“Doing nothing was the lesson, and you did the opposite infront of your year’s prefect, a room full of witnesses, a professor, and the Council monitor at the door.”
Her eyes moved over my face, sharp as cut glass.
“Whatever was done to you before they brought you here—whatever your mother told you you were—you should not have brought it into this room until you understood the room.”
My mother had sung me lullabies and combed my hair. That was all I remembered about my mother. The sound of her voice, the feeling of her fingers.
She had died before she could tell me what I was.
The girl in front of me would not have cared.
So I kept my mouth shut.
She didn’t wait for me to answer, anyway.
She just turned on her heel and stalked away.
The room was nearly empty by the time I lifted my palm off the stone of the circle. Caswell and Linden were at the door, no longer speaking. Caswell said nothing to me.
Linden, however, did say something.
“That will be reported,” he said. “The school’s protocols require it. You should not be alarmed.”
I was alarmed, because I had no idea what ‘reporting’ meant, or even what I’d done, but I kept that to myself.
He gave me one brief nod and left the room.
I left before anyone decided to ask me any more questions.
I went to the dining hall because I still hadn’t eaten since missing the breakfast bell, and apparently public magical humiliation made me hungry.
A girl sat alone at one of the tables, tearing bread into small, nervous pieces.
Alone looked like the closest thing to an invitation I was going to get in this room.
So I sat across from her.
She was mousy and thin enough that a strong wind could have carried her off. Her cuticles were bitten raw. A small pale Mark sat on the inside of her forearm.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked.
Her fingers stopped tearing the bread and she looked up at me blinked.
“Good. I’m sitting before someone tells me I shouldn’t.”
Color rose in her cheeks.
“I was told not to talk to you.”
“By who?”
She looked toward the far tables without moving her head.
“Not directly.”
“Of course not.”
“That’s how Caspian Ashford does things.”
