Chapter 71 — Help Is Available

Chapter 71: Chapter 71 — Help Is Available

~ Raven ~

"Good afternoon, Valerius."

Raven slid down the side of her bed until she was sitting on the floor and glared at Thalia’s Linkslate as though sheer hatred might somehow reach the man speaking through it.

"Now, I’d like to begin with a small mathematical curiosity. At second bell this morning, the Cardinal Court’s Twentieth Seat belonged to Raven Rivers. First-year. No House. Two days on campus."

Raven shut her eyes.

"Here we fucking go."

"By third bell, she was sixteenth. By fourth, fourteenth. Some of you were still refreshing the board to make sure you weren’t hallucinating when she became thirteenth."

He paused.

The bastard knew exactly what he was doing.

"She is currently tenth."

Thalia made a small, delighted sound beside her.

Raven turned her head.

Thalia immediately became very interested in breathing quietly.

"I want to make the mechanism clear," Bellringer continued, amusement bleeding openly into his voice now, "because this may be my favourite thing Valerius has ever collectively done."

Raven’s stomach sank.

"This morning, Raven Rivers stood on a cafeteria table, told House Rowan to take her Seat, take her points, take her name off whatever board they pleased, and made it abundantly clear that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Cardinal Court."

Another perfectly timed pause.

"Several hundred of you appear to have interpreted this as a campaign speech."

"That is exactly what happened," Raven said. "That is precisely what happened. Thank you."

"You’re agreeing with the Bellringer," Tessa said.

"I’m agreeing with the facts. He merely happens to be standing near them."

She let her head fall back against the mattress.

Fine. It was another ranking broadcast.

Bellringer would spend ten minutes being insufferably pleased with himself over a number, Valerius would laugh about it until somebody else did something stupid, and by tomorrow Raven might finally be allowed to return to her preferred role as furniture with a bad reputation.

Ten minutes.

She could survive ten minutes.

"The Court movement," the Bellringer said, "is not the most interesting Raven Rivers story of the afternoon."

Raven’s eyes opened.

"No," she said.

"Valerius. We have developed a problem."

"No."

"Raven Rivers," said the Bellringer, "and the four Cardinal Alphas."

Raven made a strangled sound that made Brielle actually look up from her boots.

Four hours. She had left the headmasters office four hours ago with one clear, sensible, hard-won decision, and she had written it out in her own head in plain language.

Stay away from Cardinal Alphas.

"Let us begin," the Bellringer said warmly, "with Dante Prymont."

The slate changed to footage from the cafeteria.

Whoever had recorded it had apparently been standing behind someone taller, because the image kept wobbling around shoulders and heads, but it had caught enough.

Dante stepping between Raven and the twins.

Kieran’s aura bearing down on her, then breaking apart the moment Dante intervened.

Raven saying something from the edge of the frame that the recording barely picked up.

And Dante throwing his head back and laughing.

"I am not going to speculate about the private feelings of a Cardinal heir," Bellringer said.

Raven immediately distrusted the sentence.

"I am merely going to present the public record. In less than two days, Heir Prymont has personally assessed Raven Rivers, publicly claimed responsibility for her during classification, stepped between her and two Blackthorn heirs, and then placed himself between her and Rowan House this morning."

"That is not what happened."

"During that same period, Rivers has insulted him, by my count, eleven separate times."

Raven frowned at the slate.

"That number is wrong, and frankly, you are lying on purpose you pr—."

"He can’t hear you," Thalia said.

"I know." Raven replied huffing.

"You’re still correcting him."

"I know, Thalia."

Bellringer continued, sounding far too pleased with himself.

"Make of those facts what you will. Personally, I find it interesting that Heir Prymont has now come dangerously close to fighting members of two Cardinal bloodlines over a first-year who, from all available evidence, does not appear to like him very much."

A pause.

"I have made quite a lot of it. I encourage the rest of you to do the same."

Tessa covered her mouth.

Raven looked at her.

"Don’t."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was breathing."

"Do it less suspiciously."

That only made Tessa’s shoulders shake.

Bellringer’s voice returned.

"Which brings us, unfortunately for everyone involved, to Rowan House."

The footage changed again.

The cafeteria, this time from farther back.

Raven stood on the table with half the room turned toward her while Rowan faced her below, one hand extended as his voice carried over the crowd.

Then came the moment his control slipped.

Gold burst from him in a wave.

"Here," Bellringer said, "we have a very different sort of relationship."

Raven already disliked where this was going.

"In less than forty-eight hours, Heir Rowan has filed a formal Redress against Raven Rivers, watched that Redress collapse publicly, argued with her in front of the entire lunch service, and released Dominant aura in her direction on at least two occasions that somebody had the good sense to record."

"Three," Raven muttered.

Thalia’s head whipped toward her.

"Three?"

Raven realized what she had said.

Too late.

Tessa lowered her hand from her mouth.

Brielle looked over.

Raven stared stubbornly at the slate.

Thalia leaned closer. "When was the third one?"

Raven ignored her.

"Some of you," the Bellringer went on, "and I want to be extremely careful how I put this — some of you have begun describing this as chemistry."

Raven sat up.

"I would like those students to seek help," the Bellringer said. "Not from me. From a professional."

Raven pointed at the slate with her whole arm.

"That. That is the first correct thing that man has ever said. Somebody write it down. Frame it. Put it above a door."

"Three what?" Thalia said. "Raven. Three what?"

"Third," the Bellringer said. "Nikolai."

The image came up, and Raven’s stomach dropped before her brain had finished identifying it.

The old stone passage behind the lecture halls. The two of them coming out of it side by side, mid-conversation, walking at the same easy pace.

And a second shot, closer, from a different angle.

Nikolai’s hand in her hair.

"That was this afternoon."

"Now, I want to be fair to the man," the Bellringer said. "Rivers chose his Wing on her first day. He is therefore her Wing Cardinal. A Cardinal heir looking after a member of his own Wing is entirely normal, entirely proper and entirely his job, and I would be a poor and irresponsible broadcaster to suggest otherwise."

A pause.

"I am, however, going to ask a question. Is this the quantity of personal attention a Wing Cardinal typically provides? Because I have been at this academy some years now, and I cannot recall Heir Nikolai walking anybody home."

Raven became aware of a weight on the side of her face.

She turned her head.

Thalia was sitting with her chin propped on both fists, looking at her with an expression of enormous and radiant significance.

"Stop it."

"I haven’t said anything."

"Your face is saying it at volume."

"My face is neutral."

"Your face," Raven said, "belongs to a woman who has already chosen the flowers."

"I think Nikolai’s lovely."

"Everybody thinks Nikolai’s lovely. That’s his entire method."

Tessa said, from the bed, "He is quite lovely, though."

"I will throw this slate through that window."

"It’s Thalia’s slate."

"I’m aware of whose slate it is."

The Bellringer stopped talking while they were bickering.

The pause went on long enough that Tessa looked up from her knees, and long enough after that for Brielle to put her book down.

"I have saved the last one," he said, "because I genuinely do not know what to do with it."

Something cold went down the back of Raven’s neck.

"Cassian Blade."

The slate changed again.

This time it was a photograph.

Taken from a distance, probably through a gap between the shelves, with one side blurred where whoever had taken it had been trying very hard not to be noticed.

The east reading hall.

Raven recognized the tall window first, afternoon light cutting across the floor in a pale strip.

Then she saw herself.

Cassian stood in the middle of that light, turned partly away from the camera. Raven was directly in front of him, much closer than she remembered being.

His hands were raised on either side of her throat.

Her chin was tipped up toward him.

And whoever had taken the photograph had caught the light at the worst possible moment.

Cassian’s white hair looked almost silver beneath the window. Raven’s fell loose around her shoulders in nearly the same shade, the two colors blending together where they stood facing each other.

It made the image immediately striking.

Then your eyes dropped to his hands around her neck.

Raven stopped breathing for a second.

Nobody else in the room said anything.

That was what finally made her look up.

Thalia was staring at her.

Not smiling. Not vibrating with questions. Just staring, mouth slightly open, both hands planted on the floor beside her.

Tessa looked equally stunned.

And Brielle, who had watched Raven stagger off the Grand Drill Court covered in blood that morning and responded by calmly recommending a cold cloth, was sitting completely upright now.

Raven looked between the three of them.

"Don’t."

Nobody spoke.

Her eyes narrowed.

"Do not start. Any of you."

Still nothing.

They just kept looking at her.

Somehow, that was worse.