Chapter 172 — Something Is Wrong With Isolde

Chapter 172: Chapter 172 — Something Is Wrong With Isolde

~ Raven ~

Thalia had been talking for several minutes before Raven realised she had no idea what the conversation was about.

She looked down at the food in front of her, then across the table at Tessa, who was listening with considerably more attention than Raven had managed. Brielle sat beside her with one elbow near her plate, occasionally adding something whenever Thalia paused long enough to allow it.

Everything around them was irritatingly normal.

The cafeteria was loud with evening conversation, cutlery scraping lightly against plates and the occasional burst of laughter from one of the larger tables.

Students moved between seats carrying trays, slates changed hands whenever someone found something worth showing around, and everything around her felt strangely normal, almost wrong after what she had just heard from Nikolai.

The more Raven thought about Jaden, the more she found herself respecting him.

He had been given a way out and still turned back for Nikolai.

Maybe that should have seemed foolish, but Raven understood it better than most. During the Hunt, she had been given chances to think only about herself too, and she had stayed because leaving meant abandoning people who were in danger because of her.

Sometimes knowing you could escape did not make walking away any easier.

Jaden had been a good friend.

A damn good one.

And perhaps that was why Nikolai had never been able to leave what happened behind.

Finding whoever stood behind the Moonless Court was not simply something he had been investigating for two years. Raven understood that now. It was the thing driving him forward, the answer he had built two years of grief and guilt around finding.

He wanted the source.

He needed to know who had taken Jaden from him.

Raven pressed her fork lightly against the edge of her plate as the irony settled over her again.

Nikolai had spent two years searching for a name.

Raven already had one.

Vaelith.

She could have leaned closer beneath that colonnade and given it to him in a single breath, yet instead she had sat there and said nothing.

The Dreamwalker made even that dangerous.

Raven hated how often the bastard managed to affect her decisions without even being present. Until she knew who he was and exactly what he could reach, handing Nikolai a secret that important felt less like helping him and more like placing another weapon somewhere the Dreamwalker might eventually find it.

After everything Nikolai had just told her, keeping that information from him had felt particularly cruel.

Necessary, perhaps, but still cruel.

Raven exhaled quietly and shifted her attention toward the nearest window.

Melissa.

She had been meaning to contact her since discovering who she really was, but after hearing Nikolai’s story, the questions Raven wanted answered had changed.

Alpha Arden had been Melissa’s husband, which raised the most obvious question of all.

Why had the Alpha of House Arden been inside the middle of a student competition?

What bothered Raven more was that Jaden’s fear had started before the attack.

Whatever had been happening around the Ardens had already been serious enough for him to worry about his family, which meant the massacre had not begun with the Four-Wing Run.

Something had led to it.

And Melissa had spent the last two years trying to find out what.

That was what Raven needed from her now. Not another version of how the Ardens died, but what had happened before it. What her family had discovered, what had frightened Jaden and why Alpha Arden had entered Valerius that day.

Raven needed to contact her.

Soon.

Just not while sitting in the middle of a crowded cafeteria.

"Raven."

She looked up and found Thalia staring at her.

Raven glanced between the other two women. Tessa had stopped eating, while Brielle looked faintly amused.

"What?"

Thalia leaned back in her chair. "You haven’t heard a single thing I’ve said."

"I heard some of it."

"What did I say?"

Raven considered lying, but unfortunately nothing useful came to mind.

Thalia’s expression became unbearably satisfied.

"That is what I thought."

"I was thinking."

"That explains the vacant expression."

Raven gave her a flat look while Brielle hid a smile behind her cup.

"What were you saying?" Raven asked.

"The Renewal Ball."

Raven immediately regretted asking.

Thalia noticed. "Oh, don’t make that face."

"What face?"

"The one where you suddenly remember you have somewhere else to be."

"I might."

"You don’t."

Tessa finally took pity on Raven, although only slightly. "The Ball is five days away."

Raven looked at her. "I know."

Thalia stared at her as though that somehow made the situation worse.

"What?"

"You’ve been thinking about Dante’s invitation for five days."

"I said I’d think about it."

"Yes, and most people don’t turn thinking about an invitation into a long-term academic project."

Raven picked up her cup. "Five days isn’t that long."

"It is when the event itself is five days away."

"That still gives me five more."

Thalia opened her mouth, but Brielle spoke before she could.

"The stranger part is that Prymont hasn’t asked her again."

Raven’s cup paused halfway to her mouth.

Tessa nodded. "I thought he would."

"So did I," Thalia admitted. "Repeatedly."

Raven drank instead of answering.

Dante had not mentioned the invitation once since asking her.

That should have made everything easier.

It had not.

Apparently knowing he was waiting without actually asking was somehow more irritating than if he had cornered her every morning and demanded an answer. Raven refused to think too carefully about why.

"He probably has better things to do," she said.

The three expressions around the table made it clear nobody believed that.

Raven set down her cup. "Can we discuss literally anything else?"

Thalia smiled. "Cassian?"

Raven nearly kicked her beneath the table.

Before she could decide whether the violence would be worth it, Thalia’s expression changed as her attention shifted past Raven toward the cafeteria entrance.

"Oh."

Raven followed the movement slightly, but not enough to turn. "What?"

Thalia sat straighter.

"Uh oh."

That got Raven’s attention.

She noticed the room changing before she saw what had caused it. It began close to the entrance, conversations thinning around a few tables before the reaction spread farther into the cafeteria. Heads turned one after another, and several students who had been halfway through speaking simply stopped.

Then Raven heard the steady sound of heels against stone.

She turned.

Isolde Marchmont had entered the cafeteria.

Raven’s first thought was that this academy desperately needed more interesting things to do with itself. Isolde walking into a room should not have been enough to make half the students inside it start paying attention.

Then Raven realised where she was going.

Straight toward them.

Or, more specifically, toward Raven.

Thalia had gone completely quiet. Tessa lowered her fork and watched Isolde approach with the same focused expression she usually reserved for something she expected to become important.

Beside Raven, Brielle shifted slightly in her chair.

The movement was small, but Raven knew her well enough now to recognise it. If this became a problem, Brielle intended to stand.

Raven almost sighed.

Fourth Seat apparently could not receive a visit from First Seat without everyone assuming somebody was about to bleed.

Under ordinary circumstances, Raven might have assumed the same thing.

Then Isolde came closer, and Raven’s irritation disappeared.

Something was wrong with her.

Nobody else seemed to notice.

From a distance, Isolde looked almost exactly as she always did. Her uniform sat perfectly, her hair was in place and her posture carried the same effortless control Raven had spent weeks finding mildly infuriating.

But Raven had seen what existed underneath that control now.

She knew how Isolde looked when she was amused, irritated, surprised or trying not to laugh, and what Raven saw now was none of those things.

There were shadows beneath her eyes that had not been there before. Her mouth was held slightly too tight, and although she walked through the room without appearing hurried, her attention kept shifting around the cafeteria as if she could not stop checking what was happening around her.

A door.

A nearby table.

Students passing too close.

Another quick glance behind her before her eyes returned to Raven.

She looked exhausted, but not in the ordinary way that followed training or too little sleep. There was something beneath it, something tense and watchful that made Raven slowly push her chair back.

By then, Isolde had reached the table.

The conversations nearest them had gone suspiciously quiet, but Raven ignored them.

Up close, the exhaustion was worse.

"Isolde?"

Isolde did not acknowledge Thalia, Tessa or Brielle. Her eyes remained fixed entirely on Raven before her hand closed around Raven’s wrist.

Raven stiffened.

The grip itself was not particularly threatening.

What unsettled her was the desperation underneath it.

Isolde Marchmont did not grab people, and she certainly did not grab Raven Rivers in the middle of a crowded cafeteria while half the room watched.

Raven leaned slightly closer and lowered her voice.

"What happened?"

For a moment, Isolde said nothing.

Her composure held just long enough for Raven to watch it begin to crack.

Her fingers tightened around Raven’s wrist.

"Raven, I need you to come with me. Now. Goddammit."

Raven stared at her for a second before something about the contact finally caught her attention.

She looked down.

Isolde’s hand was shaking.