Page 70 of Storm Caller

No one responds as she looks around, seeking agreement from the audience.

“Why did it take you a week to report what you saw?” Chancellor Orsen asks. “It wasn’t until the masquerade that you made your accusation public.”

Trinity chokes on a sob, still wringing her hands.

“She’s my friend,” she whispers. “I wasn’t sure at first. I . . .”

“You allowed your loyalty to cloud your judgment and the potential safety of everyone at Amery,” Marks says. “Is that correct?”

Trinity opens her mouth and closes it. Then she nods. I hear her sniffle. She’s crying, and that, more than anything, makes me want to walk over and choke her. Maybe punch her in the face. How fucking dare she?

She’s the one who did this, and she has the nerve to stand there and cry?

She might get reprimanded, maybe serve a light sentence, but she’ll probably be fine. It’s my life on the line.

“What made you decide to speak up?” Sol asks, folding her hands.

Trinity sniffles and wipes the corner of her eye. “Lieutenant Dire. I confided to him what I’d seen, and he understood the truth. He told me I had to bring the accusation to everyone. That it was my duty not only as a citizen of New Manhattan but as a future Extinguisher.”

“You’ve known the accused a long time. Was there anything in your shared history to suggest she was different?” Orsen asks. “Before that day, had you ever had . . . suspicions?”

Trinity doesn’t say anything for a long time, and I hold my breath.

She cries harder, her shoulders shaking. Then I scoff. I can’t help myself. She glances at me with her bloodshot eyes, tears tracking down her face, her nose bubbling with snot. She’s never looked more pathetic.

“She was always . . . weird,” Trinity whispers, and those words knife straight through my chest with another sharp stab of betrayal. “Always twitchy whenever a storm came. I couldn’t say for certain, but something was different about her.”

We regard each other. Did she really feel this way? Among her many transgressions against me, this one might hurt the most. Was she ever my friend at all?

Then she turns away. “I don’t know if I suspected anything, but she wasn’t . . . isn’t . . . normal.”

Then she breaks down, crying so hard that she doubles over, barely able to catch her breath. My hands ball into fists, and I bite my lip until I taste blood.

“We’re finished with her,” Marks says with a wave, his mouth curling into a sneer. Lieutenant Dire and his partner walk over and drag Trinity to the corner, where she tries to pull herself together.

“Next witness,” says Marks, and the door opens again to reveal the same redheaded Storm Guard who was also present during my test. She’s dressed in tactical gear, including her purple harness.

“Lieutenant Danica Stephens,” General Sol says. “Did you witness Cadet Graves the day of the exam in question?”

“Yes,” she says. “I was instructed to keep an eye on the students to ensure everyone was safe.”

“Do you recall seeing the accused at the moment described by Recruit Robins?”

Danica nods, and I perk up. Was she close by, too?

“I do,” she says. “I believe Cadet Graves was struck as Robins suggests.”

My heart plummets to my feet.

“However,” she continues, “due to the nature of Storm Guard training, this is a normal occurrence. Sometimes we are hit with very light charges, but given that we’ve spent time building up a tolerance, it doesn’t affect us the same way it does an average civilian.”

“And was this dose a light charge?”

“I believe so,” Danica says with a confident nod. “I saw it hit her shoe, but she was wearing rubber-soled boots designed to ground charges into other surfaces. In this case, the wooden platform. Combine all those factors, and I saw nothing unusual. The Sparks dissipated immediately.”

“Did she put them out?” General Sol asks, leaning forward. “As attested by Recruit Robins?”

Danica shrugs. “It’s a natural reaction when Spark touches you to try and tamp them out as you might with fire, but they were already gone before she even tried. It all lasted less than a second.”