Our rescuing the Dragon had led to Galeran. I hadn’t made that connection until this moment. I sensed awe from Matt—he hadn’t either.
Ash had been right about that. I had to trust him now.
My eyes pricked with tears. Holding her bright-blue gaze, I nodded my promise.
* * *
We picked at our breakfast as we sat with Mari and listened to Cody give students another two-day hiatus from classes due to “unforeseen circumstances.”
The place was already abuzz with rumors and theories. And, of course, it was impossible to disguise the sudden influx of Sabres and Dragons to the third floor.
I repeatedly tried to contact Sebastian, and was met with the same wall of silence every time. Trix had picked up on my mood, and lay beneath my chair. Mari, the pacifist ogre, had been all keen to go after Sebastian, until I’d told her that Ash had said for us not to.
Her heavy brows drew down. “That is unnecessarily mysterious.”
“I don’t think it is deliberate,” I said.
“Deciphering those timelines sounds damned difficult,” Matt growled as he dumped his allotment of crystal dust onto a dumpling. “I’m not sure we should listen to him this time.”
“Me neither.” Mari lifted her chin.
I wasn’t biting. Matt might be willing to risk himself, but I wasn’t. Sometimes being a good leader meant knowing when not to fight.
Mari’s eyes dropped to my rings, and she admired the beautifully wrought Dire’s head and the Angel’s wings. “It is stunning.” She glanced to Matt. “You have excellent taste, for a Dire.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Without a class to attend, the students filtered slowly out of the cafeteria. We returned to the dorm so Matt could drop off his jar of dust. As we descended past the third floor, we ran into a group coming up the stairs.
I froze.
“Crikey,” Matt muttered.
Bellatis advanced toward us, forming a ring around the five willowy women who climbed the stairs. They were dressed in flowing silver robes that swirled around them as though caught in an invisible wind, and their long, white hair lifted off their shoulders as their impassive gazes scanned the four of us.
Power. I drowned in it, pure energy that expanded from them to swamp me. My beast sat up and drank it in greedily, as though it could never have enough. But I couldn’t hold on to any of it. I needed to be touching them to absorb it.
The five pairs of bright-blue eyes scanned Trix and Mari and moved to Matt before they fastened upon me. And they all stopped dead to stare.
“Councilor,” Cara’s voice floated past us as she hurried to meet her brethren. “I didn’t realize you would attend in person.”
The tallest Watcher—surely that was what she was—turned to Cara. “The Elder council felt personal representation was in order,” she said. “Galeran is, after all, our responsibility. Returning him to stand trial for his crimes is our primary goal.”
Cara’s eyes flashed. “That may neither be possible nor advisable,” she stated. Her eyes darted to me, and away, just as quickly. “But we will discuss this inside, shall we?” She gestured to them, and the entire procession swept past us and up the stairs.
“That was dodgy as hell,” Matt whispered to me. “Bring Galeran to trial? They need toobliteratehim.”
I agreed. If the Liberi Elders want Galeran to be captured rather than killed, things could get dicey in a hurry. Now even more unsettled, we descended to the ground level and walked, rather than ran, the trail around the lake.
Partway along, Mari declared her intent to go, as she put it, bobbing.
“Aren’t you afraid of that fish?” I asked.
“Nope.” She pointed to the knife at her belt. “If he tries it again, I’ll give him a good poke. He’ll learn to leave me alone.” And with that, she waded in.
“She’s brave,” I said.
“Well, it helps that she has skin like an elephant,” Matt pointed out.
