Chapter 133 — What Recording?

Chapter 133: Chapter 133 — What Recording?

~ Raven ~

Raven had eaten about half her meal when she glanced around the table again. The women who had approached her outside Hale were all there, but the one person she had agreed to meet them for was still missing.

She waited for Adelaide to finish speaking before setting down her fork.

"Where’s Isolde?"

The Fifth Seat laughed. "Probably too busy to sit around here with us."

"Marchmont usually is," another woman said. "Getting a moment with her is half the trouble."

"She has her own obligations," Adelaide explained, turning back to Raven. "But you’ll have an opportunity to speak with her."

Raven rested her fork against her plate.

Earlier, outside Hale Wing, Adelaide had treated the question of Isolde’s involvement as though Raven should already know the answer. She was First Seat. Of course she led the Circle.

Now they sounded as though they could barely get hold of her.

Being busy didn’t mean Isolde had nothing to do with them, but Raven had agreed to attend their gathering because they had made reaching her sound straightforward.

She glanced across the table.

Rosalind wasn’t laughing with the others. Her hands rested around her cup, and she was watching Raven with an expression that made her hesitate.

What?

Raven had been about to ask whether Isolde would actually be at the gathering. With Crowe looking at her like that, she suddenly wondered whether the answer would make her feel foolish for having agreed to go.

Before she could ask, a chair scraped to her right.

A girl had risen from a nearby table and was walking toward them with a glass of water and a small plate of bread. Her face looked familiar, though Raven couldn’t immediately place it.

She stopped beside Raven’s chair and carefully set both things next to her meal.

"I brought it."

Her voice carried beyond their table. Raven looked at the glass, then up at her.

"Brought what?"

The girl clasped her hands in front of her.

"I understand now. I’m not going to cause you any trouble."

Raven frowned.

What the fuck was this girl talking about?

"What trouble?"

A conversation at the next table faltered. The girl glanced toward it before looking back at Raven.

"I won’t try to get back into the Top Ten."

That was when Raven recognised her.

Petra Voss. She had seen her on the Court standings, where Tenth Seat had become Eleventh after Raven’s rise.

They had never spoken.

"I haven’t asked you to stay out of the Top Ten."

Petra’s mouth tightened, and she looked down at the things she had brought.

"Please don’t."

"Don’t what?"

"I’ll do what you wanted." Petra glanced at the women around the table, then lowered her voice, though not enough to stop the nearest students from hearing. "If you need meals brought to you, or books carried, I can do that. Messages, too. Whatever you need."

Raven’s confusion gave way to something colder.

The boy at the end of the nearest bench had turned to watch them. Beside him, a girl put down her fork.

"Why the hell would I want you carrying my books?"

Petra’s fingers tightened around each other.

"Because I don’t want you releasing the recording."

Raven stared at her.

"What recording?"

Colour spread across Petra’s face. She looked toward the neighbouring table again, and when she spoke, her voice shook.

"Please don’t make me say what’s on it. Not in front of everyone."

Someone behind her began a question and stopped. A girl who had lifted her slate lowered it toward her lap, exchanging an uncomfortable look with her friend.

Raven looked from Petra to the glass beside her plate.

A moment ago, she had been trying to understand why a stranger had brought her water. Now everyone within hearing distance had been given a reason, and it was a fucking awful one.

"Raven."

Adelaide’s pleasant expression had disappeared.

"What is this?"

"How would I know?"

"She seems to think you do."

"Then ask her why."

The Ninth Seat was looking between Raven and Petra with her brows drawn together. Farther along, another woman leaned forward.

"Did you threaten her?"

Raven turned toward her.

"I’ve never spoken to her before."

Petra shook her head.

"You didn’t have to speak to me yourself."

Raven looked back at her.

"What?"

"I was told what would happen if I challenged you." Petra swallowed. "If I tried to get back into the Top Ten by taking Seventh, the recording would be released. But if I left you alone and made myself useful, it wouldn’t."

"Who told you that?"

Petra hesitated, her eyes moving toward the people listening.

Raven waited for a name.

Instead, Adelaide spoke.

"The First Circle would never support blackmail against another student over a place in the Court."

Her voice was calm and clear enough to reach the surrounding tables.

Raven slowly turned toward her.

She had asked who had supposedly delivered a threat in her name.

Adelaide hadn’t repeated the question. She hadn’t given Petra time to answer it either. She had simply made certain everyone listening understood one thing.

Whatever Raven had supposedly done, the First Circle wanted nothing to do with it.

The woman beside Adelaide drew back slightly. Across the table, the Ninth Seat looked from the drink Petra had brought to Raven.

For one second, Raven’s stomach dropped.

Then she looked at them properly.

The concern was convincing. So was the surprise. But once she stopped taking their expressions at face value, smaller things began to stand out: a glance held a fraction too long, the corner of a mouth smoothing before she could catch it, satisfaction buried beneath lowered lashes and careful sympathy.

Her gaze settled on Rosalind.

Crowe wasn’t watching Petra or Adelaide. She was watching Raven, studying her reaction with an attention that made something cold tighten in Raven’s stomach.

There was the faintest trace of pleasure in her eyes.

It vanished the moment Raven met them.

Raven went still.

Of course.

The realization did not arrive all at once so much as settle into place, piece by ugly piece—the empty chair, the easy conversation, Petra approaching at exactly the right moment, Adelaide distancing the Circle before Raven had even understood what she was being accused of.

They hadn’t invited her over because they wanted her company. They had needed her sitting here when Petra approached.

Raven’s pulse kicked harder.

They had set me up.

Petra reached for the glass and nudged it closer to Raven’s plate.

Raven watched her do it, and something about the gesture made her skin crawl. She had spent enough years beside other people’s chairs to recognize what Petra was pretending to be: attentive, useful, already anticipating what the person seated above her might want.

And she was doing it where everyone could see.

"Take it away."

Petra left her hand beside the glass. "I only brought—"

"I didn’t ask you to bring me anything."

Raven pushed it back. Water spilled over the rim, and Petra stepped away so abruptly that the girl at the neighbouring table straightened.

Raven caught the reaction, and her anger began to rise.

Not only at Petra. At Adelaide’s carefully troubled expression, at Rosalind hiding whatever satisfaction she felt behind her cup, and most of all at herself for walking over here in the first place.

"Stop acting like I’ve done something to you."

"I’m not trying to cause trouble," Petra said. "I just want this to be over."

"Then answer my question. Who told you I wanted any of this?"

Petra pressed her lips together and lowered her eyes.

Of course she fucking did.

Whispers moved through the tables behind Raven. She caught her Seat number, then something about the recording, but nobody spoke loudly enough for her to challenge them.

Raven kept her hands flat on the table.

That was when she understood the nastiest part of it.

There was almost nothing she could do without helping them.

If she raised her voice, Petra could look frightened. If Raven stood over her, it would look worse. If she kept demanding answers while Petra refused to give them, everyone would see Seventh Seat pressuring the woman she had supposedly already blackmailed.

And if Raven did nothing, Petra remained beside her chair, offering to fetch meals and carry books while the entire cafeteria watched.

Her jaw tightened.

Across the aisle, a boy from Hale caught her eye. Raven recognised him from the common room, though she didn’t know his name.

He looked away.

That hurt more than she expected.

Bellringer had already warned the academy about the First Circle. Now Raven was sitting among them while the woman she had pushed out of the Top Ten stood beside her offering obedience in exchange for the safety of some humiliating recording.

Raven looked back at Adelaide.

Adelaide still wore the same concerned expression.

Rosalind had lowered her gaze.

Nobody at the table looked smug anymore, but Raven had already seen enough.

She had come here because they promised her a path to Isolde.

Instead, she had walked into exactly the scene they needed.

And now the whole cafeteria was watching it happen.