Chapter 16 Sablehall #2
“It shouldn’t have been possible. Not for someone like you.”
There it is. The same tone they all use — like I’m still beneath them. A stray dog that has wandered too close to a table hosting a feast.
I tilt my head. “And yet… here I am.”
Is he really going to do this before I can get caffeine?
“Did he help you?” Jace’s eyes narrow to slits.
“Who?” I know exactly who he means, but its fun to poke the bear.
Jace leans in like he can intimidate the truth out of me.
“Lucian. Your dad.” He rolls his eyes. “Did he give you shortcuts? Codes? A back door?”
I stare at him. “Everything I got, I worked for.”
His expression cracks for a heartbeat, just enough for me to see it. The uncertainty.
“You expect me to believe you pulled that off without help?”
I take a slow step toward him, barely an inch between us now.
“I don’t give a damn what you believe, Ravencourt. I did what I needed to do. You can keep circling like a vulture, but it won’t change the fact that I’m alive.”
“For now,” he grits out.
He holds my gaze, something simmering behind his eyes — not anger, exactly. Obsession? Frustration? Intrigue?
I start to walk away.
“You know what I think?” Jace raises his voice. “I think you’re starting to believe the lie that you’re more than what you came from.”
I slowly turn back around.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He takes a single step closer. Calm, a predatory gleam in his eyes. “It is. When you start thinking you belong here. Like you’re one of us. Like this place won’t chew you up and spit you out the second you slip.”
“Newsflash, Ravencourt. I’ve already been chewed up. This place doesn’t scare me. You don’t scare me.”
He studies me, head tilted, like I’m a puzzle with pieces that don’t fit where they should.
“What are you doing?” He’s quieter now. “Really. Because it’s not just about Guild training. Not just about legacy. You’ve got something to prove.”
“Don’t we all?”
“No.” He says it like a truth carved in stone. “The rest of us are born into this. We don’t have to prove anything. You do.”
I cross my arms. “And that terrifies you, doesn’t it?”
That smile — razor-thin, not quite reaching his eyes — falters. “It annoys me,” he says. “There’s a difference.”
“Well, you’re going to be real annoyed when I keep rising.” I step past him, brushing him intentionally, and add over my shoulder, “Better get used to it, Ravencourt. I’m not going anywhere.”
I don’t have to look back to know he’s still standing there.
The lecture drones on. My hand is cramping from notes, and my eyelids feel like they weigh five pounds each.
I can feel them before I even look. Tex drops into the seat beside me with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball, and Noah slides into the one on my other side.
Business as usual now, apparently. No one speaks right away.
I keep writing.
Noah leans in just slightly, his voice pitched low so it won’t carry. “So… you’re still here.”
“Disappointed?” I mutter without looking up.
He lets out a quiet laugh. “Honestly? A little impressed.”
I arch a brow at him. Noah Vexley is casually leaning back, stylus twirling between his fingers, the corner of his mouth quirking like he knows exactly how annoying he can be.
“How was it? Committing your first crime?” Noah asks.
“Who said it was my first?”
Tex sits there, broad arms crossed, staring straight ahead like the words on the screen have pissed in his Cheerios. “Jace is furious.”
“Pretty sure his face is stuck like that.” I continue writing.
That makes Noah chuckle. “I think he’s trying to decide if he wants to kill you or kiss you.”
I shoot him a look. “Let him try either. I’m good at ruining things.”
Tex exhales through his nose. Not a laugh — more like reluctant approval.
“Why is glycolysis conserved across nearly all life forms?” the instructor asks.
My hand twitches like I should raise it, but I don’t.
The instructor calls on someone else.
Noah nudges my elbow.
“Next time,” he murmurs. “You’ve already got their attention.”
I don’t answer.
“Tex loves being right,” Noah says with a grin, tilting his head toward the quiet brute beside me.
I eye Tex. His eyes stay locked on the screen, jaw tight.
“That’s because I usually am,” Tex mutters. “Saves time correcting everyone else.”
“That’s his version of a compliment,” Noah stage whispers.
“You two talk a lot.” I glance back and forth between them.
“Sometimes,” Noah’s tone shifts subtly. “You’re breaking rules no one thought to write down.”
I face him fully. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“You didn’t,” he says — no grin this time, all curiosity. “I just don’t get it. Why keep going? Why not tap out after what we did? After everything?”
Tex shifts then, looking at me. There is no amusement in his eyes, no mocking. Just quiet calculation and beneath that… something like guilt.
I meet both their gazes without flinching.
“Because when you’ve been through hell,” I say, “You’ll do anything to stay out of it.”
That silences them for a long moment.
Even Tex blinks, gaze darkening — not with challenge, but recognition. He understands that one. Too well.
Noah leans back, tapping something half-heartedly on his screen again.
“Alright,” he says, almost like a vow. “Let’s see how far you make it, Ashthorne.”
I duck into the back courtyard behind the east wing, where the stone benches are warm from the sun, and no one ever seems to go unless they want to sneak a vape or skip class.
I need silence.
I’ve barely sat down when I hear footsteps behind me—light, casual, and very much on purpose.
“Is there a reason you’re here, or are you just following me for the ambiance?” I ask.
Luca rounds the bench and drops into the seat beside me, sprawling out like he usually does. His shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, tie hanging loose like everything else about him—too relaxed to care, too smug to be challenged.
“Thought you were hiding,” he says.
“I’m not hiding,” I mutter.
“Right. Of course not.” He cracks an easy grin. “You’re just meditating in the shadows like a broody little gargoyle.”
I turn my head to glare at him, and he actually smiles wider.
“See? There she is.”
“Do you annoy everyone this thoroughly, or am I special?”
“You’re absolutely special,” he says, deadpan, then adds with a wink, “But yeah. I’m an equal opportunity menace.”
I don’t want to laugh, but the corner of my mouth twitches before I can stop it. He notices.
“Careful,” he says, mock-serious. “Keep smiling like that and people will start thinking you like it here.”
“People already think too many things.”
Luca smiles a lazy smile and leans back, resting his hands behind his head. “I’m just a fan of awkward silences and bitter girls in stolen hoodies.”
“You must be thriving then.”
He chuckles low in his throat, head tilting toward me. “I thought maybe the claws had dulled.”
I shoot him a look. “You’re always so annoying. Do I bring out your special flavor of unbearable?”
“You bring out a lot of things, Ashthorne.”
That earns him a slow blink from me, unimpressed. He grins wider like he’s expecting the eyeroll and likes it.
“Relax. I’m not here to bite. Not unless you want me to.”
I ignore the statement. “Why are you here, then?”
He looks out over the hedges for a second. “You’re interesting. New toy in the sandbox. No one knows what to do with you yet.”
“I’m not here to entertain you.”
“No,” he says, smile fading just a little. “But you’re making it awfully tempting.”
Luca tilts his head, his charm fading just slightly. “This place eats people alive. But you… You keep looking like you’re about to bite back.”
I don’t respond. Don’t need to.
He stands up, brushing invisible dust from his pants, then looks back down at me.
“You’re full of sharp edges, Isobel Grace Ashthorne. But I can’t tell yet if you’re a blade or a trap.”
“Maybe I’m both.”
Luca’s grin returns, slower this time. “Even better.”
He walks away without another word.