Chapter 8
“We were owed a reset. I mean, how great was the world before, eh? War and famine and all sorts of stuff, weren’t it? Now we have order. Sure, the supernals are mainly in charge, but they’re doin’ a damn better job than us humans, dontcha think?”
MIRANDA STAR (INTERVIEW WITH GLOBAL EVENTS RADIO)
My supper arrived while I was chatting with the Unwoven, and I ate in the sitting room.
A meager affair of soup and bread that barely filled my belly, but it was fine because my information meter was nicely topped up.
The trio was a wealth of knowledge about the campus and the people who lived and worked here.
Hunters were trained from the age of sixteen and upward, and no one was here by choice. The Academy conscripted supernals and humans from select bloodlines to dedicate their lives to Nightsbridge.
“It’s not so bad,” Clary said. “Once you make friends.” She smiled at Dori and Benedict.
“I don’t suppose you’ve had many of those, have you?” Dori said bluntly to me.
“Dori!” Clary admonished. “Not everyone cares about her lineage.”
Clary was either very na?ve or delusional. “Dori’s right. It hasn’t been easy, but the last few years were good. I mean, after I changed my name.”
“Nice,” Benedict said.
“It was…while it lasted.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Clary said.
Disclosure bred familiarity and was important in making these people believe that we could be friends, but the last thing I wanted to do was talk to strangers about my mother. The last thing I needed right now was a trip into memories that would dredge up emotions I’d rather not share.
I offered her a tight smile, hoping it conveyed acceptance of her unnecessary and meaningless apology. “I should get some rest. Someone named Polina is picking me up in the morning to take me to the Main Building.”
Dori made a face. “Good luck with her. Her temperament is about as sour as her face.”
“Only since Vitra dumped her,” Benedict said. “Before that, she was wandering the halls looking like the cat that ate the sparrow.”
My interest was piqued. “Is she a student?”
“Tarrifel, no,” Dori said. “She’s in Domestic under Pip.”
“But spent most of her time under Vitra.” Benedict wiggled his eyebrows.
“It was two weeks,” Clary said. “You know he doesn’t keep them for long.”
“Except for Mistress Selethis,” Dori said. “She’s his official girlfriend.”
He had a girlfriend? Not that I cared. I sat up straighter, ignoring the sudden tightness in my chest. “And she’s okay with him fucking other women?”
“Seems like it,” Clary said.
What did I care about his sexual antics? “I need to get some sleep.”
“Lock your door,” Benedict said, suddenly all serious. “The locks here activate wards to keep unwelcome things out.”
So that’s why Vitra had insisted on it. “Noted. Thanks.”
I left them to their conversation and headed to my room, where I closed and locked the door. I was too tired to bathe, so I stripped off and climbed into bed. I’d wake early and have a soak.
Pulling the covers up, I turned onto my side so I was facing the dresser. Sleep washed over me, and my eyes were tugging closed when something moved in the mirror. My adrenaline spiked, knocking me momentarily wide awake. But there was nothing there. Just a trick of my tired mind.
Sinking back into the mattress, I activated one of my more enviable skills.
I switched off.
* * *
Polina was at my door at eight fifty-five a.m. She was a pretty woman with the delicate features of a porcelain doll but had the expression of someone who’d smelled something off. Dori’s sour face comment from last night made complete sense.
She raked me over, taking in my wide-leg gray trousers, cream blouse, fitted gray waistcoat, and calf-length brown wool coat—one of the most expensive outfits I owned. Polina sniffed derisively, then ordered me to follow her.
Was there something wrong with what I was wearing? It was the standard fare for Arcanus. Natural fabrics in neutral shades. Granted, the ensemble was a little rumpled from being tightly packed into my pack, but the coat covered most of the creases. It wasn’t too bad…was it?
I hadn’t bothered dressing this way in Carlston, opting to don cotton and leather to fit in with the local fashions, but was I not looking the part now?
Irritation flared in my chest. Fuck her for making me second guess myself.
We took a different route than the one I’d taken with Vitra, and once again, I was struck by the number of corridors occupying this tower. It broke the laws of physics, but then, the Weave had its own laws.
Polina ushered me through a door and out onto a stone walkway, high above the neatly clipped grounds below that stretched away from Bramble Tower, as if reaching for the froth-coated sea beyond. The walkway ended in a stone arch.
Salt kissed my skin, and a gusty wind picked up my hair, lifting it away from my face before slapping it back against my cheeks.
Polina hurried toward the arch. “Come on.”
What was it with this place and heights? I followed, veering toward the balcony so I could grip the rail for stability.
From this vantage point, the grounds were a honeycomb of grass, gravel, and cement, bordered by stretches of woodland. Several domed buildings were visible to the right of the tower. They were made of glass that glinted in the shafts of sunlight that pierced the heavy cloud cover.
The coast of the inlet was a dull gray stretch of sand in the distance, with towers rising on either side of the majestic Main Building that sat on an island in the sea. Five towers… No—six, there was one wreathed in mist far beyond the Main Building.
It looked like an optical illusion, the island that housed the Main Building couldn’t possibly be large enough to house the tower wreathed in mist unless…
I hurried to catch up with Polina. “Is there another island behind the Main Building?”
She ignored the question, pressing her palm to the arch at the end of the walkway. It lit up a soft blue. A port. “There is no direct way to the Main Building from Bramble,” she said, ignoring my question. “We’ll take the port to the eastern bridge and go on foot over the sea. You will go first.”
I didn’t like the sly edge to her smile. “Why?”
“Because the port will close after me. You have not been attuned to it.”
“I managed to get through the Border House port just fine.”
“Yes, I delivered your sample to him yesterday morning.”
“What sample?”
She stared at me as if I were stupid. “Blood. Yours, like every supernal family bound by The Covenant, is held here.”
The Covenant was the agreement made by several bloodlines to work together to purge Nightsbridge of otherworldly threats.
It seemed my mother had provided them with a blood sample from me at some point.
I guess having our power blocked and being shunned didn’t exempt us from providing DNA to these fuckers.
“Your meeting begins in half an hour,” Polina reminded me.
I strode past her and through the port.
Once again, it felt as if I were falling, but this time, when the world righted itself, I was thankfully still on my feet. A white stone bridge stretched out before me, spanning what looked like maybe half a mile.
Several groups of students hurried along the bridge, which inclined gently toward the imposing tower of land that housed the Main Building.
“Hurry up!” Polina rushed past me. “Move!”
I joined her in rising above the ocean, reveling in the salty kiss of the wind as it tore at my skin and howled in my ears, competing with the crash of waves against the coast.
The Main Building grew larger as we approached—a multitude of towers and turrets, balconies, and windows…so many windows.
Young supernals, carrying bags and books, hurried passed us.
“How many students are here?”
“Too many,” Polina said bitterly. “Enough to replace all those who die. Makes me glad to be human. I’d rather make beds and do laundry than go into the hot zones.
” She threw a sharp glance my way. “You’re crazy for coming here when you didn’t need to.
Risking death just to get your magic back.
Magic you’ve never had so can’t possibly miss.
It’s greedy, and as far as I’m concerned, greedy people deserve to have bad things happen to them. ”
She had no fucking idea why I was here. Getting access to the Weave was a means to an end. An end to my curse, and to the stain on my family name. An end to the lie the Arcanum Imperium had woven.
Her derision meant nothing to me. “Well, aren’t you a ray of sunshine.”
She snorted.
God, she was a miserable cow, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t pump her for information. “So…the rumors about conscription are true?”
Her mouth twisted. “The Covenant families are obligated to send children here.”
“You’re from a Covenant family?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because my family needed the money.”
“They sold you into service?”
She snorted again. “Oh, don’t sound so shocked.”
I’d feel sorry for her if her attitude didn’t suck.
We exited the bridge onto a wide path that wound up the side of the mountain toward the Main Building.
It was steep and narrow in places, but there was a handrail built into the rock face, so that helped.
The high winds did not. I hugged the wall to avoid being blown over the edge, boots slipping several times.
Polina kept her distance, not bothering to help, and I thought I heard her laugh a couple of times, but it was difficult to be sure with the howl of wind in my ears.
My thighs ached by the time we reached the top.
Here, the ground flattened into a vast garden dotted with stone statues of all shapes and sizes.
Some grotesque winged figures, others faceless males with folded wings in various poses.
They hid among flowering bushes and sat atop dried-up fountains, and several of them decorated the eaves of the mammoth building that seemed to grow with each step we took toward it.