Page 18 of A Heart of Bluestone

James and Courtney go ahead to the dorms.

I hurry with the belly-rumbling crowd into the mess hall.

The first years are off getting their orientations, and since there are about fifty students in each year, and most have splintered off to the Living Quarter, I am quick to push and weave my way through the atrium and into the mess hall.

I rush my way to the front of the still-forming line.

With so many stragglers and everyone shouting over the heads of others, calling people over, cussing others out to revive old rivalries, I sweep by unnoticed. Too much distraction in the air.

But also not enough teachers.

As I snatch a metal tray from the stack, then move for the buffet, I notice that it’s unattended. No staff to monitor the food—and no faculty has yet to take a seat at the long table on the podium ahead, the one that overlooks the rest of the hall.

I need to be quick.

Distractions will settle soon, and then I might be noticed in that lull. Really, it’s the Snakes I have to watch out for. Not many other witches bother with me.

But the Snakes are enough of a threat that once my tray is stacked with chicken, fried potato chunks and perfectly blanched green beans, I steer back to the entrance of the hall.

There, I settle on a small, round table near the doors.

Always good to be close to an exit.

One of the few things I’ve learned at the academy.

There’s not a wasted moment before I’m tucking into my supper. I don’t like to give my enemies too many shots at me, and already my eyelids are starting to feel as heavy as lead.

Still, I force my tired gaze to sweep the mess hall.

A few tables up, Mildred—a particularly stocky elite whose witching family aren’t all that great at wealth-making rituals—falls into her wooden chair and runs the back of her hand over the blotched skin of her freckled cheek. The cold burn is fresh on her pinkish face, drizzle dusted all over her auburn hair pulled back into a stern bun.

I forget her, since she hasn’t noticed me yet, and scan the queue at the buffet.

I spot my brother first.

Oliver has his arm slung around Serena’s slender shoulders.

He draws her into him, closer to the damp front of his black jacket, and through a crooked grin he mutters words that I am certain would make any other witch blush.

But not Serena.

The indifference is palpable. The grey steel of her eyes lift—and even I can see from this distance, and in her silence, that look says so much.

It tells Oliver he is dull, unimpressive, uninteresting.

But she doesn’t pull out of his hold.

Betrothed, those two are. Some days they act like it. I’m sure they fuck. But there’s a freedom in their ways. Freedoms that draw them to the beds of others.

I watch them now and see the best that any aristos can hope for in an arranged marriage. Respect, dignity, loyalty—and friendship.

And this is how they tease each other.

I slide my gaze to Dray.

He’s one ahead of them in the queue, but his attention isn’t on the buffet that I have no doubt he could just push his waytowards, shove all the other students out of his path, and very few would speak up.

I find the reason he stays put in the queue.

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