This is worse than I thought.
I put my comm away.
Then I go to find her before someone else does.
CHAPTER 30
LYN
I findout the way I find out everything important: second-hand, too late, and in the middle of trying to eat lunch.
Riley sets his tray down across from me, and before he even sits, he says, "Have you talked to Rhyss today?"
Something in his voice makes me put down my fork.
"Not since this morning," I say. "Why?”
He sits. He has the look he gets when he's trying to figure out whether to say the thing, which means he's already going to say the thing, just slowly. I hate it when he does that. "There's a thing going around," he starts. "About the committee meeting."
"He had it this morning," I say. "He said it would be fine."
"Uh-huh," Riley says. He pokes at his food. "So you haven't heard."
I put both hands flat on the table. "Riley."
"He's on administrative leave," he says. "Effective today."
I sit with that for a second.
Just a second.
Then I push back from the table and leave my lunch exactly where it is.
Rhyss findsme before I find him, which is annoying, because I had a whole walk worked out. A whole furious, preparing-my-argument, talking-to-myself-under-my-breath walk through Mythara Village. I get approximately one block into it before he's just…there. Coming around the corner from the direction of the university, satchel over one shoulder, looking like a man who has just done something he has no intention of apologizing for.
I stop walking.
He stops walking.
We look at each other.
"Administrative leave," I say.
"Yes."
"As of today."
"Yes."
"Because you—" I press my fingers to my mouth for a second, because the specific shape of what I want to say is still assembling itself and I need it to come out in the right order. "You walked out of the committee meeting."
"I did."
"After telling them off."
A beat. "That's one characterization of events."
"Kaelion."
