Chapter 105 — The Wrong Cardinal

Chapter 105: Chapter 105 — The Wrong Cardinal

~ Raven ~

Raven folded the page in half without looking at it, shoved it into her bag and left.

She said nothing to Berry or Cassian as she crossed the room. Six quick strides took her to the door, each one faster than the last.

Cassian didn’t ask.

He had held the page long enough to read all three words, and the brief pause afterward had made Raven expect something.

A question. A comment. Anything.

Instead, he let her walk away without saying a word.

Somehow, that bothered her more.

At least a question could be answered and put behind her.

Fine. Say nothing. See if I care.

Her hand was already on the doorframe when the back of her neck went cold.

Raven stopped and looked back.

Cassian hadn’t moved. He was still beside Berry’s desk, his notes resting on the corner and one hand loose at his side.

Only now, his attention was on her.

There was nothing in his expression Raven could have pointed to, but whatever attention he had given Berry for the last twenty minutes was on her now.

All of it.

For one second, Raven did not feel like a girl standing in a doorway.

She felt like prey that had just caught a predator’s attention.

A shiver ran through her before she could stop it.

Absolutely not.

She stepped into the corridor and let the door swing behind her.

~~~~~~

The chill air hit Raven the moment she stepped into the corridor.

She had not realized how stuffy Berry’s classroom had become until the cooler air touched her face and loosened something in her chest.

She made it twenty paces before stopping again.

Hale Wing was four floors and one bridge away, going back suddenly sounded tempting. Her shoulders ached from the bag, her ribs still hurt, and she had already had enough of the day.

But going back would not answer any of the questions piling up around her.

The Hunt. The visions. The girl. The stranger who had somehow gotten inside her head.

Too many things were wrong, and Raven was tired of knowing nothing.

She turned left toward the library.

By the time Raven reached the library, she had ignored three separate conversations that stopped when she passed.

She kept going.

Inside, she headed toward the catalogue, following the signs along the main floor.

She had barely crossed half the room when someone called her name.

"Rivers."

A third-year boy moved out from beside one of the tables, judging by the trim on his uniform. Two others drifted over with him, grinning like they’d just found something better to do than study.

A girl joined them from the next aisle.

Raven kept walking.

"So it really was you they came for?"

"Who else?" one of the boys said with a laugh. "It’s always Rivers."

Raven glanced at the Ashbourne trim on his sleeve and kept going.

"Move."

The first boy stepped aside just enough to let her through, then fell into step beside her.

"I’m only asking."

The girl smiled. "You have to admit, it’s impressive. You haven’t even been here that long and somehow everyone already knows your name."

"Rankings. Cardinals. The Hunt," another boy added. "Every few days there’s something new."

A few of them laughed.

Raven’s fingers tightened around the strap of her bag.

"Did you know the attackers?" the girl asked.

Raven ignored her.

"Maybe that’s why they wanted her," one of the boys said.

"Maybe."

The first boy looked Raven over, his grin widening. "Must be exhausting."

She finally glanced at him.

"What?"

"Giving the whole academy something new to talk about every week."

The others laughed again.

Raven faced forward and kept walking.

They followed.

The boy came alongside her again, and Raven was already deciding whether shoving a third-year into a shelf would cost her more points than it was worth.

Then, from somewhere behind her—

"Was it the Moonless Court?"

Raven stopped.

The name hit harder than the question.

The what?

Not shadow wolves. Not attackers. Not any of the names she had heard since the Hunt.

Moonless Court.

An actual name.

Raven turned slowly.

The students were watching her now, and from the sudden interest on their faces, her reaction had told them enough.

She had never heard those words before.

Which meant either the academy had found out considerably more than anyone had bothered telling her—

or people had known already.

Neither possibility made her feel any better.

"So it was the Moonless Court."

Raven turned toward the girl. "Where did you hear that?"

"Everyone’s saying it."

"Since when?"

The girl shrugged, suddenly looking much less certain. "I don’t know. People have been talking."

Before Raven could ask anything else, one of the boys cut in.

"So you really haven’t heard of them?"

Another laughed. "Maybe they know her better than she knows them."

That earned a few grins.

Then the questions started again.

"Did they say anything to you?"

"Why were they after you?"

"Does the academy know who they are?"

Raven’s irritation climbed with every word.

She had spent the last two days wondering the exact same things, and somehow these idiots had decided she was the person withholding the answers.

She stopped and turned toward them.

Enough.

Her mouth had barely opened when the laughter disappeared.

The change was immediate.

The girl facing Raven glanced past her and stepped aside. One of the boys straightened, his grin vanishing, while another moved back toward the shelves.

The tables around them quieted a moment later.

Raven frowned.

Someone had come up behind her.

She became aware of the presence before she heard a single footstep—heavy enough that the students around her had apparently decided irritating Raven was no longer worth it.

A powerful student.

And considering there was one particular heir who had spent the last two days appearing wherever Raven happened to be—

Oh, of course.

Of course it’s you.

Raven closed her eyes for a second.

She really should have gone back to Hale Wing.

Then she turned, already prepared to deal with Dante.

And stopped.

Not Dante.

Alaric Blackthorn stood close enough that Raven had to tip her head back to meet his eyes.