Chapter 136: behind the anonymous message

Chapter 136 — Behind the Anonymous Message

Roxanne looked at the account again the next morning, in the thin grey light before the dormitory bell. The silver crest sat in its small circle, as unhelpful as it had been the night before. Hundreds of students could have used it. It was on every notice and every letterhead, and a person with a free minute could have copied it in seconds.

She considered asking the brothers whether they recognised it. The thought lasted about as long as it took to form. She did not need royal intervention every time someone sent her an unpleasant message, and she had no wish to hand them one more thing to carry on her behalf.

She showed Isla instead, while they were pulling on their uniforms.

Isla read both messages with her toothbrush still in her mouth. She spat, rinsed, and clapped her hands. "Give me ten minutes. I’ll find out who owns that number."

"And how exactly will you do that?"

"Confidence."

"That’s not a method."

"It’s the beginning of one."

Roxanne laughed, but she took the phone back before Isla could begin her campaign. "No campus-wide hunt. I want an answer, not another rumour with my name on it."

"You take all the fun out of detective work."

"I’ve had enough detective work to last me a lifetime."

Isla sighed theatrically and went back to her hair, and the matter might have rested there if Roxanne had not walked past the student centre that afternoon and seen Mason Reed standing alone on the steps with his phone in his hand.

He glanced at the screen, then at her, and put it away rather quickly.

She slowed. She remembered the volunteer meetings, and the way he had tapped his own phone against the table while he argued about layouts. She remembered the small silver crest on the corner of his screen when he had passed it around to compare timetables. She had not thought anything of it at the time.

She did not accuse him in front of the other students drifting past. She waited until the steps had emptied and walked over.

"Did you message me last night?"

Mason looked blank, then wary. "I don’t know what you mean."

She held out her phone. He read the screen, and the blankness drained out of his face, leaving something more tired and more honest.

"Yes," he said. "That was me."

Roxanne was annoyed, but not for the reason he probably expected. "I don’t mind that you had a question about Elena. I mind that you chose anonymous warnings instead of talking to me. Was there a reason you couldn’t use your own name?"

"I didn’t want you to think I was interfering."

"You sent me two mysterious messages from a blank account. That is a very odd way of not interfering."

Mason winced. "I handled it badly."

"Tell me what you actually know."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I overheard Elena talking to another visiting student. In the gallery, after the welcome. She was saying something about you, and about how she’d been curious to see you in person. I only caught part of it. And I heard from someone else that she’d been in some kind of dispute at her own academy." He shrugged unhappily. "I thought she’d come here to learn about you for her own reasons. I thought you might get dragged into somebody else’s drama."

"So you heard half a conversation," Roxanne said slowly, "filled in the other half yourself, and decided I needed a warning."

Mason opened his mouth and shut it again. He had no answer that would survive being said aloud.

"I was trying to help."

"I believe you. But concern doesn’t excuse spreading assumptions." She said it without heat. "If you think I’m in trouble, tell me to my face. Use your name. Then I can answer you, and you might find out you were wrong."

"That’s fair."

"It’s also free advice. Don’t make a habit of it."

His mouth twitched in something close to relief. "Understood."

She found Elena that evening in the corner of the library, a book open in front of her and not a page turned. Roxanne sat down across the table and told her all of it, plainly, without softening the parts that were awkward.

Elena went red from collar to hairline. "I’m so sorry. I hate that my problems followed me here."

"They aren’t a crime. Tell me what actually happened."

Elena folded her hands. "There was a decision in our student association, about who could join a committee. It excluded several students for no reason I could defend, so I objected. Out loud, in a meeting." Her voice wavered and steadied. "Some of my classmates decided I only wanted influence for myself. And once they’d decided, nothing I said changed it."

Roxanne listened without interrupting. Elena did not claim she had handled everything well. She only insisted that she had not come to Moonstone to use anyone.

"Then why didn’t you simply tell me?" Roxanne asked. "If you wanted to understand how I’d come through a bad story, why not say so?"

Elena’s gaze dropped. "Because I was afraid you’d say no before I’d had a chance."

Roxanne understood the fear. She had felt it herself, many times, standing at the edge of a conversation and wondering whether to speak. She did not say she approved of the choice.

"I might have said no," she admitted. "But at least it would have been my decision."

Elena nodded slowly. "You’re right. I’m sorry."

"Accepted."

Mason found them in the corridor an hour later, standing stiffly with his hands behind his back like a boy about to be marked. Roxanne, who had been walking Elena toward the dining hall, stopped a few paces off and made a decision. She would not manage this. She leaned against the wall and kept her mouth shut.

"Elena," Mason said. "I owe you an apology. I made assumptions about you that I had no right to make, and I acted on them in a cowardly way."

Elena looked at him for a long moment. She did not pretend the messages had been harmless. "Thank you for saying it."

"I don’t expect you to forgive me quickly."

"I’ll think about it." She tilted her head. "If you really want to help people, ask them questions before you decide what they deserve. That’s all. It’s a very cheap thing to do."

"I’ll remember," Mason said, and went away looking as though he meant it.

Elena came back to the wall and let out a long breath. "I’m all right. A little embarrassed. Mostly annoyed."

"Good. Annoyed is useful. It means you’re still thinking."

"Is that another of your famous life lessons?"

"No. That one was free."

Elena laughed, and they walked on toward dinner.

At the dining hall doors she stopped and turned. "Do you still want to meet up for the rest of the exchange? I’d understand if you’d decided I was more trouble than I’m worth."

Roxanne considered her honestly. She had not decided that Elena was perfect, or that they would become inseparable, or that the whole business had been worth the night’s sleep it had cost. But Elena had been honest when challenged. She had owned her mistake and respected a boundary. That was enough to give the friendship another chance.

"I’m still planning to take you to that bookshop," Roxanne said. "Unless you’ve decided I’m too much trouble."

"I was about to ask you the same thing."

"Then we’re agreed."

"We’re agreed."

They confirmed Thursday, and then Friday, and then a third afternoon that Elena claimed she could squeeze in if she skipped a lecture she described as ornamental.

Roxanne was halfway to her next class when her phone buzzed. A message from Liam.

Have you mysteriously acquired a new best friend without informing me? I hear things.

She typed back: Yes. We’re replacing you.

His answer arrived before she had taken three steps.

Impossible. I’m irreplaceable.

Roxanne smiled at the screen, put the phone in her pocket, and went to class.