Page 66 of Raven’s Fight

I am present.

I sleep.

Chapter 23

Raven

I send the message through Orpheus at the sixth hour of the evening.

Not hand signs. A note, plain, slipped under his door while he was in his last class. It says: Suite. Eighth hour. Bring Bella and Azalea. Nothing else. He doesn't need more than that. He has known most of the shape of this for weeks, and the note tells him the managing is over and the knowing starts tonight.

I have been deciding when to tell them for two months. Not whether. Never whether — my siblings deserve to be told, and Orpheus in particular has been circling the edges of it in the signs we've traded all term, close enough to the whole picture that keeping it from him has been a small ongoing dishonesty I've been carrying around. The decision was only ever about when. Too early and they spend weeks holding something they can't act on, which wears at a person. Too late and they don't have time to take it in and adjust, to become the version of themselves that has absorbed this rather than the version that just heard it.

The night before is right. One night is enough to absorb. Not enough to overthink.

They arrive in order. Orpheus first, which is typical, then Bella and Azalea together, which is also typical. They arrange themselves with the ease of people who have shared rooms for twenty-three years and settled the question of who sits where a long time ago. Nobody discusses it. It simply happens.

I stand.

"Three fire drake plants in the student body," I say. "Enrolled through Anipe's office over the past eighteen months on invented papers. They've been deliberately staying away from all of you — steered, not coincidence. They aren't here for sport and they aren't here for Purge standing. They have one target and they have been extremely patient."

I let that land.

"They're here for you," Orpheus says. Not a question.

"Yes. There's a fourth, separate — a third-year transfer, also on invented papers. I think his work is different from theirs. Watching rather than fighting, probably. I'm still confirming. Don't take on any of them directly unless there's no other option."

"Samara," Orpheus says.

"Also hunting me during the Purge. She spent a night in the restricted archive photographing the founding charter, looking for original language about faculty conduct that the current rules never expressly struck down."

"Does the original language give her grounds?" Bella asks. Her voice is level — Ziggy's calm, the flatness that is simply the absence of panic.

"Probably not. It's ambiguous enough that anyone could argue it either way. But she's going to try regardless, which means I deal with her during the Purge instead of after."

"Anipe," Azalea says. She's been quiet, listening, hands folded around the pillow in her lap. "She's the one running the paper side."

"Yes. Balor is building the record. After the Purge he'll have everything Klauth needs. During the Purge she's mine." I look at the three of them. "Here's the plan. I'm the most visible target on those grounds. I stay visible, I stay central, and I let all of it come to me instead of scattering across a hundred students. The fire drakes, Samara, Anipe — all of them come to me. You three and everyone else are out of it."

"Which puts you in the middle of four separate threats at once," Orpheus says. Level. Also not a question.

"Four threats converging on one known position is a simpler problem than four threats moving freely across the whole grounds. It's the right call."

He holds my eyes a moment with the basilisk assessment that has never been entirely comfortable, even between us. Then: "You should have told us sooner."

"I'm telling you now."

A beat. He nods.

This is one of the things I love in Orpheus. He makes his point once, takes the answer, and moves on. He doesn't need the long argument or the last word. He said the true thing. I heard it. We go on.

Bella is looking at me with the face she wears when she's decided to say something. "Are you scared?"

"No."

She considers that. "Good," she says. "That's good."

"You don't believe me."