Page 108 of The Black Witch

So that’s why Wynter’s brother was so angered when Rafe touched her.

She nods slowly, her expression one of awful shock.

Why is she so scared of me? What did she see?

Wynter’s horrified daze is broken by the sound of Ariel screaming. “You need to leave,” she pleads as she forces herself up.

I find my bearings and flee.

I stumble blindly down the staircase, my heart beating wildly. I steady myself against the wall, legs quivering, my vision blurry. I slide down the cold stone to the floor, dazed. I can feel my eye beginning to swell where Ariel repeatedly punched me. I reach up to touch the wound. When I lower my hand, there’s blood all over it.

This is my chance. The one I asked Lukas for.

If I go to the High Chancellor’s office now, Ariel will be removed from the University, sent back to the Valgard asylum and stripped of her wings. People will thank me for getting rid of her, and the North Tower will become a much more pleasant place to live.

I’m distracted from this train of thought by the soft rustling of wings and give a start when I look up.

A Watcher.

On the sill of the arching window.

It’s like falling into a crystal clear pool, staring into the serene, sad eyes of the Watcher. Memories come rushing in, visions of things I’ve tried to ignore.

Ariel singing to her kindred at night, petting it lovingly. Ariel being laughed at and ridiculed wherever she goes. People everywhere turning their heads away, refusing to look at her.

In a month’s time, unlike me and even unlike Wynter, Ariel has never received a letter or a visit from a family member, never heard a kind word from anyone save Wynter and Professor Kristian.

She’s an Evil One, a voice inside me insists shrilly.There is nothing good in her.

But the way she cared for her bird, the bird that’s now dead and staked to the door. She was so tender with it; so loving.

The question forces itself to the surface, even as I struggle to keep it down.

Is she really completely evil?

I realize I don’t know the answer, and staring into the sad, soulful eyes of the Watcher, it suddenly seems vitally important to find that answer before sealing Ariel’s fate.

* * *

“How could you torture her pet like that?”

I find Lukas in the dining hall supping with some other Gardnerian soldiers. I try to ignore the gasps and shocked murmuring of the soldiers and other scholars as they take in my battered appearance. The murmuring grows as kitchen laborers begin to notice me, as professors look up from their long table by the windows to see what all the commotion is about.

A slow grin forms on Lukas’s face as he gets up and looks me up and down. “Worked, didn’t it?”

“It wascruel!”

I can see by his expression that he’s thrown by my reaction. He takes my arm and roughly pulls me off to the side.

“You asked for my help,” he reminds me.

I jerk my arm away from him. “It wastoo much!”

He leans in close. “You told me you wanted her out,” he says. “Now look at you. Here’s your chance. Go to the professor of your choice. Tell them who attacked you. Get her out. No one here will miss her.”

I don’t even need to seek out a professor. To my dismay, a number of them have already risen from where they’re sitting and are making their way toward us, Vice Chancellor Quillen among them.

“Holy Ancient One!” Priest Simitri exclaims, his black robes flapping behind him. “Elloren...who did this to you?”

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