That’s the end of the evening’s drama, thankfully. And it’s not as hard as I was worried it would be to persuade everyone to stop at one drink. No-one wants too much more alcohol in a place like this, where a drunken mistake could have serious consequences.

  It’s just gone ten after noon when we get back. Though there is another queue for the bathroom, so it’s another half hour or so before I can get into bed. I thought it would take me a while to fall asleep, but for once I don’t lie awake with my mind churning.

  And we’re all awake in enough time to get ready for classes, with not a hangover in sight. I’m a little later than usual to breakfast with Edward.

  “How was your night?” he asks.

  “Good, mostly. I ran into your dad.”

  “You – oh, tell me you didn’t go to the Regal.”

  I consider telling him what he wants to hear, at least jokingly, but decide against it.

  “Stars, Tallulah…”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” I say. “And I didn’t think anyone would recognise me.”

  Now that it’s daytime and I’m not surrounded by the others telling me it would be a great idea, I can admit I might have made more than one mistake last night. But having Edward point that out to me doesn’t help my mood that much.

  “Anything else I should know about?” he asks wryly once I’ve finished outlining the incident with Mildred and his father’s response.

  “I, uh, may or may not have agreed to talk to Ariana Carling at some point.”

  He sighs. “Tallulah. Why did you think that’s a good idea?”

  “I’m going to be sensible about it. I was wondering if I could talk to you, actually, about what I should say and how I should handle certain topics.”

  That appeases him a little, thankfully. That conversation isn’t one for breakfast when we can be easily overheard, so we return to more normal topics. Well, while talking about what to expect from classes this term is normal, Edward’s opinions on it are somewhat less so. He’s mostly complaining about how he’s already learnt most of the content and so he’ll be bored.

  “You did deliberately learn all this term’s Spells,” I point out to him.

  “Because I’d rather be bored than humiliated.”

  “Okay, but choosing boredom and then complaining about it…”

  “Would you prefer me to complain about Felicity instead?”

  “It’s probably less hypocritical, at least.”

  And then he proceeds to spend several minutes brutally dissecting Felicity’s favouritism, her ineffective teaching methods, her lack of subject knowledge, and the incompetence of whoever got her hired in the first place. I agree with most of his points, but it’s still… a lot.

  “It’s just so illogical – “

  “Is this a bad time?”

  I jump a little and glance round to see Elsie carrying a tray of porridge and smiling hopefully.

  “Elsie! Not at all! I was wondering where you’d got to!”

  “The main road was flooded,” she explains. “They diverted coaches, so my journey took hours longer than it should have done. And by the time I made it here it was late enough I didn’t want to do anything but sleep. But I’ve missed you!”

  Edward gives me a sceptical look. He’s clearly drawing his own conclusions about who Elsie’s you refers to, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were correct. I’m mostly just relieved to see that she’s back safely. And already scheming how to find a time and place to talk to her in private.

  For now we just catch up on the trivial things. Complaining about travel, how our Holy Days were. I tell her about my grandmother, and she replies with a story about her brothers’ antics. I do my best to include Edward in the conversation, not that he seems to want to be included.

  Then Elsie brings up Robin, and there’s an awkward silence as I realise that she left the Academy before that little revelation. That she doesn’t know.

  I consider just not telling her, but the silence has already dragged on long enough that she must be able to tell something is wrong. “We found out that Robin was spying on Edward for her family.”

  Elsie blinks. “What?” And then, once she’s taken it in, “Does that mean you’re not friends with her any more?”

  “Yes,” says Edward, at the same time as I reply “Edward isn’t. But if you still want to be her friend, that won’t be a problem with us. Just… we won’t spend much time as a group any more.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Edward shoots me a look that says we will be having a difficult conversation later. I nod back. I knew he wouldn’t like that, but Elsie gets to make her own decisions. Especially if she met Mildred over the holidays – and I need to find out what happened in that conversation, as well. I can’t be like Mildred, who’s undoubtedly trying to turn Elsie against us.

  “That’s sad,” Elsie says thoughtfully. “Why did she do it?”

  “She’s out of favour with her family, and she wanted to change that,” says Edward flatly. “She failed.”

  “Is she back? Can I talk to her about it?”

  “Yes to both,” I say. “But… be careful. She’s very upset about it all right now.”

  Though I think last night helped a little. Knowing that – even if she and I aren’t exactly friends – I’m not going to abandon her. Or at least I hope it helped. I ignore Edward’s disdainful look.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Elsie says.

  “Anyway,” I say, wanting to move the conversation to safer ground. “Looking forward to Spells?”

  Elsie grimaces. “Stars, no.”

  We stay in the dining hall until classes begin. Elizabeth joins us for a little while, though she’s busy checking over all her homework – she kept herself too busy for it for most of the holidays, apparently. That makes me want to check that all of my own work is in order, even though I already did that when I packed my things.

  Thankfully I haven’t forgotten any of the homework I have due for this morning’s classes. I wish briefly that I’d gone back through notes to remember the last topics we covered, but as it turns out I didn’t need to. Most of today’s lessons are just reminders of last term’s material. I can’t work out whether to be relieved or frustrated.

  I have lunch with Edward, Elsie and Elizabeth. Robin is conspicuously absent. Or maybe her absence is only conspicuous to me. I don’t know if the others are bothered by it. Well, I have a good idea about how Edward feels, but I should ask the other two at some point.

  Elsie drags me away as soon as we’ve finished eating lunch, supposedly because she wants to see my new dress. But we both know that’s not the case.

  “Where shall we go?” she asks.

  I shrug. “The garden? It’s cold and grey. I doubt there’ll be many people out there.”

  “It seems fitting to walk around the lake,” she replies, smiling wryly.

  Because it was there, that dark and lonely night, that she told me she was an oracle.

  “Let’s.”

  So we wrap ourselves up and venture outside. I was right about how quiet it would be – I can only see half a dozen people walking around in small groups, and none near where we’re going – but also unfortunately about the reason for that. It might not be raining, but the clouds hang threateningly low and the cold wind is biting.

  “I have a lot to tell you,” I say once we reach the lake, after scanning the surroundings to make sure there’s no-one who could hear. The wind helps with that, carrying my words away. “I’m not sure now is the best time, though, when we only have half an hour.”

  “I have a lot to tell you, too. Starting with Lord Blackthorn visiting my house.”

  “He… of course he did. Stars.”

  She outlines everything he told her on that visit while I listen in growing horror. Stars. I’m almost angrier at him for this than for anything he’s done to me. At least I’m somewhat equipped to handle it by now, and I have the protection of Edward’s friendship. Elsie, on the other hand, does not.

  I wonder whether she would go to war with me for your sake.

  “He won’t do anything,” I say. I don’t know if I believe my own words or if it’s just empty reassurance.

  “How do you know that?”

  I try to think how best to explain my shaky reasoning. “He and I… tolerate each other. I think he’s ruthless, lacks basic human respect for most others, and is entirely too interested in my personal business. He probably thinks I’m too stubbornly idealistic and na?ve. But we have to put up with those things.”

  “Because of Edward?”

  “Yes. Because our fighting would tear him apart. Which is the last thing that either of us want.”

  “So the only reason that he won’t do anything is because he’s afraid that if you objected, that would upset Edward?”

  When she says it like that, it sounds awful. “That, and I know things about him, about the Blackthorn family. Nothing truly secret, but… things he wouldn’t want his enemies knowing, at least. And if I counted myself among his enemies… it would be an unnecessary risk.” I nearly choke on the words. I hate that I’m even having to contemplate this.

  “Okay. I can believe that. But it relies on…”

  “On, as he puts it, me being willing to go to war with him for your sake.”

  She nods. She looks so young and afraid. “Because if you wouldn’t, there’s nothing to hold him back.”

  Edward, hearing this, would point out that it actually relies on whether Lord Blackthorn thinks I would. I’m suddenly thankful for my choice last night to stand by Robin. Because if I hadn’t done that, would he have thought I’d abandon Elsie too? Would he have been more willing to find out?

  “Elsie. I would. Of course I would. I couldn’t stand by and not do everything in my power to save you.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “I’m glad to know that.”

  But in my mind, I’m considering hypotheticals. Wondering what it would really do to Edward. It would hurt him greatly, I have no doubt. How greatly, though? If the pain and the uncertainty and the doubt were more than he could cope with, if it brought him close to being mala sia… then the choice would really be which of my friends I’d rather condemn to a fate worse than death.

  And stars, I don’t know what I could do then. I don’t know if I would be able to cope with either choice.

  I have to believe that it won’t come to that. And persuade Elsie that it won’t come to that. “My news is more positive, at least. Or I hope it is. I’ve found out… some things about oracles. Things that I think – hope – will help you a lot. But like I said, I won’t have time to tell you everything before classes start again.”

  She smiles. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I – at some point I want to talk to you about Robin. And… about Mildred. But… maybe not right now. Not after that.”

  “Fair enough. We have time, at least. Are you doing anything this evening?”

  “I didn’t particularly have plans. So I guess now I’m listening to whatever you have to tell me about oracles. In the meantime… I know it was an excuse, but I am curious about what you look like in that dress your grandmother made.”

  “It needs to be washed, after last night. But I can show you some other time.”

  “Last night… stars, you went to the Regal. I’m jealous. Tell me everything about it!”

  And so she interrogates me about who was there, what the interior design was like, what drinks were on offer, what people were wearing… honestly I hadn’t noticed half the details she seems so interested in. But I do my best to answer her questions, as honestly as I can while still leaving out the part where Lord Blackthorn dragged me away and the conversation that followed. That’s exactly what she’s trying to distract herself from, after all.