Chapter 31: Her Own Words

Chapter 31: Her Own Words

Silas pressed the switch.

Light spread above the recorder, showing his studio from the shelf opposite the kitchenette. His chair occupied one corner of the image. The main light was low, and Silas was about to go to bed when the knock came.

Nobody spoke while the recorded Silas turned the light back up and went to the door.

Lydia appeared in the entrance. Her uniform was intact. When she turned toward the light, there was no bruise on her cheek.

"I think someone followed me," her recorded voice said.

Across the aisle, Lydia lowered her handkerchief.

The image continued. Silas admitted her, closed the door, and went to get a glass. She asked for the bathroom. He pointed it out, and she walked inside without him coming within arm’s reach of her.

A chair scraped behind him. Silas kept watching the projection. He wanted to see it through himself.

The bathroom door remained visible beside the bed. So did Silas, waiting at the counter while water ran through the pipes.

"You can stop it," Lydia said.

The vice principal didn’t move.

"Please. This is private." Lydia’s voice rose as the sound of the tap ceased. "He had no right to—"

"You gave this court a different account," the vice principal said. "We will watch."

In the image, Silas offered to call a physician. Lydia refused. When she emerged a moment later, her sleeve was torn and the marks were already on her wrist and face.

Her mouth curved before she screamed.

Someone in the gallery swore. Silas heard his own frightened denials come from the crystal, followed almost at once by Gareth’s entrance. Lydia fell against her brother. Gareth stood, crossed the room, and struck him.

Silas’s jaw tightened at the sound. He hadn’t remembered hitting the counter that hard.

The recording caught Renn restraining Gareth’s second blow, then Gareth ordering him to fetch the council. As Gareth turned to put his coat around Lydia, the view tilted toward the ceiling and went dark.

Silas took his finger away from the switch.

Lydia was staring at the brass frame. Renn had gone pale enough that the freckles beside his nose stood out.

"That could have been altered," Gareth said.

"Clerk." The vice principal held out her hand. "Bring it here."

The clerk lifted the recorder carefully. Its certification glinted as he carried it past Lydia.

Two hundred and forty silver, before delivery. Silas could still hear the seller telling him the price.

He had gone into that shop with the taste of fried potato and pepper in his mouth, hoping the listing had included some unnecessary attachment he could refuse. It hadn’t. Cheaper models could capture a room perfectly well. This one preserved an authenticated original, with any interruption or alteration visible on inspection.

He had counted out almost everything he owned, then asked the seller to show him the controls again.

The week’s sleepless work had bought him this. In the game, nobody had believed Silas Rooke, and the expulsion had led to a death the story barely bothered to explain. He hadn’t trusted his new life to a better performance on the witness stand.

Last night, while Gareth bent over Lydia, Silas had used Remote Grasp to stop the recorder, lower it into the box, and slide the box beneath his bed. He had managed it with one hand pressed to his bleeding mouth. Getting Talia’s help afterward had taken a request passed through the officer holding him.

Now the vice principal examined the base. A fine pattern appeared inside the crystal beneath her fingers.

"One continuous original," she said. "The recording ends where the device was stopped. There is no alteration within it."

Gareth started to speak.

"If you wish to dispute that finding, you may request the maker’s verification," she told him. "Do you?"

His mouth closed.

The vice principal looked toward Silas. "The allegation against you is dismissed. Release his restraints."

The council officer beside him hesitated just long enough to look at her, then took out a key.

Silas kept his hands on the table while the cuffs came off. Mana became available again with a warmth that made his fingers twitch. He rubbed the raw patch beneath his thumb and found he couldn’t stop.

I’m going home.

He wanted to leave immediately. He could be halfway across the courtyard before anyone found another reason to keep him.

Then Renn moved toward the end of his bench.

"Harker," Silas said. "You haven’t explained what you heard through my door."

Renn stopped.

The vice principal turned to him. "Come forward."

"I may have misunderstood," Renn said, remaining beside his seat.

"You supplied an exact sentence. I asked whether those were his words, and you confirmed it."

Renn glanced at Gareth. Gareth shook his head once.

Silas leaned back, easing the ache where the counter had caught him. "Perhaps you heard someone in another room. Though it’s odd that you arrived at mine before anyone who actually lives on the floor."

"We were nearby," Gareth said.

"Your dormitory is across the academy." Silas looked at him. "You told us you were making sure Lydia got home. She doesn’t live in my wing either."

Gareth’s hand closed on the back of the bench. "She could have taken a wrong turn."

"Did she?" the vice principal asked Renn.

Renn swallowed.

The council woman who had arrested Silas stepped forward when called. She confirmed that Gareth and two other students were already at the room when she arrived. Renn had been returning from fetching help.

"I entered because of the scream," she said. "They were there before my patrol reached the stairs."

The vice principal asked the clerk to identify the other two from the incident report. Both were in the gallery. One rose reluctantly. The other stayed seated until an officer approached him.

Silas recognized the boy who had worn the reception sash. Without it, he looked younger.

"You will give separate statements," the vice principal told them. "Before you do, understand that knowingly supporting a fabricated accusation is itself an offense. Continuing to lie will be considered separately."

"I didn’t touch anybody," the boy said at once.

Gareth turned. "Nobody said you did."

"You will not address him," the vice principal said.

The boy’s gaze darted between Gareth and the officer waiting beside him. "I was only supposed to be there. Outside. So there would be people who’d seen her afterward."

Lydia made a small, strangled sound.

"Supposed to be there on whose instructions?"

The boy stared at his shoes. "Gareth’s."

Renn spoke before anyone asked him another question.

"He gave me the sentence." His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "The thing I said I heard. Gareth told me to say it."

"Renn." Gareth sounded almost disbelieving.

"You said he’d be thrown out anyway." Renn’s face had reddened. "You said we only had to make sure it happened this time. I’m not taking this for you."

After that, the accounts came out unevenly. The second student admitted knowing that Lydia intended to make a false accusation. They had waited near the stairwell until she screamed. Renn had been assigned the spoken threat; the others were meant to support the impression of arriving during a struggle.

Silas listened while the clerk wrote. Nobody had needed to pay them. Gareth had asked, and they had thought helping him would be worthwhile.

He looked down at his wrists for a moment.

The vice principal ordered the three men kept apart while their statements were recorded. Then she turned back to Silas.

"You had this recording when you entered the chamber. Why wait until the end to present it?"

Silas met her eyes. "I wanted everyone to finish giving their accounts."

The presenter stopped arranging his papers.

"Some of those accounts concerned things you did," the vice principal said.

"I haven’t disputed them." Silas glanced toward Renn, who was now standing between two officers. "Some didn’t."

A student near Elin drew her hands into her lap when Silas’s gaze passed that way. Elin herself wouldn’t look at him.

He left her alone. She had told the truth.

Gareth lowered himself onto the bench beside Lydia. She caught his sleeve and whispered something, but he didn’t answer.

For the first time since the hearing began, Silas had nobody standing over him. He pulled his cup closer and drank while the clerk read back Renn’s admission.