Page 33 of The Witch They Crave

The gallery fills. Faculty. Students. Enforcers at the doors.

And in the second row, an empty seat on either side of them: House Vane.

I know them before anyone says a word. The man has Emric's jawline. The woman has Emric's face—his dark eyes, his soft mouth, the same gentle architecture that made him look like someone you could trust on sight. Looking at her is like looking at a ghost wearing different clothes.

Emric's father sits rigid. Dark suit pressed to severity. He doesn't look at me—looks at the empty adjudicator table like he’s itching for the proceedings to get started.

But Emric's mother is looking right at me.

Smaller than I imagined. Dark hair shot through with grey. A face that used to smile easily—the laugh lines repurposed for grief. She's looking at me with something I can't read. Not hatred. Something searching.

I look away. I have to.

A door opens at the side of the gallery. Kage comes through it.

He moves along the back wall without looking at anyone—finds a shadow between two columns and leans into it, arms crossed. My heart kicks up.

He's here. A week of silence and he's here, and when his eyes find mine across the room something passes between us through the bond—a pulse, low and warm, that says I'm here without saying anything at all. Then his gaze slides to the blood on my wrists and his whole body goes still.

I press my hands harder against my thighs. Not now.

Aamon takes a seat in the front row, directly in my sightline. Positioned where I can anchor on him if the room starts spinning.

I shouldn't need him.

But I do. I need him. I need Kage too.

The main doors open one more time.

Leopold walks in like he's arriving at a dinner party—unhurried, shoulders loose, white hair catching the overhead light. He takes a seat in the second row, near the Vanes, and settles back with one ankle crossed over his knee. Relaxed. At ease. A man with nowhere more important to be.

He catches my eye across the room.

And winks.

My fingernails dig into my thighs hard enough to leave crescents in the skin. The ward-lines under my feet flicker—a tiny spike, barely visible—and I drag my magic back with everything I have.

The last time I sat inside a containment circle like this I was thirteen and covered in my family's blood.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Three adjudicators enter from a side door. Dark formal robes, no ornamentation. The man on the left is gaunt, hollow-cheeked, with a face like cracked leather and hands that look older than the rest of him. The man on the right is broader, heavier, his expression set permanently. The woman takes the center chair—white hair cropped close, eyes like spent coal, the one the other two defer to without being told. She surveys the room once.

She nods at the room as a hushed silence falls over everyone and then she speaks.

"This tribunal convenes under council authority to adjudicate incident report 4471-C. The subject is Calypso Dellaby, provisional enrollment, Devenir Academy. The claimant is House Vane, represented by Advocate Marcellus of the Third Court."

A man rises from the gallery. Tall, dark-skinned, a suit that costs more than everything I've ever owned. He inclines his head. His face gives nothing.

"The incident in question: a cascade event on October thirty-first, resulting in significant structural damage to the academy chapel and the death of one Emric Vane." She opens a folder. "Mr. Balcour, your report."

Balcour stands. Reads.

I hear the first three sentences and then I sink somewhere into my own mind.

Not on purpose. My body does it for me—the old facility trick, the one I learned at fourteen when the doctors would read my incident report during quarterly reviews and I'd stare at the ceiling tiles and count the perforations until the words stopped being words. Cascade event. Structural damage. Regulatory failure. The language floats past me like something heard underwater. I watch Balcour's mouth move. I watch his pen tap the page when he pauses between sections. I feel the ward-lines hum under my feet and the puncture wounds sting on my wrists but I’m far away from all of it, sitting behind my own eyes like a passenger.

Emric surfaces once. Not by name. The casualty.