Void(23)

“Absolutely not,” he said, cutting me off. “Thibault Academy operates on high standards. I do not lie to my students. These are the people who will one day be leading our supernatural community.”

“But you said it yourself. They’ll hate me on principle,” I argued. “I have my amulet. No one needs to know I’m a Void.”

I knew I was pleading to deaf ears, but panic had clawed its way into my bones. I knew exactly what was going to happen if he announced my presence here. It would be like it was everywhere else, but worse. These were my peers. People my own age. Thibault was for the best of the best. They were going to chew me up and spit me out.

“Yes, I’ve heard all about your magicked amulet,” the headmaster scoffed, eyeing my necklace with a sneer. “Made by demons, was it not?”

I held it protectively against my chest. “My father gave it to me.”

“I’m not going to debate this with you, Miss Cainson. I called you here before letting you get settled in because I want to make a few things perfectly clear.” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on his walnut desk, the glow of his lamp casting yellow light across his harsh expression. “I don’t want you here. I don’t care what abilities you accidentally stumbled upon, you’re a liability—a risk I’m not willing to take. If I could kick you off the premises, I would. The second you mess up or put one of my students at risk, I’ll have your head on the chopping block, Judge Braxton be damned.”

My mouth went dry. This sort of prejudice and cruelty wasn’t new to me, but it was devastating to hear it from a man that I’d admired as a kid, a man I’d wanted to grow up to be. Beside me, Quade visibly stiffened, like he was surprised.

“I understand, sir,” I mumbled, though the respect felt hollow.

“Good. You may be just as immortal as the rest of us, but we all have our Achilles heel. Every other Void who’s ever lived? Their Achilles heel was themselves. If you’re not careful, you’ll follow the same fate as them, and I don’t want you self-destructing and losing control in my school. Which is why I’m having a paragon accompany you everywhere you go. If you so much as sneeze the wrong way, I’ll know about it. You won’t be sleeping in the dorms, either. I’ve arranged for you to stay in a small cabin off the property so that my students will be safer. I will allow you to take classes to learn about magic and some semblance of control, but I am not deluded into thinking that you will be able to accomplish anything but the destruction that you usually bring. You are to keep that amulet on at all times, Miss Cainson. For all our sakes.”

Tears welled up in my eyes at his dark words, but I refused to let them fall. There was so much that I was still processing that I hadn’t even fully realized that the paragons were assigned to babysit me until I was nodding my head and excusing myself, feeling like a kicked puppy.

Once we were outside Headmaster Torne’s office, Quade turned to me. “You’re staying in the feral cabin,” he said with a chuckle. “Damn, that sucks.”

“I don’t need your commentary,” I replied.

“But you do need an escort,” Quade retorted. “So unless you want to be stuck in your cabin for twenty-four hours a day, I suggest you change your attitude, or we might just leave you there to rot. I don’t think Headmaster Torne will care, do you?”

Nope. He wouldn’t. “Just tell me where I’m staying. Then you two can leave me the fuck alone.”

Render tsked at me. “Headmaster Torne won’t approve of that language at all.”

I shot a look at the closed doors of his office. “Headmaster Torne won’t approve of me no matter what I do, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Render looked thoroughly bored now and glanced down at his phone. “You take her to the cabin. I have stuff to do.”

Quade rolled his eyes but said nothing as Render turned and strode away. I watched him go, feeling slightly apprehensive, though I really shouldn’t. It wasn’t like the vampire was any better than Quade.

“Come on, Devicka. You have to keep up on your own. I don’t flash like a damn bloodsucker, and even if I did, I wouldn’t carry you.”

“I wouldn’t want you to even if you could,” I shot back, though my voice felt tired, despite the potion Torne had given me. We took the long, curved staircase down three levels before we hit the bottom east wing. We passed a few students there, and every single one of them gave some sort of greeting to Quade. He offered them a winning smile in return, so put-on that I wanted to gag. The students were all dressed in their fancy uniforms, the crest embroidered on their black lapels, but it was a step up from the shin-length skirts that I’d been forced to wear at Mrs. Coxcomb’s School.

Quade stopped when a girl came up to him, trailing her hand down his arm and giggling at him about some damn thing I was too tired to listen to. He put on the charm thick and then grew a damn daisy right out of his palm, roots and all. He plucked it from his fingers and passed it to her, making her practically purr. I nearly gagged at the gesture before slinking through the crowd to get out of there. For now, people barely gave me a passing glance. The only distinguishing thing about me was that I was out of uniform and following a paragon around. I wondered how long it would be before everyone knew what I was. I wasn’t looking forward to it.