Chapter 160: Pets Don’t Get a Vote

The words hung in the air.

Blair heard them a second after everyone else did, and her stomach turned to ice. She had said that. Out loud.

Killian stopped with his hand on the door.

He didn’t turn around at once. When he did, he did it slowly, the way a snake turns toward something that has moved in the grass.

"Agree," he repeated.

Blair fixed her eyes on the floor.

"You seem confused, human." His voice was quiet. "Nobody asked you."

Killian walked back across the armory. His footsteps were unhurried and very loud. He stopped in front of her, close enough that she could see the polished toes of his shoes and nothing else, because nothing in the world would have made her look up.

"You called me a thief," he said. "A thief of lessers."

Blair’s hands knotted together.

"I haven’t forgotten. I won’t forget." A pause. "And now you stand in a room I was invited into and tell me what you will and won’t agree to."

She said nothing.

"Pets don’t get a vote."

She said nothing.

"Answer me."

Her heart was slamming so hard it hurt. Her knees wanted to fold. Every part of her was begging her to say yes, Your Highness. To say anything at all that would make him go away.

But, she kept her mouth shut.

She could feel him waiting for her to break. She wondered, wildly, whether anyone had ever simply not answered him before.

The silence stretched.

Killian made a sound under his breath. It might have been a laugh. It wasn’t a nice one.

"You’re wasting my morning," he said, talking to the professor without taking his eyes off the top of her head. "You promised me something useful. This is a lesser who can’t say yes and hasn’t the spine to say no."

"She said no a moment ago," Jack observed. "Rather clearly."

A muscle jumped in Killian’s jaw.

"Keep your files. Keep your lesser. I’ll find him myself." He turned for the doors and slammed them shut behind him.

Blair’s legs gave out. She caught herself on the edge of the long table and stood there with both hands flat on the wood, breathing.

Jack watched her the way he watched students who handed in their essays late.

"Well," he said. "That was a disaster."

She couldn’t look at him. "I’m sorry."

"No, you aren’t. You’d do it again." His voice was flat. "You’ve insulted the Crown Prince twice in one week. The first time, he left curious. Curious is useful. Curious can be steered." He stood. "Insulted can’t."

"He’d already decided," Blair whispered. "About me. Nothing I said would have changed it."

"Nothing you said was ever going to change it. That was never the point." His eyes didn’t leave her. "He needed to be in a room with you, where I could watch what he did." Jack walked slowly around the table toward her. "Now he’ll do his hunting where I can’t see it."

Blair’s throat ached. Every day Killian hunted alone was a day nobody knew what he found. Every day was a day Heather didn’t have.

"Then I’ll work with you," she whispered. "Only you."

Jack stopped beside her.

"You chose to come here," he said at last. "You chose to refuse him. Now you’ll do as I say, when I say it, without a single I didn’t agree, Professor. Is that understood?"

She nodded.

"Say it, Ms. Willows."

"Yes," she whispered.

"Yes, what?"

Her face went hot. "Yes, Professor."

Something moved in his red eyes. He was close enough now that she could feel the warmth of him at her shoulder, though he didn’t touch her.

The last time he had stood this close, it had been high up in the tree behind his house. He hadn’t kept his hands to himself for long.

"My office," he said. "Tonight. Nine o’clock."

Her heart stumbled. Students didn’t go to professors’ offices at nine at night. Not for anything they could tell anyone about.

He reached into his coat, drew out her History exam, and held it out between two fingers.

"Graded," he said.

Blair took it and fled.

She didn’t open it until she was halfway down the East Wing stairs. Then she stopped under a window and unfolded it with shaking hands.

Red ink at the top. 81.

Beside Question 12: You know the answer. Next time, write it.

She folded the paper in half, then in half again.

"Eighty-one?"

Blair jumped. Daemus was taking the stairs two at a time, his bag hanging off one shoulder and his hair sticking up as if he’d been dragging his hands through it for an hour.

"You’re out early," she said.

"Finished early." He reached her step and leaned over her shoulder, completely unashamed, to look at the paper. "Is that out of a hundred?"

"Yes."

"That’s amazing."

"It’s not."

"I’ve never gotten an eighty-one in my life. On anything." He looked offended on her behalf.

She almost smiled. "Did you check your signs?"

"Twice." He held up two fingers.

Then he looked at her properly, and his grin faded.

"What happened?"

She could have said nothing. She’d been doing it all morning.

But she had promised him. So she told him about all that had just happened.

"And you said?" His voice had gone very low.

"Nothing." She swallowed. "I didn’t say anything. I just didn’t do it."

Daemus stared at her.

Then he laughed, a short, stunned sound, wrapped both arms around her, and lifted her clean off the step.

"Daemus!"

"You stonewalled the snake prince." He was grinning into her hair. "To his face."

"People can see us."

"Let them." But he set her down carefully and kept one hand at the small of her back, as if she might tip over. She thought she might.

"The professor wants me in his office tonight," she whispered. "At nine. To go through the files, I think."

The hand at her back went still.

Daemus looked down the empty staircase for a long moment. A muscle worked in his jaw. "Okay," he said finally.

"Really?" She looked up, startled.

"I’m walking you there." He hitched his bag higher. "And I’m waiting outside."

Her face went scarlet. "Daemus..."

"Not right outside," he added quickly, with great dignity. "Down the hall. Way down the hall."