Chapter 63 — I Am Better Than You

Chapter 63: Chapter 63 — I Am Better Than You

~ Raven ~

The Headmaster’s office had seemed enormous the first time Raven stood in it.

That was before all four Cardinal heirs were crammed inside.

Nobody was using aura. Raven had checked often enough to be sure of that, and somehow she kept checking anyway, like touching a door twice after locking it. No gold shimmer. No heat pressing against her skin. No invisible weight forcing her shoulders down.

The room still felt too small.

Dante had claimed the chair on the left and was sprawled across it as though sitting properly had never occurred to him. Rowan hadn’t bothered with a chair at all. He stood by the window with one shoulder turned toward the room, his posture still carrying the same tight anger he’d brought out of the cafeteria.

Nikolai had taken up position against the bookcase, arms folded, staring at the ceiling like he was already tired of whatever was about to happen.

Cassian had chosen the seat nearest the door.

Of course he had.

He sat down freely, one ankle resting over the opposite knee, chewing on something Raven was fairly certain he had not been holding when they entered.

She looked at him for a second.

Then decided she did not want to know.

Raven stood in front of the desk with her hands at her sides and her palms burning under the healed-over cuts.

She said nothing.

For the first time since arriving at Valerius, there was genuinely nothing she wanted to say.

Keep it that way. Say nothing, get out of the building, sleep until spring.

The Headmaster hadn’t said a word since the door closed.

She sat behind her desk with a ledger shut beneath one hand, looking from Raven to the four Cardinal heirs with the exhausted expression of someone trying to decide which disaster to deal with first.

Her eyes finally settled on Raven.

"What in the hell were you thinking?"

Raven blinked.

She looked left. She looked right. There were four Cardinal heirs in this room, one of whom had personally removed most of a cafeteria.

"...Me?"

"Yes, Rivers. You."

"I—"

"Less than two days."

The Headmaster lifted one hand.

"You have been inside my gates for less than two days, Rivers."

One finger went up.

"You came through a special assessment half my staff didn’t want you taking."

Another.

"You broke a four-year entrance record before you’d even been given a room."

Another.

"My examiners are still sending each other reports about what the hell happened during your classification."

Raven’s mouth tightened.

The Headmaster kept counting.

"You took Twentieth Seat from Celeste Blackthorn. Yesterday morning you survived a First Howl where, according to the reports on my desk, several upper-years decided one first-year required half the damned ball racks."

Her next finger went up.

"And somehow you have already been the main subject of that irritating Bellringer broadcast twice."

She looked at her hand.

Then at Raven.

Apparently she had run out of fingers before Raven had run out of problems.

"This morning, Rowan House filed formal Redress against you personally. Do you know when I last saw a Cardinal House use that provision against a first-year?"

Raven wisely said nothing.

"Eleven years ago."

The Headmaster leaned back.

"And now my cafeteria looks like someone tried to start a territorial war inside it, Berry is writing a report I suspect will require its own binding, and all four of these—"

Her eyes moved toward the Cardinal heirs.

She stopped herself.

Her jaw worked once.

"—all four of them somehow ended up in the middle of it."

Silence.

Raven opened her mouth.

Nothing useful presented itself.

When the Headmaster put it all together like that, Raven had to admit it sounded less like bad luck and more like she had arrived at Valerius with a personal plan to ruin everyone’s week.

Two days. She’s not even wrong about the order.

I didn’t do any of that. Most of it was done to me.

Rowan turned from the window.

"Don’t let her fool you with that."

The Headmaster’s eyes shifted to him.

Rowan was looking at Raven.

"That silence." His mouth tightened. "She does it whenever there’s someone important in the room. Stands there looking harmless and lets everyone forget what comes out of her mouth the second she decides she has an audience."

Raven kept her eyes on the Headmaster.

Rowan gave a short, humorless breath.

"An hour ago she was sitting on a table telling Houses, heirs and half the academy to go fuck themselves. Now suddenly she has nothing to say."

Nothing from Raven.

"Rivers."

She ignored him.

"Look at me."

Raven didn’t.

That was all it took.

The control in Rowan’s face held for perhaps another second before something ugly pushed through it. His jaw locked hard enough to show beneath the skin, and the hand hanging at his side curled slowly into a fist.

Dante laughed.

Rowan’s head turned.

The look on his face made the laugh worse.

All the careful restraint was still technically there, but only technically.

His nostrils had flared, his mouth had gone thin, and there was something almost murderous in his eyes now that made him look considerably less like the composed Cardinal heir who had filed a lawful petition that morning and considerably more like a man being driven insane by one girl refusing to acknowledge him.

Dante took one look at him and laughed harder.

Nikolai shut his eyes and sighed through his nose.

Dante was still laughing when Cassian spoke.

"Can we finish this?"

He sounded genuinely tired of all of them.

"I’ve spent most of my morning being dragged from one room to another as somebody’s witness. I’d like to salvage what remains of it."

Rowan looked at him.

"Of course you would."

Cassian’s eyes lifted.

Rowan’s voice stayed level, but the anger underneath it had sharpened.

"None of this ever seems to reach you, does it? Houses fight, students get dragged through hearings, half the academy tears itself apart, and you stand at the edge looking at everyone like we’re beneath your notice."

Cassian regarded him for a moment.

"You’re upset because I think I’m better than you."

Rowan’s mouth hardened.

"You do."

"I am."

Silence.

Raven looked at Cassian.

There was no smile on his face. No satisfaction either. He had said it with the same calm certainty he might have used to tell someone it was raining outside.

Dante made a strangled sound beside them and covered his mouth with one hand.

Rowan’s eyes narrowed.

"Blade."

"You brought it up."

"It was an accusation."

"Then choose one that isn’t true."

Dante lost whatever little control he had managed to claw back and bent forward in his chair, laughing into his hand.

Nikolai closed his eyes.

"Wonderful," he muttered.

The first trace of gold appeared around Rowan’s shoulders.

It barely had time to form.

Purple flashed through the room.

Raven’s stomach dropped.

The pressure hit so quickly her knees buckled before she caught herself against the edge of the Headmaster’s desk. Dante’s laughter cut off. Nikolai straightened away from the bookcase, and Cassian went completely still.

Rowan’s golden aura vanished as if it had never been there.

A second later, the purple pressure disappeared too.

The Headmaster remained exactly where she was.

She pressed two fingers slowly against her temple.

"Rowan."

He stood rigid beside the window, fury sitting openly in his face now.

"Either sit down," she said, "or continue standing there in silence. Those are the only two things I am prepared to watch you do for the next five minutes."

Rowan’s jaw flexed.

He stayed where he was.

Beside the door, Cassian settled further into his chair. His eyes travelled across the desk, found the water bottle standing on the corner of it, and stopped.

He reached over and took it.

Raven watched him unstopper it.

She watched him drink.

The Headmaster’s gaze moved slowly across her own desk to the wet ring where the bottle had been. A vein stood up beside her temple.

Cassian kept drinking.

She looked at him for a long moment, then looked away, and Raven watched a woman who ran an entire academy decide in real time that she did not have enough patience left in her body for that particular fight today.

They’re just boys.

The thought arrived out of nowhere and would not leave. Four names half of Valerius said in a lowered voice, and shut in one room together they bickered like brothers, stole drinks off desks and got told to sit down.

"Right." The Headmaster put both hands flat on the ledger. "The Redress is finished. The public proceeding is closed. Nobody in my academy is kneeling to anybody today."

"The petition stands," Rowan said.

"The petition stands. The refusal is recorded. Whatever Merit consequence the provision actually permits will be reviewed by me, in writing, when I have that report in my hand and not one hour before."

Her eyes cut across to him. "What you do not have, Heir Rowan, is the right to stand a first-year in front of a crowd and keep asking until the answer changes. That part is over. Today, tomorrow, and every day I am sitting in this chair."

Raven kept her face still.

So the Seat’s still in the air.

"Headmaster—"

"No."

"You are handing her—"

"You’ll have my ruling when I write it," the Headmaster said. "Until then, find something useful to do with yourself. Rowan House still hasn’t registered half its seals for the Founders’ Hunt."

Rowan’s jaw shifted.

"That was last cycle."

"It was three cycles ago."

"Two," Dante said from his chair.

The Headmaster looked at him. "Nobody asked you, Prymont."

"I know. I was helping."

Rowan glanced over. "Your Wing hasn’t submitted a roster at all."

Dante looked unconcerned. "There’s a month."

"There are eleven days."

Dante’s head came up.

"What?"

Cassian answered before anyone else could.

"The Hunt was moved forward. It went up on the boards yesterday."

Dante stared at him. "Since when do you read the boards?"

Cassian actually looked surprised.

"They’re notice boards."

Dante said nothing.

Cassian’s brows pulled together slightly, as if a much more troubling possibility had just occurred to him.

"Do you not read them?"

Dante sat there for a second.

Then he swore under his breath and dragged a hand through his hair.

"Eleven days is fine."

"It is absolutely not fine," the Headmaster said. "For any of you."

That shut him up.

"I moved the Hunt because I am not holding it in the same fortnight as the Concord Trials. This is a Renewal year. The Concord will be reaffirmed here, which means your fathers will be here, the vampire Houses will be here, and before this term is much older I will have four Cardinal vampire heirs inside these gates as well."

Her gaze moved slowly across the four of them.

Raven almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

The Headmaster shut the ledger.

"So whatever this ridiculous little war between you is, end it. Stop wrecking my academy, finish your Hunt preparations, and get out of my office before I find a punishment your Houses can’t argue their way out of."

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then Nikolai pushed away from the bookcase.

That seemed to release everyone else with him. Dante finally sat properly. Rowan stepped away from the window. Cassian rose from the chair nearest the door and brushed a few crumbs from his fingers.

"Nikolai, you’re handling the ward rotation again. I want the final list before the v—"

The Headmaster stopped.

Her eyes found Raven.

Raven was still standing exactly where she had been placed in front of the desk.

Everyone else had apparently forgotten she was there.

Raven considered this the best thing that had happened to her all morning.

The Headmaster stared at her.

Raven tried very hard to look like someone who had no involvement whatsoever in anything currently being discussed.

"You."

Raven waited.

"Out."

She had never been happier to obey an order.

Raven was through the door before anyone could change their mind. She closed it behind her and stood in the corridor for a moment, breathing in air that did not contain four Cardinal heirs and a mad Headmaster.

Eleven days until the Founders’ Hunt.

Vampire Houses coming to Valerius.

Four more Cardinal heirs.

Raven started walking.

None of that was her problem.

She was determined to enjoy that belief for as long as it lasted.

She made it down two flights of stairs.

Then she heard the crowd.

"—can’t take her Seat just because she refused to kneel. My uncle said—"

"Your uncle doesn’t know anything. Redress deductions affect Court standing—"

"I don’t care about the Seat. Did you see Prymont when Rowan’s aura came out?"

"Someone sent me the recording—"

Raven slowed.

Her name came from somewhere ahead.

Then again from behind her.

She closed her eyes for half a second.

Apparently the academy was not finished with her yet.