"So they're discussing me without me."
"They've been doing that since orientation." She tears a piece of bread in half. "This is just the first time they've assigned it a session number."
I drink my coffee and don't say what I'm thinking, which is that four houses of supernatural politics deciding my fate over breakfast pastries is somehow less alarming than it should be. Three weeks ago, that thought would have kept me up all night. Now it takes a back seat to more immediate problems, like the fact that I can feel Ryder Ashford's presence in the upper floors of this building, a direction rather than a sound, north-northwest, three floors up, radiating the kind of controlled tension that bleeds through a bond when someone is choosing their words very carefully in front of an audience.
"There's more," Sage says.
"There always is."
"They're pushing the engagement forward." She watches my face. "Ryder and Lady Eveline. The announcement is expected by the end of the week. Malik heard one of the council aides saying the bond situation makes the existing political arrangement more urgent to formalize."
Something in my chest does a quick, ugly thing that I don't give permission to, and I press it flat before it gets any traction.
"Smart move," I say. "Politically."
"Angelic."
"It is. A formal engagement puts a wall between the bond and any claim on it. Clean, efficient." I set down my mug. "Very him."
Sage doesn't push it. She's good at knowing when to leave things alone. We eat in relative quiet while the dining hall fills around us with students who haven't been subjects of council emergency sessions before their morning coffee.
Malik appears fifteen minutes later, dropping into the seat across from Sage with the quiet economy of movement that's his default. He has a folded piece of paper in his hand.
"Dragon Heir received a summons from his father," he says, sliding it across the table. "Arrived by courier during the session. Word got out fast."
I unfold it. Official stationery, heavy-weighted, the kind that announces its own importance before you read a word. I don't read it all, just enough to catch the shape of it.Return home. Immediately. The null situation compromises your standing.
"Thane's father wants him back," I say.
"Thane told the courier no." Malik picks up Sage's abandoned coffee without asking. "Apparently in considerably more specific terms."
Sage raises an eyebrow. "How specific?"
"Specific enough that two second-years who witnessed it have been telling the story in rotating shifts since breakfast." He takes a sip. "The Dragon Prince is not going home."
I refold the paper and set it down. "What about Caspian's family?"
A pause. Malik and Sage exchange a brief look, the kind that means they decided together how much to tell me.
"The Thorne family submitted a formal petition to the council," Malik says. "Requesting that the null be contained or removed from Nocturne on grounds of supernatural political instability."
"Contained or removed," I repeat.
"Those were the words."
I nod once. "Good to know where everyone stands."
"Caspian wasn't the one who submitted it," Sage adds quickly. "It came from his father's office. Not him."
"Sage."
"I'm just saying it's not the same thing."
"I know it's not the same thing." I push back from the table. "I have training at eleven. I'll see you both at lunch."
She reaches across and catches my wrist briefly. Not stopping me. Just acknowledging that she knows, and that she's here. I squeeze her fingers once and go.
The training rooms are below the east wing, carved out of the older foundation stone, low-ceilinged and permanent-smelling, like chalk dust and old sweat and something metallic that I've decided is probably just the stone itself and not blood, though I've never confirmed this. I change into the practice gear they issued at orientation, the kind that absorbs minor magical impact without disintegrating, and start with the basic warm-up sequence Sage taught me the second week. No magic. Just the physical form, the footwork patterns, the way you learn to distribute weight before anything else.
