Page 173 of Zenith Court

Sabine waited for the correction.

None came.

“Its offices and enforcement authority no longer exist,” Rector Vey continued. “No lineage appointment, assigned term of service, bond arrangement, or academic precedence deriving solely from Council record will be enforced in its name. Any such agreement must be renewed directly by the people named in it.”

Lineage appointment meant the Dacre chair. Service meant Marek. Bond meant Lucan. Precedence meant the circlet biting behind her ears.

A first-year at the end of the lowest row backed into the student behind her. Sabine raised her voice. “Hold your lines. Leave the center aisle clear.” The order came automatically. The room obeyed.

“On whose authority?” her mother demanded.

“By the Court’s own recorded dissolution,” Rector Vey said. “One copy was entered under its old name. The other was entered under Astra Verita.”

Sabine knew the name. Everyone did. The Untethered servant from Zenith Hall. The Tower prisoner. The woman who had walked into the Conclave with three completed bonds and made old families answer questions from people who should never have been permitted to ask them.

Sabine had never seen her face.

She knew immediately that she hated her.

“Finish the investiture,” Sabine said.

Rector Vey’s eyes came back to her. “The First Laurel carries precedence by Council charter.”

“I placed first.”

“After lineage weighting,” Ivo said.

Sabine turned her head. The movement drove one narrow point of the circlet into her skin.

Ivo stepped out of his row. No one stopped him. “If precedence no longer comes through the old record, the examinations should be counted without it.”

“This is not your investiture,” Sabine said.

Ivo looked at the circlet. “No.”

Lucan’s hand closed briefly around Sabine’s wrist before she could step off the gilt line. It was the first unscripted thing he had done all morning. He released her at once.

“Not here,” he said.

She looked at the hand he had withdrawn. The Rook bond agreement had been signed when they were fourteen. Their parents had selected the ceremony date before Sabine and Lucan had shared a meal without supervision. He had kissed her exactly twice, both times competently, and she had mistaken the absence of reluctance for certainty.

“Do you intend to renew?” she asked.

His face changed by so little that anyone else might have missed it.

“You’ve had the terms for years,” she said.

“So have you.”

“And?”

Lucan looked down at their matching cuffs. “I need time, Sabine.”

He stepped far enough to the side that their cuffs no longer touched.

Behind her, a pin clicked open.

Marek had removed the Dacre star from his collar. He held it between two fingers, the pin open.