Page 132 of Legacy Ascended

"Mm." He turns the glass. "I saw that dress the first time you wore it."

"I know you did. I watched you."

"Did you?"

"You went still and then you went polite. It took about a second and a half." I look at him. "You knew what the color was."

"Yes."

"You didn't say."

"No." Jon sets the glass down without drinking any of it. "You were a first-year four months into a world you hadn't agreed to join. You didn't need a professor telling you you'd accidentally put on a dead House's livery in a room with three banners in it." A pause. "I went home and sat up until two in the morning about it, if that's any consolation."

"It's a bit of a consolation."

"Good."

Behind us the music keeps going. Somebody drops a glass and forty people cheer.

"I'm going to ask for restoration," I say.

Jon goes quiet.

"What do you want restored?"

"The House."

"That isn't an answer."

I look at him.

"A name?" Jon says. "A Council seat? Property?"

"I don't know."

"That's the homework."

"I didn't come to a ball for homework."

"No, you came to a ball in the color of your own House and stood under an empty wall where everyone could see you do it." The corner of his mouth moves. "I'd have done the same thing. I'd have been less magnificent about it."

"Jon."

"Go and dance, Jessica." He picks up the glass again, entirely as a prop. "I'm faculty until midnight and for some considerable time after that."

"Saturday still stands?"

"Saturday still stands," Jon says. "Bring the mug."

Torres catches my hand when the music starts again.

"Come on, princess."

"Don't call me that."

"Heir?"

"Worse."