Page 45 of A Heart of Bluestone

“If you’re worried about the cancellation fee, I can put it on my account.” The offer is a weak one. The Home of the Misplaced will cover the expense. But it’s all I can think to say.

James forces a tight smile, then stands, taking his tray with him, his sketchbook tucked under his arm. “It’s not that.”

It’s all he says before he leaves me at the table, alone. I abandon my tray, then start for the doors.

Courtney loiters near them, waiting for me.

As I pass the table of aristos, my muscles seize under my skin, anticipation clinging to my gut, writhing. But the Snakes don’t throw any cruelties my way.

Dray only glances at me before he turns back to Serena and leans into her, listening closely as she whispers through a wicked half-grin. His glance is so small and fleeting, it’s as though I’m not his greatest enemy and directly in his line of sight. Not that I’m complaining.

I make it out it in one piece, no breakfast drenching me or wasp stings covering me, no frozen muscles or tears to stain my cheeks.

His team must have won in snow-rugby. His mood is light, too victorious to seek extra wins in my tortures.

And that means I get to continue my weekend, unblemished. That, I will say, is a good start to the morning.

The little village of VeVille is nestled between two high reaches of the mountain. It is the last stop on the gondola.

If anyone wanted to run away, they just have to make it down here from Bluestone, then take the veil to Edinburgh, and freedom is theirs.

I know because I tried once, twice, maybe thrice.

The problem is the school security that patrols the village.

They used blackout dust on me one time I tried to flee.

I’m not trying to make a run for it today.

Today, I have those rare sorts of moments, akin to contentment, a false bubble of security that could pop at any instant.

“I have the concept,” Courtney murmurs behind me, and I get the sense she’s talking aloud to herself more than she’s intentionally speaking to me, “but not the plan, you know?”

“Uh-huh.” My monotonous response is noncommittal.

But no, I don’t know.

I am listening to her, sort of, but I’m also wildly more intrigued by these books she dragged me to than I expected to be. So I’m only half-listening, I suppose.

In the danker, dustier section of the bookstore, I pick through the old, musty tomes and little mouldy pocketbooks.

Even the shelves are rotted wood, neglected over time.

It’s a barren section at the rear of the bookstore, and most of what’s back here seems to be out-dated theories disprovenover the centuries, and some books about my lot, the ancient bloodlines. Only, according to these old books, we are referenced as thesacredbloodlines, not ancient.

A bit telling, really.

But those sentiments towards the half-breeds and the made ones, they aren’t exactly extinct. Just quieter. Softer whispers heard in the borders between the class systems.

It’s not like I have never noticed that there are no made ones in aristos. Their wealth has failed to reach that high. Whether they aren’t born with those sorts of wealth-forming prints, or it’s the elites of the Videralli who keep them in the lower systems, I don’t know.

I dismiss the ancient nonsense and shove the breedist book back onto the shelf. The spine shines with the faint spelling of ‘PROTECTING THE SACRED LINES’.

Dust clouds around my face. I cough through it and reach for a leather-bound tome whose silvery letters are peeling on the spine.

“The concept,” Courtney goes on behind me, rifling through old newspapers, “is to write something that no one writes about. But within the smaller frame of the academy.”

I nod, but my focus on the book. “Mm.”

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