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I can’t help giving him a hug, too, even though he looks pained as he accepts it.
“Normal freshman with normal problems from here on, right?” he says, holding me by the shoulders after I step back from the hug.
“Right, mate.”
I mean it. I doubt it’ll happen. But in this moment, all I want are normal problems for the next three years.
He shakes his head at me.
The party, compared to our ball, is damn tame. No fist-fights. No broken punch bowl. No shotgun engagements. I’d say it’s a yawner, but it’s actually a dead good time. Food’s tasty and exactly what I want after all those dinners that involved “foam.” Charlie’s DJing; he plays all our favorite songs. Between Rachel, Serena, and my boys, there’s always someone to dance with. When all the bodies packed into our flat and the dancing makes us too sweaty, we run out into the back for a quick snowball fight. Darwin and Charlie warm me up when I come back in with frozen fingers and toes.
Lots of people come to congratulate me on our handfasting and the ones who don’t approve, who look at my rings and whisper behind their hands, they get ushered out of the flat dead quick by the boys.
Even Lords smiles, although he casts dark glances at the keg rack from time to time.
Since I figure foosball will get Lords’s mind off the under-age drinking, I grab Gabe and challenge him and Rachel.
We’re in the middle of battling out the best of three when the front door bangs. Most of our guests know to come through the back door, but the front one’s open for the party. I don’t think much of it until three men in white cloaks stride into the man cave.
“Evan Lords?”
Lords turns slowly from the foosball table. “Justicars?”
One of them takes a pair of silver manacles off his belt. “Evan Lords, by order of the Aedis Astrum, you’re under arrest.”
Lords’s eyes narrow, but he holds out his hands and lets the Mage Council’s justicar clamp the cuffs around his wrists without protest.
“Wait,” Rachel cries. “What’s going on? What are the charges?”
“The murder of Hector Gravka,” the justicar says.
“No!” Rachel grabs at Lords’s shoulder. “Evan? What’s happening?”
“Do you know this student?” the justicar asks Lords. “Who is she to you?”
Lords looks at Rachel. His brows pinch together and he gives the tiniest shake of his head. Then he turns back to the justicar. “Just a student. I’ll go with you willingly. Lead the way.”
The three white cloaks bracket Lords between them and march him toward the front door.
I catch Rachel as she bolts after him. “Don’t. He did that on purpose to keep you out of it. Don’t throw that away. He didn’t kill Gravka. We both know he’s innocent. We’ll get him out, Rach.”
She clings to me. “Teddy.”
My boys surround us, chests against our backs, arms around our shoulders, adding their deep voices to mine as I comfort Rachel.
A tiny part of me is relieved Gravka’s gone. A much, much bigger part of me fills with worry. Lords said murder was the one thing that couldn’t be forgiven. But he also said being The Mr. Black was too much for one person to contain. And I saw what he was willing to do when he thought I’d have to kill Da.
What if Gravka threatened me and Lords crossed the line?
If he’s sentenced to Karkarus, that mage supermax he sent DeWinter to, how will we ever get him free?
From Capricorn
Evan
A guard, red-robed and faceless behind a red enamel helmet, bangs on the bars of my cell. “Come on, Lords.”
I lift my head from the letter I’m reading, so old and well-read that the parchment’s worn through at the creases.
