Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(29)

“She’s all about the feebs, though. The one in our dorm is the only person here who makes her feel safe.” Victory made the last word sound utterly pathetic.

My pulse skittered wildly. If they kept going, they might see something damning—they might find out about Deborah, or my plan to see the school shut down, or—

No. I couldn’t let that happen.

Gritting my teeth, I shoved all the magic that had collected in my chest into a shield around my mind. I pictured it spreading out, solid and seamless, impenetrable as steel, to encase my entire brain. Every bit of strength and energy I had went into that wall.

Jude opened his mouth and hesitated. Victory fell silent too. For a minute, the three of us held there in a motionless, wordless battle of will. A prickling ran down my spine at the sense of fingers prying at my barrier.

It held firm. Victory backed off with a sniff and returned her attention to her partner. Jude gave me a slanted smile that had no warmth at all in it.

“So you can learn, Bloodstone. We’ll just have to see if you can learn the right things.”

He sank back in his chair. My shoulders slowly came down, my heart still thudding. The space behind my collarbone felt unbearably empty.

I’d defended myself this once before the class had turned into a total catastrophe, but now every bit of the magic I’d been holding onto was gone.





Chapter Twelve





Declan





I nodded to Jude when he got up at the end of the seminar. As I turned to ask Professor Sinleigh a question about our junior class tomorrow, I kept my gaze carefully away from any of the other students.

I’d hoped that once she’d answered it and headed out, everyone else would already have left. No such luck. One student had stuck around for my extra assistance.

Rory Bloodstone stood in front of the rows of desks, her slim arms folded over her cinched silk tunic. The indigo fabric brought out the blue of her eyes, so vibrantly dark they were almost the same hue. The loveliest part of her generally stunning face.

I tried not to let my mind stray to the pain I’d watched cross that face less than an hour ago, to the way she’d looked to me as if I could shield her from it. It had reminded me too much of the distraught girl I’d done my best to reassure in her captors’ home.

I had wanted to shield her from the shock and brutality of that moment. Seventeen years ago, she’d lost so much more than even I had. But this, now—our situations were infinitely more complicated. Or at least, mine was.

“Did you have some questions about the material we went over today?” I asked in my most neutral voice, staying on the other side of the teacher’s desk. That distance helped me maintain my own internal shields.

“Maybe just one.” Her tone was direct and unassuming, but the slight huskiness to her voice touched me like a caress. Her gaze flicked to the door as if to confirm no one had lingered outside and then returned to me. “But not about the material. Why did you come with the mages who took me from my parents’ house? You’re not one of those blacksuits or whatever they’re called.”

Where was she going with this train of thought? “No, I’m not,” I said. “The blacksuits thought, given the circumstances, it might help your transition to have someone along who had at least a little idea what you’d been through. The confrontation where your real parents were killed—the joymancers took down my mother too.”

I’d only been four, just barely old enough to have kept a few blurry memories of her face, sometimes stern and sometimes grinning, and the rumple of her hand in my hair as she laughed at some childish thing I’d said. Rory mustn’t remember her Bloodstone parents at all.

She let out a faint sound that might have been a restrained guffaw. “So, they made you come.”

“No. They tossed around the suggestion. I said it sounded like a good idea and volunteered.”

“Because you wanted to help me?”

Suddenly I felt as if I’d walked into a trap I hadn’t seen until the barred walls closed around me. Rory’s eyes held mine as she waited for my answer. It was probably too late to backtrack anyway. I’d rather not lie to her any more than I had to.

“Yes,” I said. “Maybe I don’t really have a clue what it’s been like for you the last seventeen years, but I knew finding out the truth about your history was going to be hard for you, and if I could make it even a little easier, that seemed worth doing.”

She leaned against the edge of the desk behind her. “I have another question, then. Why did you only care about helping me until I stepped through the front doors of the school? At what point did I stop being ‘worthy’? When I wasn’t going to put up with your friend’s bullshit?”

An edge had come into her voice, but it sounded more hurt than angry. I swallowed hard.

“It isn’t about Malcolm,” I said. “Although you should probably figure out some way to make peace with him, because he’s just going to make your life hell until you do. Insult a scion, and all bets are off. That’s just how it works here. That’s how it works out there.” I gestured toward the window to indicate the wider world. “You have to learn how to defend yourself where there are more rules and boundaries, or you’ll be eaten alive the second you leave campus.”