“Because it’s the right thing to do,” I call back to her. “Because the system as it stands now, the way the realm works, harms both you and your sister. You know it does. This is an opportunity for better things. For a new future, one without the threat of demons.”
She giggles again, although Linny looks uncomfortable, wringing her hands in front of her. Once again, I wonder how I never noticed that she has no powers. It’s obvious now I see it. There isn’t that aurora about her, that tingle in the air. It’s all Henny’s. It always was.
“You think you could destroy the demons?” Linny asks.
“If we restore equilibrium to the realm,” Tudor says, “if we undo the great evil done, if we bring back the light, I think we can.”
“You’ve all lost your minds,” Henny says.
I smile at her. “Most probably. Just think what fun that would be, Henrietta.”
She holds my gaze, and I know she’s tempted. Linny, though, is still unsure.
“If you tear everything down, you really think you could build something better?” she says, clearly believing that we can’t.
She might be right. Maybe we’d unleash chaos. Maybe everything would fall apart. I remember once learning about the theory of chaos, that the universe is destined that way, always leaning toward disorder and mayhem. Maybe that’s what fate wants, and it’s chosen us as its instrument.
But I can’t help feeling that it isn’t so. That fate, if it’s given me Briony, must be a force for good. It must want something better for this realm and its people.
Linny whispers to her sister, who’s staring Briony’s way. Then she shrugs and nods. I can’t help smiling. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do next. We have no real plan, no real idea what the hell we should do. And yet, right now, I think whatever we do decide to do, with fate on our side, is going to succeed.
In the next moment we’re swamped by all the students, every one of them firing questions our way. Questions we don’t yet have the answers to. We try our best, try to tell them what we’ve learned, what we’ve seen, what we’ve uncovered. Giving them answers when we can. Telling them we don’t yet have them when we don’t. Some offer ideas, some crazy suggestions. Henrietta wants us storming the palace immediately. But I think that’s more because she gets a kick out of the idea than because it’s a serious kind of plan.
Our little mate, caught in the middle, is clearly overwhelmed, and after twenty more minutes pass, I reach her side, shoo away the people crowding around her, and announce that we’re going to leave things there for now.
“We’re going to get some dinner and some sleep. I suggest you do the same,” I say, hoping with everything that’s going on the canteen will at least still be serving food.
Some of those in the crowd aren’t happy. They don’t want to let us go and still have more questions.
“We’ll talk again in the morning,” Briony promises, clearly exhausted.
“But what if the Empress launches an attack? What if she comes for us in the meantime? You let all those soldiers go and the other shadow weavers too. They’re gonna go and tell the Empress and all her guards what happened,” that short boy says again. He’s seriously getting on my nerves, especially as he’s damn right.
But it seems Tudor has an answer to that problem.
“This academy was a castle before it was a school,” he tells everyone. “A castle that belonged to lumomancers. There’s old, ancient magic in the stones, ones that will protect a lumomancer that needs help, especially from attack.”
It’s clear not many in the crowd are buying this solution. I have to admit I’m one of them.
“So what?” the short boy says again. “If the Empress comes knocking with all her elite guards to cart us all off to jail, we’ve just got to hope that the castle steps in and doesn’t let her?”
The Professor’s eyes flash red, and the boy visibly cowers away.
But Briony obviously has her doubts too.
“How do we know it would? Do we need to activate it in some way?” she says.
“I don’t think so,” the Professor says. “But I’m going to go to the library now to find out everything I can, and I’m going to take you,” he points at Clare, who blinks rapidly, “and Professor Cornelius with me. Even if we find no way to activate that ancient magic, there’ll be other ways we can protect the castle.”
Briony chews on her cheek but nods, and it seems to satisfy the other students, who one by one disappear toward the canteen. Soon, it’s just the five of us, plus Clare, her boyfriend, Fly, and a red-headed student who clearly has an infatuation for the tall skinny boy from Iron Quarter.
“You really think that will work?” Briony asks Tudor now that we’re alone. “You really think we’ll be safe?”
“Yes,” Tudor says with a confidence I don’t quite understand.
Briony is still unconvinced though. I think she feels the weight of everyone’s safety on her shoulders. She turns to her clever friend.
“What do you think, Clare?”
