19. Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
J essica
There's a man on the stairs.
Halfway up, on a chair somebody carried in from a common room, with a tablet and a list. When I come down at eight he says, "Miss Miller," checks something, and lets me past. There's another one at the bottom and a third outside the dining hall.
Sophia's waiting by the fountain, because she isn't allowed up to my floor any more without being signed for, which is new and which neither of us has mentioned.
"They took my phone," she says.
"They took mine too."
"They gave yours back!"
"They gave mine back with a person attached to it."
My ribs hurt this morning. Not the flank — the flank's four inches of shallow nothing that itches — it's the left side of my ribcage, which met the stones on the Elmscar track harder than I noticed at the time and has spent the night turning an interesting color.
I didn't sleep much.
Freya's already in the dining hall with a coffee she hasn't touched.
"They've suspended the whole block," she says before I sit down. "Every practical placement. All four cohorts. Nobody's going into the Preserve until the review's finished."
"That's not because of us."
"It's entirely because of us." She turns the cup around. "I walked us into it."
"No, you didn't. You're the one who noticed."
She keeps turning the cup. "Doesn't help."
Declan comes back from the counter with a plate for me I didn't ask for and puts it down without comment.
"Corvin's out of surgery," he says. "Six weeks recovery."
"How do you know that?"
"I asked."
"They told you?"
"I may have lied," Declan says, and sits down.
Renzo doesn't come to breakfast. Sophia says he's been up since four with the map.
The meeting's at ten, in the long room in administration with the bad radiator.
Falken at the head. Voss with a folder. Two of the academy's security leadership. Faris, because somebody hates me. Jon at the far end.
Luke, Soren and Ander along one side, because their Houses are involved and nobody was going to keep them out. Torres beside me, which took an argument at the door that Falken lost.
On the screen, Wren and two other Council faces, joined in from somewhere with better weather.
"Rurik," Falken says.
Voss doesn't stand up, and doesn't open the folder.
"We're not going back over yesterday. You were all there or you've read it.
" He puts one hand flat on the cover. "Here's what's new.
This was built over weeks. The restraint was made for her and nothing else, and the chemical load was worked out by somebody who understood it couldn't be looked up.
" He pauses. "They brought six doses. Four used or dropped. Two still in the case."
"Six," Falken says.
"Six. Which tells you they planned for the first one not to work."
Nobody says anything.
"And to be standing on that track at that hour, they had current information. Not the contingency card — anybody at this academy can read the card. But today, that party, that crossing, inside the hour. "
"From where?" Wren says.
"Unknown."
"Estimate."
"I don't estimate about that," Voss says. "Four hundred people could have seen some part of what they needed. If I start narrowing that with a feeling, I'll narrow it wrong, and somebody's career ends over my feeling."
"Then let's move to arrangements," Wren says. "The Council's position is that Luftis cannot presently guarantee Miss Miller's safety, and that the responsible course is temporary relocation to a secure Council property."
Nobody objects. That's what I notice. Nobody in this room objects, including two men I'm bonded to.
"How long?" I say.
"Miss Miller—"
"It's a simple question. If I get in a car this afternoon, when do I get out of wherever the car goes?"
Wren doesn't answer right away, which is how I know.
"Until the threat is identified."
"And if it isn't?"
"Then until the security position changes."
"So nobody knows."
"Nobody can know. That's the honest answer and I'm not going to guess."
"Right." I sit back, and my ribs object. "Then no."
"Jessica," Luke says.
"Don't."
"You've been in this room ten minutes—"
"I've been in this situation for months." I turn to face him. "Say the rest of it. You think I should go."
"Yes," Luke says.
He doesn't dress it. I'll give him that.
"Somewhere the Council chooses."
"Somewhere secure."
"Those aren't the same thing and you know it.
" My voice is going and I let it. "You've spent this whole year telling me what things look like.
So tell me what it looks like when the Fourth House heir gets quietly removed from public life to an undisclosed address and nobody sees her for four months. "
"I watched a man get carried down a fire road yesterday," Luke says.
"I don't care what anybody calls it. I don't care what it looks like. I want you somewhere they can't reach you." He hasn't raised his voice at all. "You asked me once what I want. That's it."
I can feel him down the bond, and it is nothing like his face.
"Has anybody asked her?"
Torres. Forearms on the table, looking at the screen.
"So far, this is what I have heard," he says. "Miss Miller will be relocated. Miss Miller will be housed. Miss Miller will be escorted." He turns his hand over. "You're all talking about what happens to her like she isn't sitting here."
"Mr. Torres, the security assessment—"
"I'm not arguing with the assessment. I was there. I saw the net." Flatly. "I'm saying she gets a vote."
"You'd let her stay," Luke says.
"I'd let her decide."
They look at each other.
"Why are those the only two options?" Soren says.
The head of security turns to Voss, and Voss is already reaching for a blank page.
"Do we know the breach came from Luftis?" Jon says, from the far end.
"No," Voss says.
"Then moving her through Council channels doesn't necessarily remove it."
"That's a serious implication, Professor," Wren says.
"It's an open question," Jon says. "I'd rather it were asked in a room than discovered outside it."
Ander hasn't said a word all morning. He's sitting with both hands flat on the table, looking at the cover of Voss's folder, and he has not once looked at me since I came in.
At the far end of the table, Jon's hand closes on his pen hard enough that the muscles in his forearm tighten.
It lasts about a second.
Then he sets it down flat and squares it with the edge of the table, and his face hasn't moved at all, and nobody else in this room notices anything.
I do.
I look away before I can be caught at it.
Forty minutes later I have an escort, no placements, and a schedule that apparently qualifies as classified information. Movements decided each morning by five people, one of whom is me. Nothing published. Nothing on an open channel.
I hate every item on the list and I agree to all of them, because yesterday scared me.
"And relocation stays on the table," Wren says. "If this comes back a second time, the Council may make your attendance here conditional on it."
"I understand."
And then it's basically done, and people are gathering paper, and one of the Council faces on the screen says, in the tone of a man wrapping up:
"Of course, the underlying problem doesn't change. Until the Fourth House question is settled, Miss Miller remains a destabilizing presence, and this is likely to recur."
I stop moving.
"Say that again."
"Miss Miller—"
"No, genuinely. Which part of me is destabilizing?"
"I intended no—"
"What have I asked for?"
Nobody answers.
"No, come on. Somebody in this room list it." I put my hands on the table. "I've sat in nine of these meetings and I've heard people discuss my property rights and my representation and whether my House legally exists, and I would like somebody to tell me which of those things I requested."
Silence.
"I didn't ask for the land. I don't want a seat. I don't want a title. I turned into a direwolf on a mountain because something was about to eat me, and every single thing since has been done to me by people in rooms."
"Jessica," Falken says quietly.
"And somebody still tried to kill me."
Somebody is willing to kill me to keep that House buried. I want to know why.
"I want the records," I say.
Falken looks up. "I'm sorry?"
"The Fourth House records. Whatever's left. The war material, the proceedings, the correspondence, the House papers." I look at the screen. "I've read the histories. Now I want the records."
"Miss Miller," Faris says.
I turn, and she isn't arguing.
"The surviving material is under Council seal. It isn't in this academy. The Chancellor could not hand it to you if he wanted to."
"Then who can?"
"The Council. By resolution."
"Fine."
"Jessica." Luke, beside me, low. "Wait."
"Why?"
"Because you've never asked this Council for anything. That's been the strongest position you had." He's turned in his chair. "The second you formally ask for Fourth House records as its heir, you've made a claim—"
"They brought six," I say.
Luke closes his eyes for a second.
"Yes."
"It stopped being small yesterday."
"I know."
I look back at the screen.
"I want access to every sealed Fourth House record the Council still holds," I say. "Formally. However you want it worded — I'll sign whatever you put in front of me."
"Those records have been under seal for more than two centuries," Wren says.
"I know."
"Opening them requires a resolution of the full Council. It would be opposed."
"Councillor, those are my family's papers, and I'm the only person alive who isn't allowed to read them."
"There is a procedure—"
"Then start the procedure."