Page 14 of Legacy Elite

Voss laughs. Actually laughs, once, and Falken gives him a look that suggests they will be discussing it later.

Then they start on procedure.

Notify the Council. Faris will pull together everything the academy holds on direwolves and start the archival work. Falken will manage whatever gets said publicly. Voss will handle what he calls campus posture, which I assume means stopping people from being stupid. Someone will begin on my family records.

And someone will find me a different bed for next year.

"Miss Miller." Faris, from the end of the table, not looking up from her notes. "One thing, so you aren't waiting for it. The records work I've described takes months. Parish registers, civil archives, three countries at minimum, most of it held by people who do not answer letters quickly."

"How many months?"

"The summer. Probably past it."

"So nothing happens."

"A great deal happens. None of it where you can see it." She turns a page.

"We'll also ask you not to discuss the details of the research with anyone until it's concluded," Falken says. "And that you stay at your old address over the summer rather than travel. The Council will want to be able to reach you."

"So don't tell anyone and don't go anywhere."

"Yes," Falken says.

"I'm serious about the other five."

Falken looks at me.

"I know."

"No. I don't think you do." I put both hands on the table. "You can investigate my family. You can call the Council. You can figure out what a direwolf means and why I'm one and whatever else apparently needs a committee now. But I'm not starting over."

Nobody says anything.

"Those five are my people," I say. "Wherever you're putting me, you figure out how they fit too."

Falken studies me for a moment.

"I can't promise you that."

"That’s going to be a problem."

Chapter three

Jessica

The gates and guard house come up out of the trees exactly the way they did last September, and I realize I missed this place.

I'm not going to say that out loud. Sophia would want to know whether I missed the academy or missed specific people at the academy, and she would never let it go.

Last year I got out of a van here and thought: I do not belong here.

This year I get out and think: there's my school.

"Okay," Sophia says, hauling a bag out of the back that is roughly the size of Declan. "I need everyone to prepare themselves emotionally, because I have not seen a bathroom with water pressure since June."

"You lived above a café," Renzo says.

"I lived above a café with terrible water pressure. Do not diminish my suffering."