Chapter 4 #2
Sara strode off, Rheannon not close behind her. Trisha came over to sit with Lesya. The boys, after bearing such humiliation, dispersed from the lunch table, muttering amongst themselves.
“Err…” Trisha began, offering a cup of hot chocolate to Lesya. It was steaming hot. “What’s up?”
“We had a fight,” Lesya whispered.
“Oh?”
“I jumped off the roof. I’ve got detention in an hour.”
“What was the fight about?”
“Just him hiding shit from me, as usual. Treats me like a kid. Sometimes I think he started dating me because of that very reason.”
“Like a pervert?”
Lesya giggled. “Eww. Not like a pervert. I was well over nineteen when we started dating. It’s just that he doesn’t confide me in like one does in a partner.”
“It’s the nature of his job, I guess,” Trisha said.
“Yeah, but what is his job? I don’t even know that!” Lesya snapped.
The two girls didn’t talk any further on the subject. Professor Rhys and Professor Hannah Monroe were walking by. Seeing them, the students at the Solaris table also quieted down, sitting down beside their house leader, Elias.
Elias scowled from across the tables at Lesya.
She scowled back.
He turned his face away.
“I wonder what he’s planning on doing,” Trisha said, nodding in Elias’s direction.
“Probably riling his crew to join the Vanguard so they can fight the Deathless or some heroic shit like that,” Lesya said, rolling her eyes. “What do they even know of fighting necromancers?”
“You sound like you believe the Deathless are back,” Trisha said.
“Aren’t they?” Lesya raised an eyebrow at Trisha. “Vincent Crenshaw died. It’s the only news that’s going around. Authorities are saying it’s one of the Deathless. You were there in class. Cassian practically confirmed it.”
“Cassian,” Trisha said.
“What?”
“There. Professor Veilmonte,” Trisha said, adjusting her tone lest someone overheard her.
Cassian Veilmonte was talking to Professor Hannah Monroe. She gave him a nod and walked out of the hall, leaving Cassian standing there with Professor Rhys. They began doing the rounds in the hall together.
“That’s my cue to leave for detention,” Lesya said, picking up her bag and leaving her hot chocolate unfinished.
She ducked behind Trisha as the two made their way out of the hall, avoiding Cassian’s gaze altogether.
* * *
She was far too tired to actually go to detention and considered creating a double and sending it in her stead, but illusive magic required skills that she simply did not have.
The only time she had created a mirror image of herself—also called a double—she’d been left drained for the next day and a half.
Lesya marveled at the mages who were able to harness incredible amounts of mana and cast spell after spell like it was nothing.
There was another thing the students did to get out of detention; they paid other students and cast over them a likeness spell to fool Armen Drow, despite the many rumors that he could see through enchantments with his one good eye.
The group of detention-bound students waited at the door of the first-floor auditorium. It was at the end of the lecture halls wing, and was never used for any other purpose than detentions.
“All right, you miserable lot,” Armen said, carrying a lamp, his cane slamming on the stone floor. “Let’s get on with it.”
Lesya looked around at the usual suspects. There was Trisha right behind her, along with Miles, Sara, Rheannon, Sid, and a handful of other House Balthazar students. This daily detention had become an after-hours club for them. No one from House Solaris was ever present at detention.
It had little to do with the fact that House Solaris students broke rules or not and more to do with the fact that he fancied Professor Elara Moore, the professor presiding over House Solaris.
Now, whether or not that was true was entirely speculative, but students had often seen Armen Drow turn into a bundle of nerves or blush severely whenever Professor Moore was nearby.
“Step in, step in, I haven’t all night,” Armen growled.
As the first student entered, the lamps in the class started glowing. There were cobwebs on the ceiling and dust on the chairs. The chairs and tables fanned in an arc on each level, all facing the wide blackboard which had the previous night’s detention work on it.
I shall aim to be a good student and hold myself to the highest of morals.
Lesya chuckled. Clearly not.
They all sat down at their usual spots and Armen came by each of them, taking their channeling devices. They’d get their devices back after they’d handed over their sheets. Just another step of the humiliation ritual.
Lesya reluctantly took off her hand harness and placed it in the box. Armen gave her a sneer. She rolled her eyes at him. What was he going to do? Put her in detention? She was already there.
He ignored her and went over to the next student, Trisha. She gave him her sapphire ring and flipped him the bird. He ignored that as well.
“What are you in for anyway?” Trisha joked, turning over to Lesya.
“Jumped off a roof,” Lesya said.
“Lesya, you should know better,” Trisha said in a faux-motherly tone. “You could have gotten hurt.”
They both broke into giggles. Armen snarled, but did nothing else.
“What about you?”