Chapter 166 — Fourth Seat

Chapter 166: Chapter 166 — Fourth Seat

~ Raven ~

Someone was shaking her.

Raven made a sound somewhere between a groan and a threat, dragged the blanket higher over her head and tried to disappear beneath it, but whoever had decided sleep was optional this morning seemed determined to keep her awake.

"Raven."

She ignored it.

"Raven, wake up."

"Go away."

The shaking continued anyway.

"If nobody is dying, I don’t care."

"No one is dying."

"Then we have nothing to discuss."

Thalia laughed, which Raven considered an unreasonable response to an extremely clear boundary, then pulled at the blanket until Raven finally opened one eye.

Morning light had barely made it properly through the window. Tessa was already dressed and sitting on the edge of her bed with a book open across her knees, while Brielle stood by the wardrobe tying back her hair. Neither of them looked remotely interested in rescuing Raven.

Raven turned her attention back to Thalia, who looked far too cheerful for this hour.

"What happened?"

"Nothing happened."

"Then why are you standing over me like the building is on fire?"

"Because I told you."

Raven stared at her.

Thalia’s smile widened. "I told you my idea would work."

Raven closed her eye again. "What idea?"

"The socialising."

That got a groan out of her.

"If you woke me up to discuss socialising, I swear I’m throwing you through the window."

"You’re not strong enough."

"Brielle."

"No," Brielle said, without looking over.

Thalia was already holding out a Linkslate. "Check the Court."

That got Raven’s attention a little faster.

She looked at the slate, then at Thalia. "What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"That is very suspi—"

"Just look Raven."

Raven pushed herself upright with far more effort than the situation deserved, took the slate and opened the standings.

Her eyes moved automatically down the list.

First.

Second.

Third.

Then she stopped.

4 — RAVEN RIVERS

For several seconds she simply stared at the screen.

The sleep left her so quickly it felt like she imagined it.

"Fourth?"

"I know."

Raven looked up.

Thalia was practically glowing with satisfaction.

Raven looked back at the slate, and something warm and deeply satisfying settled in her chest.

Thalia’s grin widened.

"I told you people would like you if you actually spoke to them."

Raven handed the slate back. "Now now, let’s not get carried away."

"You made friends Raven."

"I had friends."

"Three," Thalia said.

Raven gave her a look. "Three was plenty."

Tessa looked up from her book. "You have more than three now."

Raven frowned at her. "Whose side are you on?"

"The accurate one."

Brielle snorted quietly.

Raven pushed the blanket away and climbed out of bed, still thinking about the number.

Fourth was good. Better than Raven had expected to wake up to.

Unfortunately, she had created a problem for herself five days ago when she stood in the cafeteria and announced, in front of far too many witnesses, that she wanted Second Seat. Nobody had forced her to say it either. That particular disaster had been entirely hers.

Now Fourth meant there were only three women left above her, which was close enough to make Second feel considerably less ridiculous than it had five days ago.

It also came with something Raven had not properly considered when she made that declaration.

The first four women in the Court were the ones Valerius looked to when it needed representatives against the highest-ranked vampire women during the Concord.

Which meant Raven had just climbed directly into that group.

Raven’s satisfaction lasted until her thoughts finally caught up with the number.

Thalia noticed the change in her expression first. "What?"

Raven looked down at the slate again.

"The Concord uses the first four."

For half a second, nobody reacted.

Then it landed.

Thalia’s smile vanished. Tessa slowly lowered her book, and Brielle’s hands stopped in the middle of tying back her hair.

All three of them looked at Raven with varying degrees of guilt.

Raven looked between their faces and sighed.

"Wonderful. Glad we all remembered together."

Brielle recovered first. "You wanted second seat."

"I still want it."

"Then you were always going to pass through Fourth."

Raven knew that. It just meant the Concord—and the vampire women waiting on the other side of it—had become considerably harder to ignore.

For now, Adelaide, Rosalind and every other woman who had expected Raven’s reputation to stay buried would wake up, check the same board and find her sitting above more of the Court than she had five days ago.

That thought improved her morning considerably.

A smile tugged at her mouth.

Thalia caught it immediately. "Oh, you’re thinking about them."

"I have no idea what you mean."

"You’re thinking about the First Circle, aren’t you?"

Raven headed toward her clothes. "I hope they slept well."

The irritating part about all this was that Thalia had been right about all of it.

Raven had spent the first two days refusing to admit that simply because doing so would have made Thalia unbearable, but after the cafeteria disaster, her plan had been annoyingly simple.

If the First Circle wanted to decide who Raven Rivers was for everyone else, then Raven needed to make sure more people actually knew her before they got the chance.

According to Thalia, this meant Raven had to start behaving like a normal student.

Raven had wisely pointed out that nobody at Valerius behaved like a normal person.

Thalia had ignored her.

So Raven had been dragged into conversations she would normally have escaped, encouraged to sit with different Hale students during meals and repeatedly stopped from assuming that every unfamiliar person approaching her wanted a favour, a fight or information about one of the Cardinal heirs.

Some did.

A surprising number did not.

One girl from Sigil Theory had approached Raven after class and, apparently, only wanted help understanding Berry’s assignment.

Two Hale students had started joining their table often enough that Raven had eventually stopped wondering when they were going to leave. Someone from the Hunt orientation had spoken to her after training, and the conversation somehow lasted ten minutes without anybody asking about her mates, the Court or Bellringer.

At first, Raven had found all of it strange.

Then it became less strange.

By the fifth day she had reached the point where she could see someone she knew in a corridor, exchange a few words and keep walking without wondering what hidden motive she had missed.

Thalia considered this remarkable personal growth.

Raven preferred to call it lowered vigilance.

Either way, people had started treating her differently.

The staring never stopped completely, but it changed. Students who had previously known Raven almost entirely through Bellringer broadcasts, scandals and whatever story reached them first were beginning to form opinions after actually speaking to her.

Some still disliked her.

Raven could live with that.

At least now they disliked the correct person.

The change in how people treated Raven had started showing up in the Court too.

As the whispers around Petra lost their grip, the things Raven had already done began mattering again: the Hunt, her advancement, her record and everything else the rumors had managed to bury beneath the noise.

Her standing started climbing with it.

The First Circle noticed before Raven ever reached Fourth.

She knew because they had become terrible at pretending otherwise.

Three days ago, Adelaide had seen Raven talking to a group of Hale students outside the academic hall and spent the next thirty seconds looking as though someone had slipped something sour into her breakfast.

Yesterday, Rosalind had passed Raven near the Court boards with two other women beside her. Their conversation stopped the moment they noticed Raven.

Raven smiled at her, just enough to be annoying.

Rosalind’s expression had hardened so beautifully that Raven spent the rest of the walk to class in an excellent mood.