Page 38 of Divine Oaths

“I think we’d appreciate if you didn’t try and speak for our father,” Jojo said with venom.

But Kasem seemed to think on what his cousin had said for a second. He shook his head, nodding as if in agreement. And then, Kasem punched Alaster.

They landed with a crash on the president’s desk, sending the books and stacks of papers flying across the room as Kasem’s fist found Alaster’s jaw, over and over and over again, to bloody lengths.

“And lucky you,” Kasem spat. “Your father gets to watch me kick your ass.”

The president yanked Kasem off Alaster. Suddenly, a sharp crack cut through the room. The sound was thundering, explosive. Lights flickered. The soft click-clicking of the clock on the wall churned loud against the now silent room. I covered my ears, my eardrums splitting at the sound and the migraine beginning to tear through my brain.

Kasem stood immobile, his right cheek dripping with blood, his jaw clenched. Across from him, the president breathed heavily. There was a glint in his eyes, something simmering and cold and vicious. The rings on his right hand were twisted at odd corners, a trace of blood visible on them from when the president had backhanded Kasem.

“President Saint James,” Provost Henning said, rushing to his side. “Are you all right?”

Beside me, Angelica moved to examine Kasem. Jojo knelt by his brother’s side too, but Kasem pushed him away.

“You know better than this,” Angelica whispered. “This is what they want. You know that.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Jojo had always warned me that there was something wrong about Westfield and its cohorts. But this was something else. Something entirely terrible simmering beneath the surface. And now, he was part of it too.

“Enough,” the president said. “We will finish speaking on this matter like adults. Any objections?” He turned to look at me, his face flush with rage as if I hadn’t just witnessed him assaulting a graduate student, let alone his family. But there was something else in the president’s expression, something that made my stomach drop and my heart race faster and faster.

“Don’t be afraid,” the president said.

“I’m not,” I lied. But it wasn’t convincing, even to me.

“I can tell you don’t know much about us Saint Jameses. We’re very just. Very forgiving. But we do have tempers. Terrible ones. What you just saw was an unfortunate…” He paused. “An unfortunate lapse in judgment. From all of us. We’re all a little bit imperfect here.”

Seeing him excuse the violence that I’d witnessed from each member of the Saint James line shook me. I was on their territory and there were no rules here. No standards of law or reason that they couldn’t bend to their will. This was the kind of family who didn’t see people as people. They saw them as pawns to be manipulated, as objects to be used and discarded at their leisure. And, moreover, they had the power to do well above what they wanted.

And I hated that. To be sitting here, expected to be Kasem’s judge, jury, and executioner while pretending to ignore everything that had happened in this very room, made me sick to my stomach.

I pressed my eyes shut, wishing I was anywhere else. It was supposed to have been easy: coming here, fixing my powers. And yet, somehow, I’d gotten tangled in a game of politics and reputation among Westfield’s oldest family. Vivian’s words came back to me.

Keep your head down. Mind your business. And don’t get yourself involved.

My lashes fluttered at a gentle nudge against my foot; Kasem, entreating me quietly as the room waited for me to speak.

“I told you to leave here while you had the chance,” he whispered. As if he hadn’t been the one to ask me to come to Westfield. But something had changed in him since that day at Gus’s shop. He looked sad, crestfallen, almost.

“Do you see that?” Alaster said. “Even now, he’s threatening her to lie for him. This isn’t just one mistake or accident. It’s a pattern. Kasem is a terror on this campus. He needs to be expelled.”

“Let her explain what happened,” Angelica said. “Sianna, if you can find the words. Tell us what happened in that courtyard with Kasem and Honey.”

Jojo nodded at me encouragingly, and Provost Henning inched forward in her seat. The president looked eager to hear my words too. Not for the first time, I wished I could manifest my powers outside of my mind. If I could just show them the maze coming to life, if they could see a vision of my past the way I could, they’d be able to watch the truth unfold for themselves.

“I got lost,” I said, speaking anyway. “I was supposed to be on a tour with the other scholarship students, but I ended up at the party they were holding for legacies and regular admits. I somehow wound up in the courtyard and couldn’t find my way through the hedge maze.”

“And then,” Alaster said, his eyes wide, beseeching.

I bristled, unable to meet his gaze. So, instead, I turned to the president. “I fell in the hedges and got scratched up,” I said. “And Kasem pulled me out. He helped me.”

Alaster kicked the foot of the desk. “She’s lying.”

“I’m not,” I shouted, standing to meet his rage with my own. “What about you? Where were you the night Kasem got stabbed?”

The words spilled from my lips before I could stop myself. Suddenly, all the air left the room. Provost Henning stood. So did Kasem. The president looked taken aback, the color drained from his face, his pupils dilating. I glanced at Jojo, hoping he’d realize my words weren’t just for Alaster but for him too, even if I wouldn’t say it to the room. But it was Alaster who looked like the ghostly confines of the past had caught up to him.