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5
Raven
I wassurprised that the tour ended up being solo with Ms. Obscura. I had a feeling she was looking for a way to get one on one time with me but I wasn’t sure why.
As we walked down the stairs of the mage dorm, I couldn’t help but notice that she was limping a little. I wondered if she’d had an accident or if she had a health condition. Suddenly, I felt bad for freaking out about her wanting to see her sons married off. Maybe she just wanted to see her kids happy. She was very difficult to get a read on. One minute, she was kind and helpful, the next she seemed to be plotting something. All I knew was that I needed to be careful around her.
“This place always takes me back,” she said as we walked across the main hall. “I had a lot of great memories here. It’s where I met my husband and where I met my best friends, your mother included.”
“It’s a good school,” I said, not sure how to answer her. I liked it much better than being in a shitty apartment without heat. But there was the whole thing with a magic thief trying to kill me.
“It’s more than that,” she said. “It’s a way of life. A network that you establish and will utilize for the rest of your life.”
She led us to the stairs that went up to the fourth floor where the ball had been a couple of weeks ago. I followed her.
“You know, when I first married into the Obscura family, they were about to go under. Most of their businesses were failing and they were nearly bankrupt.”
“Really?” That was surprising based on what I saw of their wealth now.
“They had invested in several human tech companies that were going belly up.” She turned and glanced at me. “Never invest in human businesses. They are short sighted and they rarely plan for the future properly.”
“Good tip, thanks,” I said. Not that I’d ever have the kind of money she’s talking about.
“So I reached out to the connections I’d made as a student here and I scheduled meetings and introduced the Obscuras to some of the other great families.”
We were standing in front of the ballroom now. The double doors were closed. She leaned against them, pushing them open.
The room was missing some of its magic today. It was huge and the shiny wood floor was beautiful, but without the light from the sparkling chandeliers or the chatter of people, it was kind of sad.
“So many memories,” she said.
“I wish my memory of this room was better,” I said.
She turned to me, a frown on her face. “You’ll make a better memory here. They’ll hold a ball for the students who pass the trials. I expect you’ll be there. With both of my sons.”
I tensed, still not sure how to navigate her. “Ms. Obscura, you should know…”
She lifted a hand, stopping me from continuing. “I know. You’ve mated with two others. You haven’t decided if you want to be with my sons. But I’m confident that you will make smart decisions. You’re an intelligent woman. A survivor. Like me. The right choices aren’t always easy. You must be savage in your decisions if you want to succeed. And you have that streak. Even if you don’t see it yet.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said.
“Your mother didn’t have it. She was a hopeless romantic. Ran off with your father, got herself cut off from the family fortune.”
“Wait, what?” I blinked at her, shocked by this revelation. “I thought you said they were dead.”
“Better that my sons didn’t know this part,” she said. “Nobody should know this part.”
What could possibly be so bad that she didn’t want her own children to know?
She took a deep breath and then glanced around the room again before turning her gaze back on me.
“I can’t speak to your father’s side, but your mother’s parents disowned her for marrying your dad. A few years later, they were killed in an accident. They didn’t include your mother in their will.”
“They sound like they were total assholes,” I said without thinking.
She smirked. “They were. I can honestly tell you very few people missed them but there was a lot of drama around their money.”
“People get weird about money after someone dies,” I said.
