Chapter 28 — Spectacle

Chapter 28: Chapter 28 — Spectacle

Nikolai’s green eyes settled on Raven, and nothing in them said they had ever met.

No flicker of the headmaster’s office. No trace of the man who had lounged in a chair that wasn’t his and congratulated her on breaking a record. He looked at her the way he had looked at the boy with the healed shoulder — pleasantly, completely, as if she had just now come into existence for him.

"Raven Rivers."

"Lord Nikolai."

"Welcome to my wing."

A brief silence followed.

"She’s staying here?" a girl whispered behind Raven.

"Only because she came in late."

"So?"

"So they put her wherever there was room."

Someone else gave a quiet scoff. "An omega in Nikolai’s Wing. She won’t last past the ceremony."

Nikolai’s gaze moved toward the voices. He took his time, and one by one, they stopped.

"Every remaining placement will be settled this afternoon," he said. "Along with the merit calculations attached to them. I’d save the arithmetic until then."

He didn’t defend Raven. He didn’t say she belonged in his wing or that he intended to keep her there. He simply nodded to the prefect and moved on, murmuring something that made two of the seniors beside him laugh. Students straightened as he passed.

Raven watched him leave without letting anything show.

Good.

No scene. No special attention. Nothing else for the hall to feast on. Her shoulders loosened slightly.

It was only when the doors closed behind him that she realised she was still looking at them.

She turned away before anyone noticed.

The classification hall could have swallowed the Blackthorn manor whole.

Tiered seats climbed both sides in long stone ranks, packed with uniforms from all four wings, and the noise of them rolled around the ceiling like weather.

Thalia towed Raven along a row with Tessa and Brielle behind, talking the entire way — who was sitting where, which wing had claimed the best seats, which second-year had lost forty points betting on the seating itself, how her cousin once fainted during her own classification and the array recorded it.

"Sit. No, here, you want to see the platform. Okay, so. There." Thalia grabbed Raven’s sleeve and pointed with her whole arm before remembering herself and turning it into a discreet little jab of the elbow. "Look."

Raven had already looked.

A raised platform held the upper end of the hall, and on it stood four heavy chairs, each one carved with the crest of a Cardinal House. Below the platform, sigil lines spread across the floor in a wide ring — the classification array, dark for now.

All four heirs were already seated.

Dante had arranged himself in his chair the way he arranged himself everywhere, as though the ceremony had failed to earn his posture. His collar sat open. His dark-auburn hair hadn’t met a comb since the assessment, and the array’s standby glow caught the amber-gold of his eyes.

Beside him, Cassian sat straight-backed and still, white hair immaculate against the gray of his uniform. The excitement running through the audience never reached his face. He watched the candidates queue the way an examiner watches a sheet.

The third heir sat with his uniform fitted to the stitch, posture rigid, chin at an angle that suggested every candidate below owed him for the hour he was spending on them.

"That’s him," Thalia breathed. "From the avenue. Rowan. Half the wing still talks about—"

"I remember."

Nikolai occupied the last chair and looked the least severe of the four, trading quiet remarks with an official at his shoulder, wearing the same easy smile from the morning. His emerald eyes moved over the hall while he did it, and Raven doubted they missed much.

She studied the four of them together, seated above everyone, and understood why the academy rearranged itself around their chairs. They were dangerously attractive in four completely different directions, which annoyed her, and then noticing it annoyed her more, so she looked at the array instead.

"Right, so, ceremony," Thalia said. "Everyone already has a wing. Nobody gets thrown out if an heir doesn’t pick them, that’s not what this is. It’s a final recruitment thing. Balance. Whatever they call it."

"Then why is the entire academy here?"

Down on the floor, an evaluator called the first name.

"Because sometimes," Thalia said, settling in like a woman at a feast, "they steal."

Raven turned to her. "They steal what?"

"Students."

Thalia said it so cheerfully that Raven waited for the rest.

"Most people stay in the wing they were assigned," she continued. "Their token goes into the array, their results appear, their heir confirms them, and everyone tries not to die of boredom. But if a candidate has enough power, control or merit attached to their record, another Cardinal can claim them."

"And take them from their wing?"

"If the assigned heir allows it." Thalia leaned closer, although her voice had already begun rising with the excitement around them. "If they don’t, they contest the claim."

Raven glanced toward the four chairs above the array. "By fighting?"

"Usually with words."

"Usually?"

Thalia’s grin widened. "You’ll see."

All around them, students were already arguing over which heir would make the first claim. A boy two rows below passed folded slips along the bench while his friend quietly collected tokens. Somewhere farther back, someone called odds on Cassian stealing the first candidate from Rowan.

"They bet on this?"

"They live for it," Thalia said. "People miss breakfast to get the front seats. Half the hall wagers on who will make a claim, the other half wagers on whether it will be contested, and everyone remembers the ugliest arguments for years."

Raven looked toward the candidates waiting beside the array. "What about the person being stolen?"

Thalia blinked at her.

"What about them?"

"Do they get a say?"

A laugh escaped Thalia before Raven’s expression made her swallow it.

"Most candidates would surrender half their entrance points just to have one Cardinal notice them. If two heirs fought over someone, they’d probably thank the Goddess and faint."

"And if they didn’t want either House?"

Thalia opened her mouth, then paused.

"I don’t think anyone has ever been stupid enough to say so publicly."

The evaluator called the first name.

Conversation collapsed at once. Students leaned forward, wagers disappeared beneath sleeves and every eye turned toward the array.

Thalia rubbed her hands together.

"Now watch."