Chapter 133 TOLD

Chapter 133 TOLD
CALISTA

I stood there and looked at the wrapped bundle in my hand and thought about Lyra Voss lying in her chamber.
I had not meant for any of that.

The thought had been circling since I overheard Kai and Yvaine in the corridor. A cold, reluctant guilt pressed against the edges of my composure. I meant to take something from her the way her very existence took something from me. I had not meant for her to lose an entire year of herself.

I walked to my bed.

I lifted the mattress at the head end and pushed the wrapped tooth into the gap between the mattress and the frame, working it far enough in that it would not be found by anything short of a deliberate search. Then I lowered the mattress and stood back.

My hands were slightly unsteady.
I pressed them flat against my thighs and stood at the window.

The Academy grounds below were carrying on with the business of the afternoon, which felt unreasonable. Riders crossing the yard between sessions. Groundskeeping staff at their work. A flicker of something close to shame moved through me before I shut it down.

The news would spread. It had probably already spread, something this significant did not stay contained for long when the entire Academy had heard the impact of the landing. They would know Lyra was hurt. They would not know why or how or what she had been doing in the sky in the middle of the day, but they would know she was in her chambers and they would speculate accordingly.

What had Kai and Yvaine told the principal? What had they told Ser Thorian?

They would not have told the truth. I was nearly certain of that. Not because I believed them to be dishonest in general from what I had observed of them over months, neither of them were people who defaulted to deception but because whatever the truth was, it was clearly something they were protecting. The way they had talked in the corridor was not how people who had just told their principal everything. It was like people who had kept something back.

So what had they said?

I needed to know. Not for any plan I had formulated, I had no plan, the plan I had constructed so carefully was in pieces on the floor of the last twenty-four hours but because what they told the principal would determine what the principal did, and what the principal did would determine what happened next, and I needed to be ahead of what happened next rather than discovering it after.

I needed information.

I unlocked my door and went into the corridor.

~

Cassius was near the entrance to the dining hall.

I saw him from thirty feet away and slowed my pace slightly, reading him before I reached him. He was talking to one of the other senior riders but the conversation was not sitting right with him, he was nodding at the right moments but his eyes were moving, checking the corridor past his companion’s shoulder. He was restless like he was in one place and mentally somewhere else entirely.

He was worried about Lyra.

Of course he was. The thought arrived with a flatness I had grown accustomed to. A familiar irritation mixed with something closer to weary recognition.

His companion said something, and Cassius gave a response I could not hear. The companion accepted it and moved off. Cassius turned and saw me.

He came toward me immediately, which I had expected. “Do you know anything?” he asked. “About Lyra. What’s happening, how she is?”

“I know she’s in her chambers,” I answered. “I know she has a head injury and a sprained ankle.” I paused, because the next part was true and I would tell him true things without telling him everything. “I don’t know much more than that.”

He exhaled. “I need to see her.”

“Then go,” I told him.

He looked at me. “You think that’s appropriate? She might not be receiving—”

“Kai is in there,” I pointed out. “If Kai is allowed to be there, there’s no reason you can’t go.” I held his gaze steadily. “You’re her friend, Cassius. Go and see your friend.”

He looked down the corridor in the direction of the dormitory building.

“What if Kai—”

“Cassius,” I interrupted. “Go. Find out how she is. Find out what happened, either from her directly or from Kai.” I kept my voice even. “Don’t leave without knowing what’s actually going on.”

He looked at me, trying to figure out whether I was being straightforward and helpful or whether there was something else. He had always been better at this than most people gave him credit for.

Whatever he decided he found, it was apparently sufficient. He straightened, resolution arriving in his face.

“Right,” he said.

He went.

I watched him move down the corridor with determined strides and I turned back toward the window at the corridor’s end.

The marks in the earth were still there.

I looked at them directly this time. A cold, complicated mix of responsibility and calculation settled over me.
I needed to know what they knew. I needed to understand what story was being told in that room and how much of the truth was told and where the gaps were.

Because somewhere between what I had done and what had actually happened was a space I did not fully understand.

I needed to understand all of it before someone else did the understanding for me.