tell me?”
He exhaled, still looking guilty, and now openly frustrated, maybe at himself. He glanced at the six guards who accompanied us, who now stood in a half-moon formation between us and the tall doors into Eustacia Morwormer Hall. Their current positioning looked almost protective, which might have been funny if the entire school wasn’t inside, speculating gleefully about why I was about to go to prison.
After another bare hesitation, Valor jerked his head, indicating he wanted us to move further from that warm, fire-lit opening, and away from the lingering smells of spiced mead, freshly-baked lemon tart, and mulled wine.
He took me past the foyer, and into a long, stone corridor with tall, arched windows along the right side.
I felt my insides clench as soon as I recognized it.
I hadn’t been in that particular corridor since the night of theEleusínia Myst?riadance. That same night, my aunt tried to kill me as part of a ritual to bring back my great-great-grandmother, and to gift my body to replace the one sitting in a La Fey crypt somewhere.
Thanks to Bones, that hadn’t happened. Instead, I saw my aunt’s insides splattered all over the walls of her sitting room. And all over me.
I pushed the memory far, far to the back of my mind.
My gut clenched more when my cousin opened the iron and glass doors that led out onto a stone terrace I also recognized, even though I’d been pretty out of it the last time I stood there. It was the same one where Bones found me that night, and demanded to know which of our classmates had drugged me.
I’d somehow managed to avoid this part of Malcroix Manor for the entire second half of last year. Now, my first day back on campus, here I was again.
