Page 97 of Legacy Ascended

Natasha doesn't even have to look at the page. “Because a settlement is a legal instrument, not a friendship. You draft for what happens when the other party behaves badly. That isn't suspicion. It's competence.”

“Jessica?”

“Because winning together isn't the same as trusting each other. And you can tell from where the drafting gets fussy. The clause about seats is narrow. It only matters if a House is removed and its seats get redistributed, which is a very specific thing to write down about something that had happened exactly once.”

“Support it.”

“You write a rule that narrow when somebody in the room has just watched it happen and worked out what it was worth.”

“Natasha?”

“She's got it backwards,” Natasha says. The edge is gone from her voice now. “The seats clause is narrow. The property clause isn't. It's general, and it has no trigger in it at all. If they were really aiming at one House, why is the money the general one?”

I open my mouth and close it again.

That's a good question.

“Say it again.”

“The property clause is general. The seats clause isn't.”

I look down at my notes. “Then the seats clause is the safe one,” I say slowly. “Everybody signs that because, in principle, the House being limited is somebody else's. The property clause had to stay general, because you can't make the money specific without naming the House you're actually worried about.”

Faris taps the chalk once against the board. “That's an inference.”

“Yes.”

“A reasonable one. Still an inference. What would make it a claim?”

“The drafting record for the property clause.”

“Then that's your essay.”

Faris writes property clause — drafting record on the board and moves on.

“Declan. The enforcement clause. And don't tell me it's a formality.”

Declan sits up. “I wasn't going to.”

“You were absolutely going to.”

Sophia laughs.

“Why isn't it a formality?”

He gets there eventually. Sophia interrupts him twice to argue, Faris lets her, and by the end of the hour I have four pages of notes and haven't thought about the archive once.

Natasha catches me in the corridor outside, where her mother can't hear her.

“Three Great Houses and a professor at the academy,” she says pleasantly. “That's not a love life. That's a committee. You really think nobody's noticed?”

“You'll have to ask them. I don't answer for them.”

“That's convenient.”

“It's true.” I keep walking and get halfway down the corridor before I realize my jaw hurts.

Sophia catches up with me halfway down the corridor.