Page 61 of Great Falls Cadet
Something I didn’t know was raw inside my soul quiets as I nod. “What’s two?”
Arisha squeezes my shoulder, her small pointy features soft with kindness. “Two is that you really are a cadet now. Not River’s equal. And we arealla little terrified of the deputy headmaster. You feeling the same as the rest of us just means the veil is working as intended—not that something is wrong with you, or him, or the bonds you had in Lunos. Which brings me to thing three.”
“You really like lists, don’t you?”
“Thing three,” Arisha continues as if I hadn’t spoken, “is that if you intend to be digging into Coal’s nightmares, and Shade’s losing time and all the other dark little festering wounds that make the males uncomfortable, they will likely dig into yours as well. So consider yourself warned.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The smile I give Arisha must be genuine, because the girl nods and walks back to her books.
“Now, on the less romantic side of things, I think there is a Yocklol tree near the Academy.”
“Is there a reason I should care about a tree?” I stride over to look at Arisha’s drawing.
Arisha does not meet my eyes. “It isn’t truly a tree. It just looks like one,” she says, laying out a spread of several pencil drawings depicting burns similar to what I saw on Rusty’s forearm, as well as a rough sketch of a yellow-looking trunk with an eye in the middle of it. Scrawled notes, lists, and calculations line the margins of the pictures. “But it moves about.”
A sudden chill runs along my spine as I look at the blight. It is precisely the type of magical corruption I’d told Gavriel I won’t be fighting. Can’t fight. Not without the others.
“If I’m right, Yocklol is what burned a guard recently,” Arisha continues. “Shade had to amputate the man’s arm last night.”
My hand closes over my mouth, my chest tightening. Rusty. The young guardsman from the stables who’d smelled of wrongness. When I told Gavriel I had no intention of prancing around to put out whatever magical fires he found, I’d not thought about the costs. There is no winning, it seems. If I turn into a one-woman stealth operation, I’ll be pitting myself against the males instead of working toward reuniting us. If I do nothing, innocents get hurt.
Reaching over Arisha’s shoulder, I gather the papers into a heap with more roughness than I’d intended. “You shouldn’t have these out of the library. First, it’s disgusting. And second, it is about as far from safe as it gets. If the wrong person catches sight of your drawings—” I don’t even have to finish the sentence for understanding to dawn on Arisha’s face. Sometimes she’s so like Autumn that it hurts—the girl can think her way out of a locked box, but then trip over that same box on her way out of the room. “In fact, we’ll drop this horror trove off with Gavriel before the parade.”
Taking the papers from my hands, Arisha expertly knocks them against the table, arranging everything into a neat pile that would have taken me a quarter hour to replicate. How can a girl who has a place for every pen and sheet of parchment be equally incapable of taming her hair into anything resembling braids? I reluctantly pick up my amulet from my desk—with Arisha in the know, it’s been a relief to take breaks from it in our bedchamber—and I fasten it around my neck. The weight of magic settles over me instantly, making my skin too tight, my body too heavy and awkward.
Winding around the densely ivied walls of the reflection garden, Arisha and I step onto the grand cobblestoned courtyard to find it already filling with a sea of red dress uniforms waiting for the ceremony to start. Voices echo gaily off the high stone walls surrounding us, the parade having not yet forced everyone into silent order. Bright morning sunlight glints off the keep’s many glass windows, and the ten Continental Alliance kingdoms’ flags fly from its cornices. Sparrows flitting about from rooftop to ground give it all the lighthearted atmosphere of a festival.
My immortal sight lets me make out the details of River standing on the grand keep steps, towering over everyone about him—especially Headmaster Sage, who stands with his shoulders hunched and coughs into a handkerchief, his bald head almost glowing in the light. Each time someone walks close to the steps, the moment they note River’s presence becomes obvious in the slight faltering of steps and hasty bows.
Arisha and I skirt the edge of the courtyard, aiming for the library before the horn signals the ceremony’s commencement—a ceremony I’ve no notion of how to follow. “There is so little thought to it that even Rik and Puckler can manage,” Arisha promises. “Stand prettily in a line while the instructors strut about like—well, much likehim.” She rolls her eyes toward the approaching male.
“Braids, do you recall my solution to supply calculations last week?” Striding up to us in the male version of dress reds, Tye is breathtaking in a tailed coat that shows off his taut stomach and broad chest. When his gaze touches my face, he swallows, his silence a tension-filled string of memories of last night. Sleeping on it doesn’t seem to have made Tye any more comfortable with the intensity of our coupling than he was in the dark of evening outside the dorm rooms last night. Clearing his throat, Tye bows to me, his attention returning to Arisha. “Because your hair looks about as well put together.”
My blood heats. If Tye regrets our evening together, he has no right to take it out on my friend. I step into his path.
Tye steps around me, his movement feline quick. “Turn around,” he tells Arisha, the fingers I know too well yanking her hair ribbon loose. “Let’s see if I can’t do a bit better.”
Arisha’s face turns the color of her coat, her mix of surprise and pleasure tickling my nose so strongly that I sneeze, blinking in my own bewilderment. What’s Tye about now?
Giving no indication of anything beyond his signature cockiness, Tye runs his dexterous fingers between Arisha’s frizzy brown strands, separating the hair into three neat bunches. “Maybe we can try one braid today,” he says. “It will be a good look for you. And maybe easier to…err…count. Just remember, anything not inside the braid is out of place.”
Arisha shrugs as if she couldn’t care less, but her eyes fight to stay open under the relaxing pressure of Tye’s hands. Knowing those fingers—and exactly what they can do—I can almost feel them on my own scalp.
…And the hint of a smile on Tye’s lips says the bastard knows that.
I open my mouth to call Tye a bastard, but close it quickly at the sight of the approaching figure.
“Well, isn’t this pretty?” Katita says, the red silk of her pants swaying from long legs and perfect hips. With her inky-black lashes and glistening blonde hair, the princess looks as feminine as she does powerful. “Your bloody lip goes well with that uniform, Osprey. Perhaps you should wear marks more often.”
“Is there something you needed?” I stride forward, cutting off Katita’s path.
“I need to know which part of keeping your hands off my things your empty mind found confusing.” Katita smiles, stepping so close that her rose-scented perfume stings my nose. Her voice drops. “You made a grave mistake yesterday.” Katita’s gaze flickers from my lip to the space over my right shoulder, where I can hear Arisha arguing with Tye over ribbons. “And there will be a penalty for it.”
“Noted,” I say, pushing past Katita as if she’d just warned me about a new divot in the road. “Excuse me.”
“I’m not done.” Katita grabs my upper arm, her grip firm and trained. For a human. For someone who’s not had Coal as an instructor for the past year, no matter what his veil amulet tells her.
“Yes, you are.” Clamping my hand over Katita’s wrist, I put my thumb between her first two knuckles and twist. My heart pounds hard and steady, the simmering fury condensing to ice.
