Stealing into the archives to read about forbidden magic.
“Raya, please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did,” he says, face paling to powder.
“Gods, of course I didn’t.” Even to my own ears, it sounds like a lie. And not a very good one.
“By my colors, are youinsane?” he hisses. “What were you thinking?”
I wasn’t thinking—not really. I was trying to save myself the shame of having my magic bound.
“Look, this isn’t your problem, okay? I’m handling it.”
“Handling it?” The disbelief deepens his voice to a growl. “You asked an open question, Raya, that’s not something you can justhandle.
Lyons is going to find out!”
“Not if neither of us tells him!”
It’s only the sudden scream of the class bell that spares me the ferocity of Killen’s next reply.
Except.
Wait.
The pitch of the sound is too loud and shrill, the sequence too drawn out and rigid.
That’s not the class bell at all—it’s the Council bell, a call to assemble that’s only ever invoked when there’s a crime to be tried.
The trackers have captured an illegal Shade.
CHAPTER 6
RAYA
When the Council bell rings, we don’t ignore it. Trials are a rare occurrence at the best of times, and there’s not a Shade at the Academy who doesn’t thrill at the idea of witnessing one in real life.
Up until a few months ago, the Council used to carry out their justice in the physical realm, in the gilded chamber they command at the very heart of Sarotuza, where both Shade and typic could hear testimony on the crime.An exercise in appeasement, my father called it, designed to remind the city that we police our own kind.The typics enjoy watching us punished.It helps keep their fear at bay and the Church from lashing out.
But that was before a fanatical cleric broke with the sacraments and made a play for power. The Divine Meridian is his self-proclaimed title, the one true voice of the Gods. An entirely absurd assertion, but thanks to his budding cult of adoring zealots, the streets have grown more hostile of late, more laden with iron. For while the Church is only ever a spark away from declaring war against those with color, the Meridians don’t just want to banish us—or even kill us—they want tobleedus. Because for some unfathomable reason, they believe their messiah’s claims that it’ll immune them to our power. Yet another absurd assertion, seeing how it’s been proven, time and time again, that possessing our blood achieves nothing. Neither does injecting it, bathing in it, baking it into bread, or drinking it like wine.
But alas, you cannot reason with madness, and so, after the Divine Meridian killed his third Shade, the decision was made to start conducting trials at the Academy, so as not to present him with an opportunity to target us en masse.
“We are not done talking about this, Raya,” Killen seethes, speeding after me as I make to leave the archives.
“Yes, actually, we are.” I duck clear of his grasp. “So either go tell Lyons, or don’t tell him. Either way, I’m going to watch the trial.”
“Is that what you think I care about?Telling Lyons?” The hurt in his voice is a stone to the gut. “You know what, fuck you, Raya, you always do this,” he hisses. “Every time you think you’re failing, you make the most appalling decision you can.”
“That isnotwhat I do,” I say, though the accusation fits like a glove.
“It’s what you did with us.” He plants himself in front of me. “You had a bad setback so you went looking for an excuse to end things in case the Academy kicked you out.”
“You need to drop this, Killen.” I wish I could shimmer past him. But he can shimmer, too, and he’s faster than I am, and I don’t want to have this particular argument on the run.
“No, not this time. Not until you admit I’m right.”
“Killen—”
“Gods, just admit it, Raya. Don’t you think you owe me that?”
