Chapter 23 What Petra Said
I tell Petra everything.
Not strategically, not in careful measured portions, not with the managed distance I've been keeping around most of it for the past two weeks. All of it, from the archive to Corvyn's office to the document with both our signatures drying on it, and I tell her sitting on her bed in Wind House with the door closed and her eyes getting wider with every sentence until by the time I finish, she looks like someone who has been handed a story significantly larger than the container she prepared for it.
She's quiet for a moment after I stop talking.
"Your mother..." she says carefully.
"...was the previous documented tamer," I confirm. "Bonded to Rhydan's father. Twenty years ago."
"At this school," she says.
"At this school," I confirm.
"And Rhydan's grandfather tried to have her bound," she says.
"Yes," I reply.
"And now the same grandfather has a standing arrangement with Sera Vance's family," she says.
"Apparently," I reply.
"To do the same thing to you," she says.
"That's the shape of it," I agree.
She looks at me for a long moment.
"Veyra," she stares at me.
"I know," I say.
"This is enormous!" she exclaims in a low voice.
"I know," I say again.
"You signed a supernatural bond registration document with a boy who called you a nobody two weeks ago," she points out.
"Protection measure," I reply. "Purely practical."
She looks at my face. At my hand. Back at my face.
"Purely practical," she repeats, in the tone she uses when she has decided not to argue the point directly but wants me to know she's noting it for later.
"Don't," I tell her.
"I'm not saying anything," she says.
"You're saying everything without saying anything," I tell her. "I can hear it."
"I'm sitting here very quietly," she says.
"Petra."
"What does it feel like?" she asks. "The bond. When it does the thing. The warmth."
I think about the arena last night. About the hit and the burning in my palm and the way something in me reached toward him across the ice without asking my permission first.
"Like something that knows where it's going," I say, "even when I don't."
She looks at me softly.
"And him?" she asks. "What does he feel like? As a person. When he's not being the hockey captain or the pack heir or the boy from the coffee shop."
I think about the restricted archive. About him reading alongside me and saying they argued constantly and the dryness of it landing like a gift I wasn't expecting. About the way he said no when I asked if he was okay, plain and honest and without performance.
"Like someone who's been carrying a lot of things alone for a long time," I say. "And doesn't know what to do with someone who can see the weight of it."
Petra is quiet.
"I don't like him yet," she says carefully. "On your behalf. I reserve the right to continue not liking him for a significant period."
"That's fair," I say.
"But..." she says.
"But?" I reply.
"I think," she says slowly, "that you might already be a little bit in trouble."
I look at my warm hand.
Think about the corridor this afternoon and Reserved and I'll work on it and the almost-expression that keeps getting fractionally closer to arriving.
"Don't," I say.
"I'm just observing," she says.
"Petra."
"Purely objectively," she adds. "As your best friend. Who loves you. And wants good things for you." She pauses. "Even if those good things come wrapped in a lot of complications."
I lean back against her headboard and look at the ceiling.
"He has to earn it," I say. "All of it. Whatever this is personally, however the bond develops, he has to earn it. The coffee shop isn't forgotten."
"Good," Petra says firmly. "Make him work for every inch."
"I intend to," I reply.
"Good," she says again. Then, "Also, Zael Morrow asked me this morning if you were free Tuesday afternoon."
I lift my head. "What?"
"He wanted to know if you were free Tuesday," she says, with an expression that is performing innocence very badly. "Something about more archive documentation."
"Zael is helping me understand the bond," I say.
"Mm," she says.
"It's research," I defend that reaction.
"Mm," she says again, with more mm in it this time.
"Stop," I tell her.
"I'm not doing anything," she says.
My phone vibrates on the bed beside me.
Number I do not recognize, which still makes my stomach drop slightly, but when I open the message it's not threatening and it's not from anyone connected to Elder Valecrest or the Vance family.
It's four words.
I heard you're registered.
I stare at it.
Another buzz. Same number.
We should talk. Before anyone does anything we all regret.
This is Aldric Valecrest.
My hand burns so hot it's almost uncomfortable.
Petra leans over and reads the screen and then looks at my face and says, very quietly, "Veyra."
"I know," I say.
"That's his father," she lets out.
"I know," I reply.
"The one who was bonded to your mother," she says.
"I can see that," I reply.
"What are you going to do?" she asks.
I look at the message. At the number. At the four words that came first.
I heard you're registered.
He knew within hours. Which means someone told him. Which means someone in Corvyn's office or connected to the charter filing process passed the information immediately to Aldric Valecrest.
Which means Aldric has been waiting for exactly this.
I type back one line.
When and where?
The reply comes in thirty seconds.
Tomorrow. Before your first class. The east courtyard. Come alone.
I put my phone down.
Petra is looking at me with the expression of someone who already knows the answer to the question she's about to ask.
"You're going," she says.
"Yes," I reply.
"Alone," she says.
"As I should," I reply.
"And you're not going to tell Rhydan?" she asks.
I look at my phone.
At the message from his father.
At the words come alone sitting there like something that could go any direction from here.
"Not yet," I say quietly. "Not until I know what he wants."
Petra looks at me for a long moment.
"Be careful," she says.
"Always," I reply.
But my hand is still burning, restless and urgent, and I think it might be trying to tell me something I'm not ready to hear yet.