Chapter 109 — Private

Chapter 109: Chapter 109 — Private

~ Raven ~

Dante’s eyes stayed on her rather than the door or Cassian, his gaze moving over her face first before dropping briefly over the rest of her. When he finally spoke, his voice was level.

"Are you alright?"

"I’m fine."

It came out stiffer than she meant it to.

Dante glanced past her shoulder at Cassian, then looked back at her.

The corridor felt warmer than it had a moment ago. Not enough that Raven could have sworn to it, but she noticed it across the backs of her hands and found herself wondering whether the temperature had actually changed or whether she’d simply started expecting it to whenever Dante was annoyed.

"What were you doing in there?"

Raven’s mouth opened.

Then she remembered the last twenty minutes. Standing in a dark room while Cassian somehow pulled answers out of her without asking a single straight question, only for her face to betray another one afterward.

No.

I’m finished with that.

She cleared her throat.

"It’s private."

It sounded worse out loud than it had in her head.

Dante’s jaw tightened slightly.

His eyes shifted to Cassian, stayed there for a beat, then came back to her.

"Just watch yourself around him."

The warning was quiet and matter-of-fact, which somehow made it land harder.

Beside her, Cassian turned his head just enough to look at Dante. His face stayed unreadable, but his gaze lingered there for a second before returning to Raven.

"We are leaving."

Then he turned and started walking.

Raven stared after him.

We are leaving?

As if one word from him was supposed to be enough to make her move.

She got as far as opening her mouth to tell him exactly where he could put that instruction before remembering one irritating fact.

Cassian was currently the only person in Valerius walking toward the information she needed.

I hate this.

I hate all of this.

Raven went after him.

Dante didn’t say anything else, but she could feel his eyes on her until she disappeared around the turn.

Cassian did not slow down.

Raven caught him halfway along the passage, her bag knocking against her hip and her temper already climbing. She had to physically stop herself from starting an argument while there were still people close enough behind them to hear every word.

Then the passage opened out.

Raven slowed.

She had been inside the library twice before. Both times she’d entered through the eastern doors, crossed the reading floor and never gone farther than the catalogue cabinets.

Apparently, she had mistaken one room for the entire library.

The chamber ahead stretched farther back than the drill court. Long rows of shelves disappeared into sections she couldn’t see the ends of, with another level rising above them and then another above that, galleries stacked high with rails, ladders and more books than Raven had ever seen gathered in one place. Corridors branched away on either side, some open, others shut behind gated entrances.

Far overhead, a tall window dropped a column of daylight through all three levels.

It didn’t even reach the floor.

For a moment, Raven forgot Cassian entirely.

She had written her first book by candle ends on stolen paper, hiding every finished page beneath a loose floorboard. Most of what she’d learned about writing had come from six books she’d read so often she could still recite the terrible parts.

There were probably more books in the nearest row than she’d read in her entire life.

"Rivers."

Raven blinked.

Cassian was already twelve paces ahead and hadn’t even looked back.

Right. Yes. Of course.

She closed her mouth and followed him.

The staring began almost immediately.

A table of second-years went quiet as Cassian passed. Two girls on the gallery above leaned over the rail and made absolutely no attempt to pretend they weren’t watching. Somewhere to Raven’s left, somebody said something low enough that she missed the words but still caught her own name before three people laughed.

She ignored it.

There was too much of that now to do anything else.

"How far is this?"

Cassian kept walking.

"I asked you a question."

Nothing.

Raven’s jaw tightened.

She again, came dangerously close to telling him what she thought of him at full volume before remembering there were probably sixty people within earshot and every one of them would have the story through the Wings before supper.

So instead, she stared at the back of his head and seriously considered what went on inside it.

In four days, Cassian Blade had come through the trees and saved her life. He had held her while she was bleeding and let her call him a word she could never take back. Then today he’d put a blade beneath her jaw, made the air itself sting her skin and pulled two secrets out of her without ever asking for either of them directly.

Now he was marching her through the academy library like a disobedient dog.

There is something genuinely wrong with him.

Not a small thing either. Something structural.

The section he eventually stopped in was quieter than the rest of the library. The shelves stood closer together here, the air dry with old paper and dust, and most of the spines carried titles Raven didn’t recognise.

Several had no titles at all.

Cassian walked straight to the second row and pulled out a book without checking the shelf.

Then he crossed to the other side, took another and used the step to reach a third from higher up.

Raven watched him.

He didn’t check a single label.

He didn’t hesitate once.

By the fourth book, Raven realised something that made her feel deeply stupid.

She had spent an entire afternoon fighting her way through Berry, four Ashbourne students, Alaric Blackthorn and finally Cassian with a knife just to reach a research section.

As though she’d arrived here and somehow known what she was looking for.

She wouldn’t have found one of these books in a week.

By the time the stack on the table reached the height of her forearm, Cassian was still adding to it.

"Cassian."

He returned with two more.

"You know all this."

"Yes."

"Then tell me." Raven planted her palm on top of the pile. "You could explain it in ten minutes instead of—what is this? five books?"

"Seven."

Raven stared at him.

"Seven."

"You told me an hour ago that you’d considered whether I was the one in your head." Cassian placed the final two books down and squared the stack with two fingers. "If I sit here and tell you what a Dreamwalker can and cannot do, what exactly do you have?"

Raven opened her mouth.

"You’d have my word for it," he continued. "And no way of knowing whether I was giving you facts or deciding what you believe."

Her mouth closed.

...Damn it.

She tried three different arguments anyway.

He had an answer for the first.

Then the second.

By the third, Raven gave up and settled for glaring at him with her hand still pressed against the books.

Her gaze dropped to the stack.

Old bindings. Worn corners. A faded ribbon hanging from one of them.

And suddenly she remembered another book.

A perfectly ordinary brown cover wrapped around something that was very much not ordinary.

Raven’s irritation shifted.

Oh.

Then her mouth almost curved.

Oh, that’s right.

"Do you always read this much," she asked, "or only the things you don’t want anybody knowing you read?"

Cassian’s hands stopped.

It lasted less than a second.

He didn’t immediately look up, and when he finally did, his face had returned to that maddening state where it appeared to be doing absolutely nothing.

But Raven had seen the pause.

There you are.

"That brown cover was good work, by the way." She leaned one hip against the table. "Very boring. Really committed to the disguise. You’d almost think somebody didn’t want to be caught reading a romance in the east hall."

"Rivers."

"And the margins." Raven’s satisfaction grew. "There’s more of your handwriting in that book than there is in the authors. Notes everywhere. Underlining. You marked the poor thing up like you were sitting an examination on it."

Something moved in his jaw.

Raven enjoyed that far more than she should have.

The best part—the part she intended to take directly to her grave—was that Cassian had absolutely no idea he was standing there being mocked by R. Vale herself.

"Honestly," she said, "it’s sweet. You should tell people. You’d be so much more likeable."

Cassian looked at her.

Then the irritation disappeared.

Completely.

His face became so calm that Raven’s satisfaction immediately cooled several degrees.

...What are you doing?

Cassian reached behind him, took one final book from the shelf and placed it on top of the stack.

"Right," Raven said, pushing herself away from the table. She started around the end of it.

A pale line flashed across the floor.

Raven walked straight into something that wasn’t there.

Her forehead struck it hard enough to jerk her backward, and the curse that escaped her carried much farther through the library than she would have preferred.

Another pale line lit along the side of the alcove.

Then one overhead.

More followed, each connecting to the next until six thin panels of white light enclosed the reading table.

With Raven inside them.

She stared at the nearest one and put her palm against it.

Solid resistance met her hand.

Raven turned around.

Slowly.

Cassian stood outside the boundary.

"Are you serious?"

Two tables away, a boy had already stood for a better view.

Someone in the gallery above said, "Look," with absolutely none of the subtlety the library required.

Whispering broke out at the nearest tables before spreading through the section, and Raven could already pick pieces out of it.

Blade.

Rivers.

He sealed her in.

"Take it down." Raven’s teeth were clenched. "Now."

"I can’t."

Her stare sharpened.

"Cassian—"

"It’s keyed to you." His tone remained perfectly even. "I set it that way. Nobody outside the boundary can open it. Including me."

Raven looked at the glowing walls surrounding her.

Then back at him.

"Only you can," he added.

"How?"

Cassian’s gaze moved to the stack of books.

"Read."

Raven stared at him.

For one second, nothing happened.

Then she understood.

All of it.

And somehow her anger climbed so fast that it went straight past shouting and settled somewhere much quieter.

"Everything you need is in the material," Cassian said. "All of it."

Then he turned and walked away.

"Blade."

He kept going.

She gritted her teeth. "Blade."

Nothing.

The whispering had already reached the next section. Somebody was standing on a chair now, apparently because Raven’s public humiliation required elevation for proper viewing.

She put both palms against the glowing boundary.

It remained completely unmoved by her feelings on the matter.

At the end of the row, Cassian stopped.

He glanced back.

Raven was already preparing several things to shout at him the moment he showed the slightest sign of remorse.

Instead, Cassian smiled.

Actually smiled.

Then he disappeared between the shelves.

Raven stood inside a glowing box with seven books stacked in front of her, half the library talking about her and at least one idiot still standing on a chair to watch.

She stared at the place where Cassian had vanished.

Absolutely fucking furious.