Page 37 of The Bond That Burns

“How did he die? Professor Hassan mentioned him in class but not the details.” I’d been curious ever since.

Theo hesitated. “He basically disappeared. We were told he’d died, but I still don’t know what happened exactly. Then his wife disappeared, too. Blake’s mother, Desdemona.”

“I thought she was in the Sanctum,” I said, staring at him.

Theo shrugged. “Right. That’s what everyone says. I haven’t seen her since.”

Visha yawned. “Not unheard of. Some of these older highblood ladies. They take their bonds very seriously. Too seriously if you ask me.”

“It was a love match,” Theo said quietly. “Between Blake’s parents, I mean. They were a pair, not a triad.”

“Not unheard of,” Visha acknowledged. “But restricting yourself to just one person?” She shuddered and we all laughed. It broke the tension for a moment.

Until I raised the temperature in the room again by asking, “What about uprisings? Have there been rebellions?”

Theo frowned. “Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”

“When I first arrived... in Sangratha, I found myself in a burned-out village. Everyone else was dead.” The memory flashed through my mind. Smoke and ash. The stench of rotting bodies.

“Oh, that.” Theo looked shaken.

“What?” I said sharply. “Tell us.”

“It wasn’t an uprising,” he said reluctantly. “Not exactly. But some blightborn in that village were being... challenging.” He held up his hands as my mouth opened. “I don’t know what exactly that means either. But Viktor thought it was a big deal. He sent Marcus to handle it.”

My stomach turned. “And Blake? Was he involved?”

All of those people. There would have been children among them.

Theo quickly shook his head. “No. Blake wasn’t part of that. In fact, Marcus went too far.” He eyed me sympathetically. “I guess you know what I’m talking about.”

I felt Florence’s eyes on me. “Everyone was dead,” I said quietly, by way of explanation. “Nothing was left. The village had been completely destroyed.”

“Marcus wouldn’t even need to be ordered to do something like that,” Visha said darkly. I remembered that Marcus had been a student at Bloodwing until the year before last. “He’d do it for the sheer fun of it.”

“That’s monstrous,” Florence whispered, her face pale. “There were rumors about some blightborn murders in Veilmar. But I didn’t think highbloods were involved.”

I said nothing. My friend was still naïve in some ways.

“Well, most people don’t,” Theo said quietly. “That’s the point. They’re not supposed to.” He gave Florence a strange look.

“Blightborn, you mean,” she said, looking ill at ease.

Theo didn’t reply. The room fell silent again. But this time it wasn’t a comfortable quiet. The weight of the conversation hung over us like a storm cloud.

I’d missed my friends. But this division between us... If we weren’t careful, it could split us in two. That was the last thing we needed.

I took a breath. “What are your schedules looking like? Do we share any classes this year?”

I hadn’t even looked at my timetable. But I’d noticed it sitting over on the desk. Now I went to fetch it and handed it to Florence who had pulled out her own.

“Oh, my goodness.” Florence clapped her hands together and looked delighted. “Look at this! We have a class together.”

I hadn’t dared to get my hopes up that that might happen. I figured Blake would do his best to keep me as far away from House Avari as possible.

“We do?” I said, sliding onto the bed beside her. “Which one?”

Florence looked even more excited. “The Alchemist’s Garden!”

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