Page 8 of The Witch They Crave

"Two. The incident is classified as an anticipated variable in a high-yield subject undergoing supervised integration. Projected tolerances accounted for material loss. One casualty falls within—"

"His name was Emric."

Balcour's pen doesn't stop.

"—falls within acceptable margin for a subject at this stage of regulation, and does not, in the council's assessment, constitute program failure."

"Acceptable margin? His name," I say, louder, "was Emric Vane."

"The casualty's identity is recorded in the incident file, Miss Dellaby."

"Say it."

He turns a page.

"Three," he says. "Effective immediately, residential privileges are revoked. Subject will be relocated tonight to a warded containment room underground in the old salt cellar, where she will remain outside of scheduled instruction and supervision."

Leyonna shifts her weight and nods.

"Four. The proximity requirement is amended. Review found that response latency during the incident exceeded acceptable parameters as a function of supervisor distance." Now Balcour looks up. Grey eyes, unimpressed, exactly the same as the first day. "Your supervisor was on the far side of the hall. In future he will not be. Professor Aamon will maintain a fixed maximum distance from your person at all times, waking and otherwise, until the council determines otherwise."

I hear Aamon breathe in.

"Five. A formal inquest into the events of this evening convenes in fourteen days. Until that date your enrollment continues in provisional status. Your conduct in the interval will be entered into evidence."

"And House Vane," Leyonna says. First words she's said.

"House Vane has entered a claim." Balcour clicks the pen closed. "It is unresolved. That is not a matter for tonight."

"It's a matter for me," Leyonna says. "It's my student in that file and my chapel in pieces."

"Noted," says Balcour, and writes it down.

I start to laugh.

It comes out wrong—cracked, ugly, entirely without a joke underneath it—and every person in the room turns to look at me except Balcour, who is capping his pen.

"Material loss," I say.

Balcour keeps writing.

"That's—" The laugh spirals out of control until I’m out of breath. "You wrote him down. He has a name, you people have it in a file, and you stood in my room and read him off as material loss like he's a broken window." The heat's coming up my throat and I don't stop it. "None of you are even going to say it. Not one of you. He's ash on our shoes and you're arguing about my new curfew."

"Miss Dellaby." Balcour turns a page, unhurried, like I'm weather. "A degree of attrition was anticipated for a subject of your yield during the integration period. It was budgeted for. The council does not enter into an undertaking of this nature expecting it to be clean."

The room tilts a half-inch to the left.

"Budgeted," I repeat.

"House Vane will be answered through the appropriate channels. Redress will be made." He clicks the pen. "This was, in the assessment of the review, within the range of outcomes we prepared for. It does not constitute failure. It constitutes cost."

And that's the thing that does it. Not the salt cellar, not the leash, not the two weeks. I’d gladly be locked into another cell if it meant paying for what I just did–giving Emric the justice he deserves. It’s the we prepared for it.

The Council sat in a room, before I ever set foot on this campus, and did the math on how many people I might kill and decided it was an acceptable number. Emric was a line in a spreadsheet before he was ever a boy with sugar on his cuff, and they had the column ready, and tonight they just filled it in.

I sit down.

Not on purpose. My legs just quit, and the edge of the bed is there, and for one horrible second I can't tell if any of this is real—the collar, the pen, the four people in my bedroom at three in the morning discussing me in the third person. It has the flat, too-bright wrongness of the fail-safe dreams. Maybe I'm still on the chapel floor. Maybe none of this is happening and I'll wake up and he'll still be—