Chapter 1177: Who Stood Beside her

"How are you sure it was only Gervase who requested it?"

Elara held his gaze across the table. "Who else possesses the same motive?"

"That is not what I asked." Lucavion’s quiet laughter faded as he straightened in his chair. "Was Gervase named during the review?"

"No."

"Did Student Affairs tell you there was only one petitioner, or allow you to see the original request?"

Elara’s fingers remained against the covered formation plate. Each question removed something she had allowed the timing to supply. She had seen neither a name nor a formal petition. The officials had referred only to concerns raised regarding the consistency of the Caerlin records, and when Cedric pressed for their source, they had hidden behind administrative confidentiality.

"No," she admitted. "They revealed neither."

Lucavion did not seize upon the concession. Instead, he drew one of his loose pages from the stack and aligned its corner with the others. "Did they confirm that the Rotunda caused the review?"

"Not directly."

"Then what do you actually know?"

Elara disliked the question less than the answer it demanded.

"The review occurred soon after Gervase was refused before an audience. Its questions searched for weaknesses in precisely the identity he had failed to bring under his influence, and he possesses enough standing to ensure that such concerns receive attention." She leaned back without retreating from the conclusion. "None of your questions make him less likely."

"They do not."

The immediate agreement interrupted the response she had prepared.

Lucavion placed the aligned page down. "Gervase is a credible suspect. Given what happened between you, he may even be the strongest one."

"Then this distinction changes nothing."

"It changes whether you are examining a possibility or closing the matter after finding the first explanation that fits."

Elara’s eyes narrowed. "You are arguing over certainty while the practical danger remains the same."

"I am arguing that preparing for Gervase alone leaves you exposed to anyone standing behind the same request." His finger touched the edge of the covered plate, though he did not pull it toward himself. "You corrected me because I assumed his attention would settle upon me. That did not make my expectation meaningless. It made it incomplete."

The comparison landed with irritating precision.

Elara had not claimed Gervase innocent, nor had Lucavion denied the pattern she had traced. He had merely placed a boundary around what the evidence could support, much as she had separated the correct purpose behind his intervention from the consequences he had failed to account for.

’The strongest possibility is not the only possibility.’

She understood the distinction. Understanding did not make his manner of presenting it less aggravating.

"The timing still matters," Elara said. "So do motive and direction. Someone requested greater scrutiny shortly after Gervase failed to secure an association with Elowyn Caerlin. The inquiry searched for discrepancies that could be used against that same identity. Treating those facts as unrelated would be more foolish than suspecting him."

"I agree."

"Stop agreeing as though it proves me wrong."

A small trace of amusement returned to his eyes. "It proves that your reasoning is useful. Only the conclusion outran it."

Elara drew her hand away from the formation plate. Without the name of a petitioner, there was no final link between Gervase and Student Affairs—only a sequence persuasive enough that she had stopped searching once it led somewhere plausible.

Yet another possibility required another person with reason to examine her, influence enough to reach the Academy and knowledge sufficient to recognize what deserved scrutiny.

She looked directly at Lucavion. "Then, in the first place, who else would have any reason to request another examination of Elowyn Caerlin’s records?"

Lucavion did not answer immediately.

Instead, he rested one forearm upon the table and regarded her with the patience of someone preparing to approach the same problem from another direction.

"How did Elowyn Caerlin perform in the entrance examinations?"

"What do you mean, how did Elowyn Caerlin perform?" Elara asked.

Lucavion regarded her as though the answer should have been self-evident. "She placed eighth across the entire magic block. Her written examination score approached Thalor Draycott’s, and she performed well enough in practical control to make her overall placement difficult to attribute to a single fortunate result."

Elara’s irritation paused.

He had not merely heard her final ranking. He knew where the score had come from and how its separate portions compared with those of the highest-ranked student.

"You knew?"

A slow smirk appeared upon Lucavion’s face. "Did you believe you were the only one permitted to investigate people?"

"That is not an answer."

"It seems sufficiently clear."

He leaned across the space she had so carefully cleared between them. Elara expected him to indicate the covered formation plate again, but his hand rose past it. His fingers caught a loose strand of chestnut hair near her cheek, lifting it before it could fall across her face.

Her heart struck once against her ribs.

Lucavion’s smirk deepened when her eyes widened. "Eighth place suited you poorly."

Cold gathered before the warmth could reach her face. A thin piece of ice formed against the back of his hand and pressed his fingers away from her hair.

"Hehe..." Lucavion withdrew without resistance, settling into his chair as the ice dissolved against his skin. "Your control has improved as well."

"It was already sufficient to remove unwanted objects."

"And here I thought you were pleased that I paid attention."

Elara ignored the troublesome beat remaining in her chest. "You checked more than my placement."

"I checked enough." The amusement remained in his eyes, though his voice returned to the matter before them. "Your written results were nearly comparable to Thalor’s. What sort of education was Elowyn Caerlin supposed to have received?"

"Private instruction arranged through her household."

"From an obscure coastal barony with no recognized magical tradition," Lucavion said. "Then there was the Crystal Hall. How did her classification proceed?"

Elara understood where the questions were leading, but she answered regardless. "The crystal failed to assign an ordinary classification."

"Because her silver light did not behave like an ordinary affinity. Magister Selenne then examined you closely during the oral assessment."

"She examined several students."

"Not with equal interest." Lucavion rested his hand beside his notes. "And we were both present during the oral examinations. How many students with influential families watched Elowyn answer questions that her supposed education should not have prepared her to answer?"

More than Elara cared to count.

Some had merely observed. Others had concealed their interest poorly, particularly once her written performance became known. Even before the Rotunda, Elowyn Caerlin had already presented the Academy with a collection of irregularities: results exceeding her background, an affinity that resisted classification and composure beneath Selenne’s scrutiny that an unknown baron’s daughter should not necessarily have possessed.

"The Rotunda did not create those inconsistencies," Lucavion said. "It only placed them before many of the same people at once."

"That does not absolve Gervase."

"I am not absolving him." Lucavion’s gaze briefly passed over the strand of hair he had disturbed before returning to her eyes. "He may have made the first request. But the Academy already had institutional reasons to verify you. Another student’s household may have questioned your ranking. An examiner may have raised the Crystal Hall result. Someone present during the oral examination may have added a concern once Student Affairs began accepting them."

Elara looked toward the covered formation plate.

She had understood the scrutiny as a directed attack because noble pressure ordinarily possessed an author. Someone desired an outcome, applied influence and expected the institution to carry it forward. Gervase had motive, opportunity and sufficient standing. The sequence had appeared complete.

Lucavion was describing something less orderly.

One request could have given legitimacy to suspicions that already existed. Once the review began, several people might have contributed questions for entirely different reasons. The examination could possess a direction without having a single architect.

"So even if Gervase initiated it," Elara said, "the review may no longer belong solely to him."

"Precisely." Lucavion tapped the covered plate once. "One person displaced the anchor. Everyone else merely discovered where the pressure traveled."

She gave him a flat look. "Do not become pleased with yourself for understanding one lesson."

His smile suggested the warning had arrived too late.

Elara returned her attention to the implications. If Lucavion was right, stopping Gervase would not stop the scrutiny surrounding Elowyn Caerlin. It might not even reveal how far that scrutiny had spread.

"The Academy was already looking," she murmured.

Lucavion leaned back, watching her assemble the remaining pieces. "The Rotunda merely taught more people where to look."

That did not make Lucavion’s intervention harmless.

"You still gave those suspicions urgency," Elara said. "Before the Rotunda, I was merely an irregular student. Afterward, I became the subject of a public dispute involving Gervase."

"Possibly."

"Certainly." Her fingers pressed against the covered formation plate. "Whatever attention already existed, you gave it another reason to concentrate upon me."

Lucavion considered the accusation without retreating from it. "Then I failed to account for how quickly the Academy would gather its separate suspicions. That does not mean leaving Gervase beside you would have prevented them."

"I would have refused him."

"And made his rejection visible anyway." His expression lost its remaining amusement. "There was no path in which Elowyn Caerlin remained unnoticed after the examinations. There was only the question of who stood beside her once everyone began looking."

Elara started to answer, but Lucavion leaned forward.

"Do you truly believe the Academy would have stopped looking if you had accepted that man’s hand?"