Page 71 of Rebellious Royals

"You," she told him, "won't care about my answer either way. The problem, though, is that in trying to be fair to all of my students, some will always fall to the wrong side. It doesn'tmatter how you define that, it will still happen. But in this case, the 'wrong side' seems to be becoming dangerous rather quickly."

"Morrigan!" Jack muttered in annoyance.

"I'm not sure Rain can do anything about this, Jack," she told him.

Caw!He belted that out loudly, as if angry about it.

"I'm trying," I told him.

"Jack, Jack, Jack!" he said, hopping along his perch. "Court. Bitch! Jack-Rain. Dads." Then he nodded. "Bitch!" And he shook his head.

"Are you using that for Ms. Rhodes this time?" Aspen asked.

Jack chattered as off offended, then shook his head.

"Do you mean the people attacking Winter users?" I asked.

"Morrigan!" he agreed, nodding emphatically.

"You need a new word," I told him. "Maybe enemy?"

Jack twisted his head.Caw!Then he turned it the other way.Caw! Caw-caw.And he pulled in a big breath and forced out "Enemy!"

"Nice!" Aspen said. "You are one impressive prince, Jack."

He slung his beak up and down in agreement. "Enemy! Bitch. Court. Jack. Rain. Knight. Dads!"

"Exactly," I agreed, since he'd just listed off his words for people. "But what are we supposed to do about this enemy, Jack?"

He made a disgruntled noise and ruffled his feathers before sinking back down on his perch. Clearly, he didn't know either, or maybe he just couldn't tell us? Either way, it all ended up the same. We had to figure this out for ourselves.

"So what do we do?" I asked, looking at all of my friends.

Ms. Rhodes leaned forward. "Sadly, I can't answer that. I also wouldn't be telling most people any of this, but I think our highest-ranking royalty needs to be aware of it. Majesty.Highness." Then she pushed to her feet. "And please watch your backs?"

"We are," I assured her.

"Then I don't want to know what rules you might be breaking," she said as she headed for the door. She paused to dip her head toward Spike. "Good evening, my lady."

We all sat in silence as she left. Surprisingly, the silence spell on the room didn't fade. I had a feeling it eventually would, but if Ms. Rhodes simply "forgot" to lift it, then that was a mere accident, right? It also meant no one would overhear us making plans by accident, so a win-win.

"Ok," Hawke said, leaning back on his hands. "I'm worried about Wilder. Jack's sticking with Aspen, but everyone knows Wilder's a Winter user too. Babe, how many classes do you have alone?"

"Most of them," he said. "I share third period with you and Rain. Fifth and sixth are with Aspen, then Torian. Seventh is taught by Ms. Rhodes, so I think I'm ok there."

"So most of your morning classes," Torian said. "That's a problem."

"I'm in the same hall as him during first period," Hawke pointed out.

"Which only helps so much," Keir said. "Shit. Ok, Aspen's going to be the main target, and we have her covered, but how much help is Jack really going to be if there's more than one of them?"

"Jack!" he squawked as if offended.

"Two of you against ten?" Keir asked, making his point.

"Shadow!" Jack clarified. "Jack-Shadow. Morrigan. Court!"

I tossed up my hands, wishing I could make sense of that - but on the ground, my shadow did nothing. It was enough to make me look down, checking to be sure. That made everyoneelse look. Right on cue, Shadow waved to prove it was aware of our inspection.

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