Chapter 10

Balmerick's public waxway room would be available soon. Ren headed in that direction, while everyone else on campus walked toward the main quad, their fancy chariots ready and waiting. Brood's mistake already seemed like old news. Every conversation she heard focused on break:

"Where are you sailing?"

"The Oft Isles again?"

"We're going to the northern foothills. Father's just…"

All the anger churning in Ren's chest burned cold by the time she reached the grove of trees fronting the school's private waxway system. It was nestled within a squat building, dark shouldered and hidden amongst the sprawling limbs. She took a seat in the shade and waited for Timmons. This portal was unlike the public access she'd taken to come up to the Heights. Instead of individual candles, the waxway room had a spell that activated at regular intervals so that as many as twenty people could travel using the same wave of magic. It mimicked all the usual steps—visualizing a destination, lighting a candle, dousing the flame—but with a guiding spell to make everything more convenient for Balmerick's students. Not that most of the other students ever bothered with the place. There were only two other classmates who regularly joined Ren and Timmons in using the room.

The first passed by as Ren waited. Cora Marrin was short enough and quiet enough to be missed in any crowd. Ren thought that was a part of why she never saw the girl around campus. She kept her dark hair trimmed tight, except for a set of artful bangs that ran unevenly down her forehead, slightly longer on one side than the other. Ren spied a new piercing on the girl's exposed eyebrow, inset with a lovely little amber stone. Her skin was a faded olive color. Ren knew she spent quite a bit of time underground in the school's mortuary. That also explained why the girl looked dressed for the dead of winter. A pair of thick trousers, the curling wool scarf, and a plaid forest-green coat that ran down to her calves. Ren supposed it always felt like winter in the rooms where they stored the cadavers.

Over the years she'd learned that Cora had grown up in a farming town north of the city. Most of her surgical practice had come from dissecting animals in the woods near their house. Now she was a medical student, here on scholarship like Ren, because she'd proven incredibly adept at anatomical magic. The girl offered her typically shy wave before slipping inside the waxway room.

The fourth member of their occasional crew was Cora's obnoxious opposite. Avy Williams came swaggering around the corner, trademark grin already stretching his wide face. His skin was bright and tan and always seemed to have a glow to it. In the sunlight it almost looked bronze. Ren knew the glimmer was partially from the oil he applied before wrestling matches. It was legal to slick the skin, which offered the slightest advantage when wrestling in the arena, even if Avy already possessed every advantage imaginable for a fight.

He was the youngest person ever to place in the Games. The performance had earned him a full scholarship to compete for Balmerick, which prided itself on dominating Kathor's other universities in athletics and dueling. He wore the traditional buttoned cardigan that most of the athletes wore, with Balmerick's symbolic towers stitched into the right breast pocket. She didn't follow any of the sports very closely, but she knew Avy was undefeated this year. That was no surprise. Even a statue like Devlin looked like a toy soldier by comparison.

Before Avy became a famous wrestler, Ren had always thought of him as the younger and far less morally centered brother of Pree Williams, her first boyfriend. She had known Avy since they were little, and knew he was prone to mood swings. One moment laughing at a joke, the next ready to slam someone's head into a wall. It was difficult to say if he preferred magical duels or fistfights more, as he got into plenty of both.

Balmerick tried to keep that side of their prized athlete hidden. Anything to avoid expelling him. It was hard to veil, though. His right eye had been destroyed by an illegal spell last year, which left him with a dark scar and a melted socket set in the middle of an otherwise boyish face.

"Ren Monroe. Tell me something I don't know."

He always said those words to her in the same singsong voice. She smiled back as he threw his hands on his hips and waited for her to spin out a new fact. It was a game they'd played over the years, and Ren always had a few hidden up her sleeve for the occasion.

"Did you know that the first vessel in recorded history was a nipple ring?"

Avy's dark eyebrows soared. "No way."

"A man named Pryor was using the ring for alternative activities when he realized the pain was channeling his magic into and through the metal. He started storing spells inside, mostly for the purpose of further enjoying those alternative activities."

Avy grinned at that. "I'm surprised he told anyone."

"He didn't. The information died with him, and vessels were discovered about a decade later, but once the guiding theories were in place, a historian backtracked to other instances of channeled magic and discovered Pryor's story written in a book for people who enjoyed…"

"Alternative activities." Avy grinned again. "Maybe I should read more often."

Ren smiled back. This was the point where their friendship always faltered. Avy did not care for the finer points of magic. He was not the kind of person who enjoyed in-depth discussions. And she didn't care about his workout routines or the results of his latest city tournament. They shared a home neighborhood and all the memories that came with growing down in the Lower Quarter. Footraces through the canal district and sneaking pies from market stalls. Other than that, they had very little in common. So it was a surprise when he stepped closer, his voice kept deliberately low.

"Anyone you know get hurt?"

She shook her head. "No way to know, but I doubt it. My mother gave up going to teahouses years ago. She would have been at home. Asleep. You?"

"Pree sent a note. One of our cousins was in the wreckage. A few stitches, but nothing life-threatening. There's one person who still might not make it."

Ren frowned. "The article said recoveries were expected."

"There was a lot that article didn't say," Avy replied coolly. "She was impaled by a piece of shrapnel. City's best doctors are working on her, but it's grim."

She could only shake her head. When the silence stretched, Avy threw that big grin back on his face. Ren wasn't sure if it was a sign that he possessed a rare ability to compartmentalize, or if it was a defense mechanism Balmerick had built into him. Smile long enough and all the injustice would feel like it weighed a little less.

"Catch you inside," he said.

Ren's eyes swept the quad for any sign of Timmons. This was about the time that they liked to enter the portal room together. It always helped to settle in early before using the waxways. Calm nerves meant smooth travel. She was starting to grow restless when two figures turned the corner. Ren's breath caught. Theo Brood was walking toward her with Clyde Winters.

For a brief moment she thought Clyde had informed Theo of what had happened in Agora's class. Maybe he'd interpreted her comments as the criticism she'd intended them to be. Theo was coming to confront her. Ren mentally fumbled for an explanation, but the two boys barely glanced at her. That anger flickered back to life inside of her. Here were two of the most influential scions in the school. The people she needed to impress if she ever wanted to achieve her true goals. Like Lucas Shiverian, they hadn't even bothered to look in her direction.

Theo seemed properly hungover. His eyes sunken, his skin pale. He'd managed to comb his hair and straighten his tie and that was about it. Clyde, on the other hand, was lively and grinning.

"Can't believe he confiscated all of them," he was saying. "Brutal, man."

Theo snorted. "The best part is I'm not even sure when he took them. How do you sneak out three chariots in the middle of the night? The old man is efficient, I'll give him that much."

"I've never… taken… before…" The wind whistled through gaps in the trees, stealing every other word Clyde spoke. "… know… it works?"

Theo shrugged. "You just light a candle."

Ren's stomach tightened. She watched as their feet carried them to the entrance of the waxway room. Her mind traced the possibilities, all the cause and effect. She linked what had happened the night before to what she'd just heard Theo say about missing chariots. There was only one person who'd dare to take something so valuable from a spoiled princeling like him. His own father.

And this was his punishment. Taking the Balmerick waxway portal home. The spoiled prat would learn his lesson by traveling with the school's welfare students. Ren's chest pumped. She idly pulled strands of grass from the mossy stones beside her and tucked the blades into a coat pocket. Her pulse was still running fast when Timmons finally arrived, breathless and disheveled. She'd abandoned her school jacket in favor of a white-and-gray-striped shirt with a dramatically large collar. There were clever brass buttons pinching both sleeves, and Timmons wore a slender brass necklace to match them. Disheveled, for her, simply meant that her shirttail had come untucked from her trousers as she crossed campus. Ren circled around to help her fix it.

"Sorry I'm late."

Ren nodded. "No worries. We've got guests."

Timmons frowned. "At your home?"

"No. In the portal room."

"Who?"

"Two of Balmerick's best boys. Come on. Let's go say hello."

Ren walked through that door into the dark, her mind turning and turning.