Chapter 50 — Standards

Chapter 50: Chapter 50 — Standards

~ Raven ~

"Now, ordinarily I would need a witness for this. Fortunately, half of you had your slates out and were already recording, so I have four angles and excellent sound."

The footage began.

It was Celeste, at the head of the packed cafeteria, her voice carrying beautifully.

"—she belongs to my family. She served in our kitchens. She scrubbed our floors."

"And that," the Bellringer said, "would have been the end of it. Except the Blackthorn heirs walked in."

New angle. Alaric and Kieran in the doorway. Celeste turning, triumphant, demanding they deny it.

The recording ran on.

And on.

Neither twin said a word.

The clip held on their faces long past the point of comfort, then froze.

"An excellent morning," said the Bellringer, "for House Blackthorn’s public relations department."

Thalia laughed out loud.

Under the blanket, Brielle finally moved. She sat up, hair in every direction, and reached for her slate without a word — which was more than Tessa had achieved in ten minutes of physical labour.

"For those still catching up." The masked figure counted on gloved fingers. "The Blackthorn twins knew this girl was their mate. For two years. They said nothing. She found out, in public, and announced it herself in a room of four hundred people."

The mask tilted toward the recording rune.

"And then the former Blackthorn kitchen servant ended the entire argument by informing everyone that she rejected both Vanguard heirs."

A pause, perfectly judged.

"Some girls come to Valerius hoping to catch one Alpha heir."

Longer pause.

"Raven Rivers apparently brought two from home and returned them."

Tessa lost it completely. Thalia had to sit down on the edge of the bed. Even Brielle made a sound Raven had never heard her make.

"I hate all of you," Raven said.

"There is also the matter of Dante Prymont."

The room stopped laughing quite so hard.

New footage. The cafeteria again — Kieran’s aura coming down, Raven’s knees starting to fold. Then Dante crossing the room and lifting it off her like a man taking a coat off a hook.

"Heir Prymont has now involved himself in this girl’s affairs twice in three days. In public. Against two Vanguard heirs."

The mask turned slowly toward the audience.

"Coincidence? Possibly. I am not paid enough to determine that."

A beat.

"Yet."

"It is not — that is not what—" Raven jabbed a finger at the slate. "He wanted something from me. He said so. He interrogated me—"

"Raven," Thalia said gently. "It’s a recording. It can’t hear you."

"Which brings us to last night."

The Grand Drill Court, from somewhere high in the galleries.

"Now, I’m told the point of the First Howl is to test a first-year’s instincts. So I would love someone to explain why, upon identifying the Nascent in the second heat, our esteemed upper-years appear to have collectively decided to empty half the racks into one girl."

The footage ran fast. Black light in her ribs. Yellow across her shoulder. Blue at the hip, and Raven running full-speed into a boy who had done nothing to anyone. Raven on her hands. Raven on her elbows. Raven getting up.

Behind her, in the wide clear space nobody was throwing into, four other contestants strolled to the platform.

"You will notice," said the Bellringer, "that the rest of the heat had a lovely evening."

Then the sound came up.

"COME ON, THEN, YOU FUCKERS!"

The image froze.

It froze at the exact worst instant — mouth stretched wide, one eye shut, her whole face contorted mid-scream, blood on her chin and her hair standing off her head like she’d been struck by weather.

The silence went on for a long time.

The masked head turned slowly toward the audience.

"Subtle."

Raven put her face in her ruined hands.

The clip resumed. Her crawl up the platform. Her fingers on the marker. The howl going up into the lattice, and the whole court going quiet under it.

"She passed."

The Bellringer folded gloved hands on the desk.

"So the question everyone is asking this morning is a simple one. How does a Nascent first-year keep producing results that are not remotely Nascent?"

The figure ticked off options.

"Some say the classification is wrong. Some say she is merely the most stubborn creature ever admitted to this academy. Some say there is something else going on with Raven Rivers entirely."

A shrug.

"I decline to speculate. I’m a gossip. I have standards."

The mask leaned in.

"But I will say this. At her present rate, I expect Raven Rivers to produce an academy record, a disciplinary hearing, or structural damage before the end of the week."

The figure picked up a small brass handbell from the desk.

"Preferably all three."

Ding.

The recording ended.

Nobody said anything.

Raven set the slate face-down on the table with great care, the way you put down something you have decided not to throw.

"I am going to find that person."

"And then what?" Thalia asked.

"I haven’t decided which crime yet."

Brielle got out of bed.

"Today," Raven said, pointing at each of them in turn, "is still going to be quiet."

Nobody engaged with this.

"I’m serious."

They picked up their slates and went down to class together.

Her own Wing said nothing at all.

That was somehow worse. The corridor was full — first-years half-dressed, upper-years stepping around them with mugs in their hands — and every one of them had been in the Grand Drill Court last night, and every one of them had watched the broadcast. They knew better than to say a word in Nikolai’s residence.

So they just looked.

Heads came up as she passed. Conversations stopped and started again behind her. One boy with a paw print still burning on his forehead watched her the whole length of the passage without blinking, and a girl on the stairs pulled her friend’s sleeve and said nothing and kept her eyes on Raven the entire way down.

Raven walked through it with her chin level and her ruined hands loose at her sides.

Two more minutes. Get out of the building.

Then they came out through the Wing doors into the main colonnade, and the rest of Valerius was waiting.

Raven understood how badly she had already lost about four steps in.

Heads turned in a chain, one after another down the length of the colonnade, and the whispering started ahead of her and closed up behind her.

"That’s her. That’s the one from the broadcast."

"Where? Where—"

"Don’t point at her—"

"Go back to the cafeteria part. Go back — no, further, where he asks them to deny it—"

"I’ve watched it four times. They just stand there."

"My brother says the classification has to be wrong. Nobody breaks that record on a Nascent."

Somebody, from a doorway, in a bad imitation of her voice: "Come on, then—"

Raven turned her head.

The boy shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked.

She faced forward and kept walking.

Low profile.

She walked faster. Thalia and Tessa had to skip a step to keep up, and Tessa’s bruised leg made a small unhappy sound about it.

Raven did not look left. She did not look right. She looked at a point in the middle distance and held it like a rope.

"Rivers—"

She walked faster.

A boy stepped out in front of her instead, broad, cheerful, entirely unbothered by the expression on her face.

"Hey. You were in my heat." He grinned. "They were so busy with you I basically walked it. Honestly — thanks."

Raven counted to four.

Then she gave him the smallest nod a human neck can produce and went around him.

"So," Thalia said, half a corridor later. "Is this aggressively low-key?"

"Shut up."

But the whispers kept coming, and they had stopped being about last night.

"—what kind of servant, though? Like a house servant?"

"How do you even end up mated to both of them?"

"They hid it for two years, that’s what she said—"

"Did she actually escape, or did they let her go?"

"And now Prymont’s fighting her battles? Come on. Something’s happening there."

Raven’s shoulders drew up by degrees.

The Bellringer had been funny. The Bellringer had frozen her mid-scream in front of the entire academy and she could live with that, because it was a joke and she had genuinely looked appalling.

This was different. This was strangers passing her life around a corridor like a dish at a table — her rejection, the gate, Melissa — trying pieces of it and deciding what they thought.

"Raven."

She kept walking.

"Raven."

Thalia had gone quiet in a way she hadn’t been all morning.

"What really happened that night?"

Raven slowed.