Page 45 of The Fifth Heir

“Because the headmaster recognized me?”

“Because the Prism did.”

Her fingers stopped tapping.

Outside the study, footsteps crossed the common room. Leander appeared in the doorway fully dressed, his pale blue torc bright against the collar of his dark uniform. His gaze moved from me to Talia and the cloth she held against her shoulder.

“A summons arrived,” he said. “We’re due in the assessment chamber at the ninth bell.”

Talia stood immediately.

I caught the ledger before she could pick it up.

“You’re finished with this.”

“I haven’t recorded the wardrobe contents.”

“They’ll still be there tonight.”

“You don’t know that.”

It was my own argument, returned without hesitation.

Gold light spread through the runes.

Leander watched it, then looked at me.

I handed Talia the ledger.

She accepted it with a small, victorious lift of her chin.

“Five minutes,” I said. “Then you eat before the assessment.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Would you prefer the academy’s first report on the fifth heir to say she collapsed from exhaustion before testing began?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“That is manipulative.”

“Is it working?”

The wall turned orange.

“Five minutes,” she said.

I had commanded soldiers who surrendered with less resentment.

I had never enjoyed winning an argument this much.

Chapter 7

Talia

The assessment chamber had been designed to measure dragons.

I understood that before the first examiner asked me to place my hand beneath a stone press calibrated for partial shifts. I understood it more clearly when Torren lifted the weighted mechanism one-handed and I failed to move it with both arms.