Chapter Seventeen: Tested | Part 3
Although Azirenne’s face didn’t show it, she was clearly stunned, given how long it took her to steeple her fingers, clear her throat, and say, “Go on.”
“I need some reassurance first. If I give you the information you want, no suspension, no expulsion, and I get to take my Comp.” Holding her gaze felt like a sword plunging into his gut—a gut already roiling with shame and terror. Another itch in his mind went ignored.
The headmistress frowned. “You truly believe what you’re about to tell me is worth all that?”
“Well, you thought that information was worth trampling on your school’s code of conduct and laughing in the face of the law, didn’t you?”
Ironically, Azirenne’s bark of a laugh dispersed some of his tension. She’d once said she admired his tenacity— and to go through with this, he would need it in droves. He braced himself for the excruciating wait as she mulled it over, but she was already reaching across the desk, her palm up.
Thirtyx snorted. “I’m not giving you coin as well.”
“Your hand, Venmagalion.” When Thirtyx hesitated, Azirenne aimed a pointed glance at the red mark still adorning her wrist. “It’s not like I can hurt you.”
Thirtyx sensed where this was going. Clinging to a small thrill of hope, he placed his hand in the headmistress’s. She turned it over and drew a sigil on his wrist.
A promise binding.
He forced his gaze up to meet the purple sparks in Azirenne’s eyes. “Venmagalion, if you tell me how the Grimmary twins managed to make it out of Wydewood during a lockdown without leaving a trace—if you tell me the truth—I will neither expel nor suspend you, leaving you free to take your Comp. Are we agreed?”
“We are agreed.”
The sigil and sparks vanished. Azirenne sat back in her chair with the posture of a cat who had caught a particularly fat mouse. “Alright, then. How did they do it?”
Thirtyx’s heart pounded. Dread coursed through him. He gritted his teeth against the sirens in his head screaming how dangerous and ill-advised this was. Then, he inhaled a deep breath.
“The two can team up to break through the magical barrier surrounding the school. I have personally watched them dismantle it enough to break through.”
Azirenne crossed her arms. “Yes, you said that was how they made it back on campus after the first attack. You believe that’s how they left after the second?”
“I watched them walk through the barrier with my own eyes.”
Thirtyx wasn’t sure his heart could beat any faster without him passing out. One wrong word, and it would all be over. Worse, his attempts at deception would sway the school board toward his expulsion if nothing else had.
His pact with Azirenne was meaningless since she demanded his honesty, but he didn’t need the pact to hold. He just needed her to believe it would.
Azirenne raised an eyebrow. “I recall you saying you were with Miss Devinsmeade in the library when the lockdown was announced.”
“I was. Benn and Rhea got advance notice from a Legionnaire who teleported near the school to tip them off.” Advance had been mere fractions before the lockdown, per the twins’ account, but it was advance enough to count.
The headmistress’s suspicion gave way to anger. “So, you had enough warning to help the Grimmary twins to the property line, watch them sneak through it, make your way back to the library, and meet up with Miss Devinsmeade between the time your friends heard about the attack and the time the school did. And you didn’t think to tell anyone?“
“Rhea and Benn were instructed to keep it quiet.”
Azirenne pondered that response while Thirtyx imagined every follow-up question that would bring this charade to a violent end. He’d been lucky so far—incredibly lucky—but the longer this went on, the easier it would be to back him into a corner.
The headmistress leaned across her desk, bringing her face as close to his as physically possible. Thirtyx recalled her hot breath from the night of the trances. His heart stuttered. His ears began to ring again.
He wrestled his composure back in time to hear her say, “Clever, but that’s not how a lockdown works.”
Calley Jones 