Chapter 159 — I Have a Feeling

Chapter 159: Chapter 159 — I Have a Feeling

~ Raven ~

The conversation inside the classroom died before Raven had taken a second step through the door.

One moment several voices were carrying easily through the room, and the next there was an almost impressive amount of interest in open notebooks, half-finished diagrams and whatever else happened to be sitting on the desks.

Raven remained beside the door for a moment, saying nothing as her gaze swept slowly across the room.

A few students at least had the decency to look embarrassed when Raven caught them staring. Others apparently decided there was no point pretending anymore and watched her openly as she stepped farther into the room.

Raven refused to give any of them the satisfaction of hesitating.

Tessa came in behind her and pulled the door shut while Raven looked for somewhere to sit.

Her eyes found Celeste almost immediately.

Celeste sat several rows ahead with her books open neatly in front of her, and unlike almost everyone else in the room, she had not looked toward the door when Raven entered.

Her attention remained fixed on the page beneath her hand with such rigid determination that Raven nearly laughed.

Apparently, after breakfast, Celeste had decided Raven Rivers no longer existed.

Raven could work with that.

She was still fighting the smile when something about the room caught her attention.

Celeste was nowhere near Isolde.

Raven’s gaze moved between them before the memory finally clicked. The first time she had seen Isolde Marchmont, Celeste had been right there with her.

Raven had barely thought about it since; too much had happened, and somewhere along the way she had simply stopped associating the two of them.

Raven’s amusement sharpened.

Had Marchmont finally looked closely enough at Celeste to decide she had better things to do with her time?

The possibility was extremely satisfying.

Maybe Isolde had standards after all.

Raven was still smiling when she noticed Isolde staring at her.

She blinked, then realised she had been staring right back.

Her smile disappeared.

Isolde’s face remained composed for a moment, her eyes fixed directly on Raven before the faintest line appeared between her brows.

Then she looked back down at her book.

Great.

That probably hadn’t helped.

Tessa reached an empty row and looked back at her.

Raven went over before she could make the situation worse.

She sat beside Tessa and began taking out her things while the room slowly recovered enough for the whispering to return, quieter now and considerably more careful.

Raven ignored it as much as she could.

As she set her notebook down, her gaze drifted briefly toward the back row.

The seat Cassian had occupied during the previous Advanced Sigil lesson was empty.

She looked at it for a moment before opening her ink.

He was a fourth-year. There was nothing strange about him having something else to do, and Raven had no reason to expect him to appear every time she walked into this classroom simply because he had been here before.

She turned toward the front.

A minute later, Instructor Berry entered carrying enough papers beneath one arm to make Raven immediately grateful she was not responsible for marking any of them.

Whatever remained of the conversation vanished.

Berry set the papers on her desk, looked across the room once and apparently found everyone sufficiently terrified of wasting her time.

"Books open."

Raven obeyed.

The lesson began without ceremony.

Berry continued from their previous work on inscription compatibility, returning to the same problem Raven had only recently begun to understand: a sigil could be perfectly drawn and still be completely wrong for the person carrying it.

This time, Raven actually paid attention.

She copied the diagrams Berry placed on the board, wrote down the examples and even managed to follow most of the explanation about how an existing essence pattern could interfere with a new inscription if the writer failed to account for what the bearer was already carrying.

Every so often Raven caught somebody glancing toward her before quickly looking away. Once, she noticed a girl farther down the row look from Raven toward Isolde and lean closer to whisper something to the student beside her.

Raven kept writing.

Whatever they wanted to imagine about breakfast could wait until she was no longer trying to understand why two perfectly stable inscriptions could become unstable when anchored too close together.

Isolde gave nothing away for the rest of the lesson. Raven caught herself checking twice, but each time Marchmont was focused entirely on her work, giving no indication that Raven’s declaration about Second Seat—or Dante’s invitation—had bothered her at all.

If anything, that only made Raven more curious.

By the time Berry dismissed them, Raven had decided she was speaking to Isolde today.

Chairs began scraping back across the floor as students packed away their things, and Raven immediately looked toward Marchmont’s desk.

There.

She shoved her notebook into her bag faster than usual and nearly knocked her ink over in the process.

Tessa caught it before it tipped.

"Careful."

"Thanks."

Raven secured the lid and looked up again.

Isolde was already standing.

Raven pulled the strap of her bag over one shoulder and started toward the aisle, but the room had filled with students doing exactly the same thing. Two older girls stepped between them while arguing over something Berry had said near the end of class, and by the time Raven managed to move around them, Isolde had already reached the door.

Raven almost called after her, but stopped. After this morning, shouting "Marchmont, wait" across the classroom would probably sound less like a request and more like the beginning of another confrontation.

By the time Raven decided she would deal with the misunderstanding if it came, Isolde had already stepped into the corridor.

Raven hurried after her, but when she reached the doorway, Isolde was gone.

Tessa came up beside her a few seconds later.

Raven looked one way down the corridor, then the other.

Nothing.

She exhaled.

"That woman is impossible."

Tessa adjusted the strap on her bag. "Marchmont?"

"Yes."

"What did she do?"

"Disappear."

Tessa glanced down the corridor Isolde had disappeared into. "She left class."

"I noticed."

"Most people do that when class ends."

Raven gave her a look.

Tessa’s mouth twitched.

Raven started walking.

"I’m starting to think she’s avoiding me."

"Why would she avoid you?"

"That is exactly what I would like to ask her."

Tessa stayed quiet for a moment before glancing at her.

"What?" Raven asked.

"Are you finally going to tell me why you need to talk to her?"

"No."

Tessa sighed. "Worth a try."

Raven gave her a small smile and kept walking.

They joined the stream of students moving through the academic corridor, where the space between lessons had turned the building into controlled chaos. People were coming out of classrooms on both sides, others hurried toward staircases before the next bell, and instructors occasionally called after students who were doing a terrible job pretending not to be late.

The gossip had travelled with them.

Raven heard her Seat mentioned before they reached the first staircase.

A little farther on, someone said Dante’s name.

Near the courtyard doors, two girls were discussing the Renewal Ball and stopped talking the moment Raven walked past.

She kept going.

At this point there was very little else she could do.

Tessa looked toward her once but wisely said nothing.

They found Thalia and Brielle near the passage leading toward the combat courts.

Thalia was waiting against the wall while Brielle checked something on her Linkslate.

"You’re early," Tessa said.

"So are you," Brielle replied.

Raven looked toward the open doors at the end of the passage. "Good. I’d rather get there before everyone else decides to stand around discussing my breakfast."

Thalia smiled. "Too late for that."

"I know."

They started toward the combat courts together, taking advantage of the thinner crowd before the next bell forced everyone else in the same direction.

Thalia began wondering aloud what they would be doing today, while Brielle reminded her that none of them had been told and therefore guessing would accomplish absolutely nothing.

Raven listened without contributing much.

Her mind kept circling back to Isolde.

If Marchmont really was avoiding her, Raven needed another way to get her alone without announcing to half the academy that she wanted a private conversation. Perhaps she could catch her after another lesson, although today had proved how successful that plan was likely to be.

The first warning bell sounded somewhere above them.

Students in the corridor quickened their pace.

Raven was about to do the same when something chimed inside her bag.

She slowed.

Another sound answered from Tessa’s side.

Then Thalia’s slate went off.

A second later, three more notifications sounded from students walking behind them.

Raven stopped.

She already knew that pattern.

Thalia was reaching into her bag at the same time Raven pulled out her own Linkslate.

The screen lit beneath her thumb.

A familiar bell-shaped insignia appeared across it.

Raven stared.

Bellringer.

Considering everything that had happened since breakfast began, Raven had a feeling she already knew what today’s topic was going to be.

Her.