Chapter 136: Pop Quiz!

Blair’s stomach turned over.

"What the hell is that?" Daemus leaned over to look, then recoiled. "Is that a tooth?"

"It is Rain’s," Killian casually said. "She harmed my pet, and then she lied to me about it." He opened his textbook to the first page. "She has been punished."

Daemus’s jaw dropped. "You pulled out her fang?"

"She will grow another." Killian clicked his pen. "Eventually."

Blair looked down at the fang in the little velvet bed. She closed the lid very, very carefully. That snake beastwoman was definitely going to kill her now.

Killian did not teach the way Jack did.

Jack lectured. He paced. He explained things in long paragraphs, and then he expected you to remember every word.

Killian asked questions.

"Beast Law," he announced, flipping open a textbook. "Chapter one. Under the Treaty of the Seven Factions, who holds jurisdiction over river territory?"

Blair stared at the table. "The aquatic factions," she said quietly. "Unless the river crosses a royal border. Then it belongs to the Crown."

Killian turned a page. "How many seats does each faction hold on the High Council?"

"Three. Except the royal faction, which holds five."

"Which faction was last to sign the Treaty?"

"The avian factions. Forty years after the others."

"Why?"

"They didn’t want to give up the sky."

Killian paused.

He flipped several pages at once. His questions came faster. Blair answered every one of them to the table, in the same small, quiet voice, without ever lifting her eyes.

At the head of the table, Daemus looked back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match. "How do you guys remember all that?"

"Be quiet, wolf," Killian said. Then, to Blair, sharper: "Look at me when you answer."

Blair’s pen froze.

"Why?" Daemus demanded. "She’s getting them all right."

"It is rude," Killian said, "to speak to the table."

"You talk to people like they’re furniture."

Killian ignored him. He was watching Blair.

She forced her eyes up until she met his gaze.

"Which statute allowed humans to sit the academy’s entrance exam?" Killian asked.

And suddenly, Blair was annoyed.

Not scared. Annoyed. A hot, prickly irritation rushed up her neck out of nowhere. The question was easy, it was insultingly easy, and he knew it was easy, and why was he asking it like that, with that look on his face, as if she was some...

"The former King’s Admission Decree," Blair snapped.

Then she clapped both hands over her mouth.

The dining room went silent.

Daemus’s eyebrows shot straight up to his hairline. Killian didn’t move at all.

Blair’s gaze dropped back to the table so fast her neck hurt. The strange heat drained out of her as quickly as it had come, and the terror rushed back in to replace it.

"I-I’m sorry," she whispered through her fingers. "I don’t know why I... I’m so sorry."

Killian was quiet for a long moment. Then he turned the page.

"Correct," he said.

An hour later, Daemus was asleep.

He had lasted longer than Blair expected. He had tried to follow along, frowning so hard at the textbook that his eyebrows nearly touched. But somewhere around the section on inter-faction marriage law, his head had started to droop. Now it was resting on his folded arms, his mouth slightly open, a small puddle of drool forming on the corner of Chapter four.

He was snoring.

Killian stopped mid-question and looked at him.

Then he picked up his silver pen and uncapped it.

Blair’s eyes went wide. "Wh-what are you..."

Killian leaned over, very carefully, and drew a thin, curly mustache on Daemus’s upper lip.

Blair stopped breathing.

Daemus mumbled something in his sleep and smacked his lips. Killian waited, pen poised, perfectly still, until the wolf settled again. Then he added a small pointed beard to his chin.

He sat back to admire his work. Then he looked across the table at Blair and lifted a single finger to his lips.

Their eyes met.

And a bubble of glee burst in Blair’s chest, bright and fizzy and completely out of nowhere. It was the delicious, wicked delight of getting away with something. It bubbled up her throat before she could stop it.

She giggled.

It came out as a tiny, snorting squeak. Blair slapped a hand over her mouth, horrified.

Killian stared at her.

For the first time since he’d walked through the front door, the Crown Prince looked genuinely caught off guard. His lips parted slightly. His forked tongue flicked out once, then disappeared.

Then Blair’s gaze dropped to the table again, and the fizzy feeling vanished like someone had popped it with a pin. The fear came flooding back in.

She didn’t understand. She didn’t find this funny. She was horrified. The Crown Prince had just defaced the Wolf Prince in his sleep, and if Daemus woke up and found out she had laughed, he would...

Well. He would probably laugh too. But that wasn’t the point.

"Page ninety-two," Killian said. His voice sounded slightly strange. "Inter-faction adoption."

Blair flipped to page ninety-two with trembling fingers.

They broke for lunch at noon.

Blair fled to her room, shut the door, and sat down on the edge of her bed with her heart pounding.

She pressed her hands to her cheeks. They were still warm.

She had snapped at the Crown Prince. She had giggled at the Crown Prince. She had never done either of those things to any beastman in her entire life, let alone to the most terrifying beastman she had ever met.

Blair frowned.

The annoyance. The glee. They hadn’t felt like hers. They had come out of nowhere, too fast and too strong, and then vanished the second she looked away from his gaze. Like a draft through an open window.

Like someone else’s feelings had walked into her body.

Outside her door, she heard Daemus wake up with a loud snort. There was a pause. Then, from the direction of the hallway, a howl of pure outrage.

"KILLIAN!"