Chapter 44: _ Capture The Sylven!

"Shall we please, maintain some decorum?"

High Rector Maddox didn’t shout, but her single word hushed everyone. She stood up from her central throne.

"This ball is meant to celebrate the new cohort, not turn into a judicial tribunal," the High Rector said, her eyes sweeping over the faculty. "Commander Clement, take your prisoners and your investigation outside. Resolve this quietly, and report to my chambers tomorrow."

Clement bowed his head. "As you command, High Rector."

He turned, gesturing to the wardens. They hoisted the protesting, weeping Tobin by his arms and dragged him toward the exit. As the boy passed me, he shot one fleeting, agonizing look in my direction—and for a fraction of a second, I almost felt guilty.

But-but I... we... were the bloody victims here!

I swallowed hard, my gaze drifting back up to the dais.

Prince Ivar was staring at the retreating Sylven with an expression of pure loathing. He looked more furious at Tobin than he had when I publicly screamed at him a minute ago.

Why? Why is the Wolf Prince so enraged by a timid Sylven boy?

My head was spinning. Miriel’s earlier words echoed mockingly in my mind—he’s the knight in shining armor.

Right. The Wolf Prince, a ruthless aristocrat who probably considered commoners beneath his shoe leather, had supposedly stalked us across the Academy and hidden in the shadows just to play the hero?

A virtuous man? A noble protector?

No. A virtuous man doesn’t use invisibility spells to trail three terrified first-years through a secluded path.

My eyes darted across the thrones.

Ivar was still glaring daggers at the exit. Beside him, the Tiger Prince sat leaning back against his cushions, watching me with an amused smile, as if he were enjoying a particularly entertaining play. To his left, Prince Remus sat completely still, his expression was a blank slate, though his eyes stayed on me for so long, I almost forgot how to move my legs.

And then I looked to the far end of the dais.

The seat where Raice had been sitting earlier was empty.

My heart did a violent, painful flip against my ribs. Where had he gone? Was he still spiraling in the dark? Did he blame me for... for our ridiculous... um...

Hold on!

What was it about these four terrifying princes that kept pulling me into their orbit like iron filings to a lodestone?

"Initiate No-One, Initiate Tudor, Initiate Windsor."

I jumped as Commander Clement’s voice broke my thoughts. He was standing right in front of us. "You three. Step outside with me now."

Every single senior student stared at us as we passed. Before we could even catch our breath, a sharp whack cracked across the side of my face.

"Ow!" I gasped, stumbling sideways as a thorny Sylven vine whipped back into the crowd of initiates.

Before I could recover, a cloud of glittering pink dust exploded right in Bren’s face. Bren coughed and her red hair instantly turned a tacky, sticky bubblegum pink as a cluster of giggling fairies darted backward into the crowd.

"Hey! What is the meaning of this?!" Miriel shrieked, batting at the air.

I whipped around, scanning the crowd of first-years and seniors. They were laughing behind their sleeves, turning away with feigned innocence.

It was a petty retaliation from the Fae factions—silly little magical pranks, but it does the job of humiliating my roommates and me. And in a crowd this massive, finding the culprits was like trying to spot a specific grain of sand in a desert.

Clement used his broad shoulders to shield us as he marched us out of the ballroom and down a quiet, torch-lit corridor away from the main hall. When we finally reached a secluded stone alcove, he stopped and turned to face us.

He let out a breath, running a hand down his face before offering an exhausted smile.

"Well," Clement murmured, his stern facade melted just enough to show a hint of approval. "That certainly cleared the room. Good work on signaling the guard, Elira, though shouting at the Wolf Prince in front of two hundred aristocrats was perhaps... slightly less tactical."

My face burned hotter than the Heartstone. "I thought he was Tobin! He was standing in the same spot, and he looked at me like—like..."

"Like you’d insulted his entire bloodline?" Clement supplied dryly.

"Yes!" I groaned, burying my face in my hands. "I’m dead. The Fae hate me, the Dragons want to dissect me, and the Wolf Prince is probably going to skin me alive and use my pelt as a hearth rug."

"He won’t skin you," a sugary voice chimed in.

Miriel beamed, looping her arm through mine. "Because, as I said, he’s clearly completely, madly infatuated with me. Why else would he be following us? A noble lady of my unique grace simply attracts attention..."

"Miriel, please, I am begging you to silence yourself before my brain explodes," I whimpered.

Bren, standing a little to the right, didn’t join in the bickering. She was leaning against the stone pillar next to Clement, her arms crossed over her chest. The flickering torchlight caught the angles of her jaw and the fiery red sheen of her hair.

"Let’s focus on the actual problem, shall we?" She said as she looked at Clement.

"Yes. We will question him overnight. You three should report to my office tomorrow morning at dawn for your official statements. Until then..."

Clement straightened up, clearing his throat and glancing back at the three of us, though his eyes seemed to bounce off Bren last.

"Head back inside. Get some food, try not to insult any more royals, and enjoy the rest of your night."

With a nod, Clement disappeared down the corridor.

We stood in silence for a long moment.

"Did you see the way he looked at her?" Miriel whispered loudly, elbowing me in the ribs while nodding toward Bren.

Bren’s cheeks flushed a shade of pink that clashed hilariously with her fiery red hair. "Shut up, Miriel."

"I’m just saying," Miriel grinned. "There is definitely a strategically high romantic tension happening there."

I let out a weak and exhausted sigh, leaning my head back against the wall. "Do we have to go back in there? Can’t we just head back to the Academy?"

"Alone?" Miriel’s eyes widened. "Hell no! Not to mention we will miss the main fun! The dance! Prince Ivar is going to ask me to dance and I’m not missing that for anything in the world!"

Bren shook her head. "Miriel, don’t you think it’s wise not to crush on the Prince who was stalking us under the shroud of invisibility? I don’t know, but... something’s not adding up."

I couldn’t help but agree. Even if he wasn’t Tobin, the fact remains that he was there that night and he’d been trailing us even before we got there.

"Why do you think he was there?" I blurted out melancholically.

Miriel shrugged. "To save us, obviously! Why else do you think the scary Tobin would have run? Because of you? Hell no!"

"Save us?" I repeated, raising a skeptical eyebrow as I picked a sticky piece of fairy dust out of my sleeve. "Miriel, he was hiding in the dark, watching us stumble towards our possible execution. That is not the behavior of a knight in shining armor. That is the behavior of someone who needs a mandatory restraining order."

"Details, details," Miriel waved a dismissive hand. "Every great romance begins with mild stalking and unwarranted suspicion. It’s a classic trope!"

Bren snorted, finally shaking off the pink dust clinging to her shoulders. "If your definition of a classic romance involves nearly being drained of your core by a shape-shifting predator, I’d hate to see what you consider a horror story."

"Whatever, you old hags. Let’s just go back inside."

"Go back inside?" I stared at Miriel as if she had suggested we jump off the bell tower. "Have you lost your absolute mind? The entire nobility in that room thinks I’m a cursed, dragonless lunatic who tried to challenge the Wolf Prince! If we walk back in there now, they’ll feed me to a pack of starved wargs!"

"And if we just wander the halls alone, we don’t know what awaits," Bren pointed out reasonably, though she didn’t look any more thrilled about the prospect than I did.

"Miriel has a point. Staying out here unsupervised after a security incident is a fast track to getting expelled—or worse."

I groaned, burying my face in my hands. She was right. The academy rules were strict, and sneaking off to our dorms without an official dismissal from the gala could easily be twisted into a punishable offense by the hostile faculty.

"Fine," I mumbled through my fingers. "We go back in. But I am walking with my head down, and if anyone looks at me funny, I am using Miriel as a human shield."

"Hey!" Miriel protested, though she was already smoothing down the front of her gown. "A noble lady does not act as a shield, Elira. We hold our heads high. Let them stare."

Easier said than done when three utterly strange princes await you inside.