11. Chapter 11 The Courtyard #2
Lucien smiled and pondered for a moment. The courtyard moved around them. A pair of second-years crossed the flagstones carrying books, and a bird landed on the picturesque fountain and left again.
“There’s something else,” he said.
Liora’s eyes came back to him. She read his face, and the seriousness there made her settle lower against the bench, her posture shifting from satisfied to focused.
“Renvaya went further than she said she would.”
The gold eyes narrowed. “How much further?”
“She told me in her office that she’d defend the response but not the degree.
She said the branding went past proportional force and she wouldn’t pretend otherwise.
” He met her gaze. “In the hearing, she reframed the proportionality question in my favor. She challenged Grevan’s characterization of the response directly.
The gap between proportional and disproportionate force is not a clean line when a life is in danger.
Her words. I wasn’t expecting it. I was expecting her to deliver a blunt statement about the extent of my response to the damn snake and how she didn’t support such an offensive response. ”
Liora didn’t answer right away. Her tail had gone still behind her.
“She told you she wouldn’t defend the degree of your attack,” she said. “And then she defended it.”
“Not in those terms. She didn’t call the branding justified. She made it harder to call unjustified.”
“That’s the same thing wearing a different outfit.
” Liora’s voice had dropped into the lower register she used when she was working through something.
“She walked into that room with a position she’d laid out to you in advance, and then she threw it away when it mattered.
She went further than she told you she would.
Professors don’t do that for students. Professors protect themselves first, and the institution second, and the student somewhere after that. ”
“She didn’t get the technical answer she asked for either. She wanted me to give her a more solid reason for my power in the corridor.”
Liora’s eyes went sharp. “She didn’t, that’s right.”
“She gave me a deadline in her office. Before the Krenning hearing, give her something technical she can work with. Something beyond feelings and adrenaline.” He shook his head.
“I never gave it to her. She walked into that office with nothing from me except the emotional deflection, and she advocated for me anyway. I find that quite interesting and somewhat flattering.”
“She protected you without getting what she asked for.” Liora said it low. “You seemed to have made quite the impression on our beautiful fox-kin professor, Lucien.”
The courtyard was emptier now. The class-change foot traffic had thinned, and the fountain’s basin collected shadows as the sun climbed past the east wing’s roof line. Somewhere in the building behind them, a door closed.
“After the hearing,” Lucien said. “In the corridor outside Elyndra’s office. Renvaya waited at the top of the stairs. Her tail was moving for the first time all morning. Her ears were unlocking and moving freely as they usually do.”
Liora waited. She could wait when the waiting was tactical.
“She looked at me and said, ‘Have a pleasant day, Lucien.’”
Liora turned toward him slightly and stopped there. Her gold eyes held on his face without blinking.
She said the name back to him. “Lucien. Not Mr. Margrave.” She waited for him to correct her. He didn’t.
“She used your first name. After a formal hearing. In the corridor outside the headmistress’s office.” Liora’s voice had gone flat, the register she dropped into when she was processing something that required all of her attention and none of her performance. “Has she called you Lucien before?”
“Once. In her office, when she was pushing me for the technical answer she was looking for. But it wasn’t like this. It sounded different and more intentional.”
She was quiet for four seconds. She didn’t blink.
“No, it wasn’t.” Liora’s eyes stayed on him.
“Yesterday she used your name to pressurize you. She wanted answers and she dropped the formality to get leverage. That’s a tactic.
” She spoke without jealousy, assembling a picture from its pieces with the cold precision of someone who didn’t enjoy what the picture showed.
“Today she used it after she crossed a professional line to protect you, in a corridor where nobody else could hear it, with nothing to gain from it. That’s not a tactic.
That’s personal. She has peculiar feelings for you, whether she’s admitted it to herself or not. ”
“You’re sure? That’s quite an observation.”
“I’m not sure. I’m telling you what I see, and what I see is a woman who went past her stated position to protect a student she’s been investigating for weeks, and then used his name like she’d earned the right to.
Not to push him. Not to get something. Just because the distance didn’t fit anymore.
She is very intrigued by you and your power.
I may be getting ahead of myself. It would be more complicated to add a professor into our coven. ”
“Psh, you are getting very ahead of yourself. Is she intrigued by me? Yes, I think so. Does she want to bind herself to me for life? No, I don’t think so.”
Liora chuckled. “Would you be against it?”