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“You don’t think a student could have gotten pregnant?” Hedeon demands, in an undertone so no one around us can possibly overhear. “People sneak off to fuck all the time around here . . .”
That hits a little too close to home. I have to pretend to be very interested in the blueberries on my oatmeal.
“Hard to hide something like that,” I say, quietly. “Besides, you know what mafia families are like. They might be mad about an accidental pregnancy, but at the end of the day, if two kids fucked up, the parents would still want the grandchild . . .”
“You don’t know that,” Hedeon hisses back at me.
He’s angry and impatient, not wanting to hear any arguments against his only lead.
I take a breath, mulling it over.
“You’re right,” I say, after a moment. “I don’t know anything for certain. I’m just making guesses. And that’s not really helpful.”
Hedeon’s shoulders drop as he lets go of some of his frustration, but also some of his conviction.
“All I have are guesses,” he says, unhappily. “I want them to have gone here. Because then I’d be where they were. I’d feel like I knew them a little.”
His hands clench on the table. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbow, and I can see a long, twisted scar running up his forearm. Most mafia children have scars. Hedeon’s aren’t normal—they’re too numerous and too strange. There’s nothing accidental about them.
“Does Silas know anything?” I ask.
“No,” Hedeon says. “And he doesn’t care.”
Silas has never struck me as having much curiosity or much feeling.
Hedeon, while equally ill-tempered, does have flashes of kindness and humor.
I don’t blame him for his bitterness. It’s clear that his upbringing among the Grays was far from pleasant.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help,” I say.
Hedeon sighs.
“Just . . . don’t tell anyone,” he says.
I squirm guiltily in my seat.
“I won’t,” I lie.
The universe seeksbalance in all things.
Now that Dean has stopped tormenting me between classes, restricting his dominance to our nightly sessions, it seems that Lola Fischer is determined to fill the void.
She and Dixie have been steadily ramping up their harassment, so that Rakel and I can barely step foot outside our dorm room door without one of the southern belles slamming us into the wall.
Rakel wants to poison them, or at bare minimum sneak into their room in the middle of the night and steal all their clothes.
“No,” I say flatly. “I’m not interested in escalating.”
I’ve already experienced the sickening dread that comes from breaking the worst rule at Kingmakers. I got away with it once, and I have no interest in tempting fate again.
“But we’re not doing anything at all!” Rakel cries, infuriated. “We’re acting like weak little bitches!”
“I don’t care,” I say. “I’ve got enough on my plate with theQuartum Bellumand first term exams.”
The first challenge of theQuartum Bellumtakes place the following Friday.
Kade Petrov was chosen as Captain for the Freshman team. He’s extremely popular amongst the Freshman students, who of course hope that he’s the second iteration of the record-setting champion Adrik Petrov.
