Page 37 of The Witch They Crave

The center adjudicator looks at the other two. The gaunt one nods. The broad one grunts—a sound that could mean anything but in this room means let's be done with this.

"Miss Dellaby." The center adjudicator. "The tribunal is prepared to accept House Vassard's proposal, contingent on your consent. Do you accept the terms of formal sponsorship under Leopold Vassard?"

The room waits. Three adjudicators. A dead boy's parents. Balcour's pen still moving. Leyonna with her hands folded and her face giving me nothing.

Aamon's eyes on me. Kage's eyes on me. Leopold's warmth and Leopold's smile and the tap-tap-tap of his finger against his thigh.

“Miss Dellaby?” She asks again.

I open my mouth to respond.

Chapter 10

"Do you accept?"

The word yes sits on my tongue like a coin I don't want to spend.

I look at the room instead. The three adjudicators, patient as stone. The Vane advocate with his precise cuffs. Emric's father, who hasn't looked at me once. Emric's mother, who hasn't stopped. Leopold in the aisle with his hand open at his side and his smile pitched to exactly the frequency of mercy.

And I understand there is no real choice here. There's the shape of one, laid out for the record so everyone can tell themselves I was asked. But I know a rigged door when I'm standing in front of it. Behind the word no is a blood claim—indenture, suppression, a needle and a white ceiling and twelve more years of the slow erasure I clawed out of two weeks ago. Behind the word yes is Leopold.

They built me a hallway with one door and called it consent.

And then, low in the place nothing in this room can reach, the warmth I haven't felt since the cellar: Don't agree to anything yet. Make them read you the terms.

I suck in a sharp breath.

It's the first thing the voice has said in days, and it's not comfort—it's strategy, cool and exact, and I hold onto it because it's the only thing in this room that's on my side and asking nothing back.

I clear my throat and do as it says.

"What are the terms," I say.

The center adjudicator's coal eyes flick up. It isn't the answer she asked for.

"You'll accept or decline the terms as offered, Miss Dellaby."

"Then read them to me. All of them. If I'm signing my life over I'd like to know the small print."

A muscle moves near Leyonna's mouth that might, in a better room, have been a smile. Marcellus the advocate glances at Leopold. Leopold inclines his head—by all means—like he's granting me something.

"Sponsorship transfers responsibility for the subject's containment, training, and conduct from the council to House Vassard," the adjudicator reads. "The subject boards under Vassard supervision. Vassard assumes all associated liability. The council retains the regulatory device and its designated operator until such time as a separate proceeding reassigns them."

The device and its operator. The fail-safe. Aamon. They stay council property. I feel that land somewhere under my ribs and I don't let it show on my face.

"The subject remains enrolled at Devenir," she continues. "Sponsorship is indefinite, subject to review. Do you—"

"A clarification, if the tribunal permits." Balcour, without standing, pen still in hand. "For the record, so there's no confusion later. The council isn't washing its hands of Miss Dellaby completely. We're distributing the burden, not discarding it."

The adjudicator's coal eyes slide to him. "Go on."

"House Vassard assumes custody, boarding, and liability. That much is settled. But the original enrollment agreement stands underneath it." He turns a page like he's reading me my own contract, which I suppose he is. "The council continues to provide her trainer. She remains enrolled in the academy proper—she attends, she progresses, she is assessed on the same schedule as any other student. And the council maintains its quarterly review of her regulatory progress, exactly as offered when she first arrived." A thin pause. "We've simply arranged it so that if there's another incident, the liability sits with the house that insisted on taking her, and not with us."

Not with us. I almost scoff. Even now. Even handing me over, they're already covering their asses for my next expected murder.

Leopold inclines his head, gracious. "House Vassard welcomes the council's continued oversight. We've nothing to hide."

"Then it's entered as such," the adjudicator says. "House Vassard holds custody. The council retains training, enrollment, the regulatory device, and quarterly review. Miss Dellaby remains, in all monitored respects, a joint concern." She looks back at me. "Sponsorship is indefinite, subject to review. Do you accept?"