Kieran crossed to our table. He took me in and frowned.
“Who ruined your day?” he asked, raising a brow.
“I found a file.”
He opened his mouth to say something that never came out because he staggered.
A hiss got through his teeth before he could turn it into a smile.
Rev was on her feet before the second apple hit the table.
“Sit down beforeyou fall over.”
Kieran half-collapsed into the seat across from us, not beside me.
“Very well behaved,” I said.
“Don’t spread it around. I have a reputation.”
His voice managed the joke. His eyes didn’t.
“So what file?” he asked.
Rev winced.
Kieran glanced at her. “That bad?”
“Worse,” she said.
I looked down at the table.
“My mother refused Magnus Ashford.”
The color that was left in Kieran’s face went.
“Well,” he said quietly.
“That’s all?” I asked.
His gaze lifted.
“No. That’s the only part I can say in public without making several things immediately worse.”
The bell rang before I could answer.
Students began to pour in from the corridors, noisy at first, then less so when they saw us. The quiet didn’t happen all at once. It moved group by group, carried by glances, elbows, whispers cut short.
“If you wanted to avoid attention,” he said, “this probably wasn’t the place to go.”
“I didn’t.”
He looked at me then, and I saw him understand.
“Good.”
The word should have sounded like approval. It didn’t. It sounded like worry that had failed to find a better disguise.
Then the main doors opened.
