Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(69)

But if I said anything against the suggestion that we undercut her position, I’d be putting my neck—and my brother’s—on the line. No one here liked Aunt Ambrosia. I’d seen that quickly enough, and it’d worked in my favor more than once. But if I actively protested the other barons’ plans, I expected I’d find those treasonous intentions turned against me in two seconds flat. They’d hand her the knife and point out exactly where to stab it.

So when Nightwood’s gaze came to rest on me too, I smiled the same thin smile back at them and said, “I’ll do whatever I can in support of our interests on campus.”





Chapter Twenty-Eight





Rory





The morning of my second assessment, I stood under the shower for several minutes with the hot water cranked. Steam hazed the air and filled my lungs, but the heat didn’t melt the nervous tension in my chest.

It had to be okay. I’d felt tons of magic since that last assessment. I’d cast all kinds of spells. Maybe I was still getting the hang of it, but there was no denying I was a mage.

But what if I wasn’t enough of one? What if whatever had gone wrong last time went wrong again?

I dashed across the common room to my bedroom and slipped into the outfit I’d already laid out on my bed. My dragon charm settled against my collarbone. Then I turned to study myself in the wardrobe’s mirror.

Still damp despite my efforts with the towel, my hair looked almost black as I combed my fingers through the tight waves. My dark blue eyes stood out starkly against my pale face. The black pantsuit I’d picked out had struck me as powerful on the hanger, but seeing it on my body only emphasized my overall impression.

That was a fearmancer staring back at me. Powerful or pathetic, every inch of me fit the role now.

No matter how hard I fought, Villain Academy was absorbing me.

The uncomfortable thought made the tension in my chest twist sharply. I shook it away and knelt down to get a little last-minute encouragement from my familiar.

“Deborah?” I murmured, waiting for her to poke her little white head from between the socks.

She didn’t emerge. Maybe she’d gone for a walk around the room to stretch her legs? “Deborah?” I said again, as loud as I dared while a few of my dormmates lingered in the common room.

No streak of white fur darting toward me. No patter of mousey feet. No reassuring voice popping into my head. The twisting sensation turned into a knot of fear.

She’d never left the bedroom before. She’d have told me if she’d decided to, wouldn’t she, so that I wouldn’t freak out?

I inhaled deeply and tried to exhale my nerves along with my breath. Jumping to conclusions wouldn’t do me any good. She’d probably just fallen asleep somewhere and hadn’t woken at my voice.

I pawed through the socks gently, my spirits ready to leap at the sight of her curled body. It never appeared. I checked the other drawers and then all around the bed and the baseboard, my heart thumping harder with each spot I found vacant.

Either she’d suddenly gone off exploring without giving me any warning, even though she knew this morning was the key to my future, or… someone had taken her.

I’d replaced the security spell on the door before I’d gone to the shower, hadn’t I? It’d become so automatic, I couldn’t remember whether I’d needed to take it down when I’d come back in afterward.

Of course, even if I had, there were at least a few mages around here strong enough to break through my work.

My stomach listed as I came out into the common room. One of the girls sitting at the kitchen table looked up. She took me in, and her mouth flattened.

“Victory and Malcolm Nightwood were doing something by your room while you were washing up,” she said quickly, as if she’d been waiting to spit out that line.

My stomach, my heart, and the knot in my chest—they all plummeted to my feet. “Do you know where they went?” I asked, my voice sounding weirdly distant to my own ears.

“They mentioned hanging out in the basement,” the girl said with that same reciting sort of tone. Had she volunteered to tell me, or had Malcolm persuaded her into it?

It didn’t really matter. I ran for the door.

The basement. What basement? The question chased after me as I raced down the stairs, wishing I had a few fewer flights to descend instead of my lovely bedroom view. Was there even a basement in this building? Had she been talking about the Desensitization chamber in Nightwood Tower? I couldn’t imagine anyone hanging out there, and the girl hadn’t said it that way.

At the bottom of the stairs, I circumnavigated the library, following the curve of the lower hall. I’d never gone that way before, assuming it was for maintenance. At the far end, I found a narrow door. The sign hanging on it held a pentacle symbol and the words, By Invitation Only.

Fuck if I was going to wait for an invitation to crash the scions’ party.

The door swung open easily. Maybe they expected the sign to be deterrent enough, or maybe they wanted me down there. Even if it was the latter, I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.

I barreled down the steps and swung around the corner to find a tableau of my least favorite people in the world poised for my arrival.

The space was set up as a games room, a pool table at one end, a cluster of sofas and loveseats around a widescreen TV at the other, a substantial mahogany bar cabinet standing against the opposite wall. A vent over my head gushed warmth and a faint piney scent. The ceiling was high enough and the artificial lights strong enough to make the space feel much airier than your standard basement. But looking back at the assembled figures, I had trouble drawing in any air at all.