Chapter 149 Dorian’s Last Page

Dorian reached the copy first, striding down the cleared road with his notebook open and his chin high.

"He is walking straight at it," Cassen said, gripping Giltknife, "should I stop him?"

"Let him talk," Riven murmured, "men like Dorian always sign their own confessions."

The cleared road ran straight to the heart-grove, lined with dropped swords and puddles of fading morning light. At its far end the copy stood exactly where it waited before, sword down, listening to approaching steps.

"Good morning, I have brought you the correct ending," Dorian announced cheerfully.

Dorian stopped three paces from the copy and bowed slightly, the way a clerk bows to a customer. He opened the notebook to a page marked with a red ribbon, reading aloud in a recital voice.

"Page ninety-one, the villain’s death," Dorian read, "silence on the count of three, white on four."

"The blade enters at the left hip, climbs at forty degrees, passes beneath the fourth rib."

Closing the notebook with a snap, he finished, "Follow it exactly and the book will do the rest."

"Permission to strike the notebook?" Veska asked quietly from the line.

"Denied, the notebook is evidence."

Behind the line Zero went rigid, every hand tightening on its weapon as Dorian’s voice carried across the road. Veska lowered her spear half an inch, as though testing how far lightning could stretch to reach a notebook.

’He’s giving it the page... the one thing the copy never learned from me.’

The copy listened without expression, memorizing each figure as though it were reading its own name. Its white wound seemed to deepen, the edges drawing tighter along the exact angle Dorian described.

"Thank you," the copy said, "that is useful."

"Why would you give me the page?" the copy asked, its voice perfectly level.

"The villain is meant to die," Dorian said, bowing again, "and you are the only version who agrees with the book."

Riven listened to every figure with a strange calm, the answer key he once begged for arriving much too late. Dorian meant it as a knife, but a blade described in advance is only a lesson with a sharp edge.

"He just handed me the answer key," he murmured, "a hundred Chapters late."

"Do you know what you will do with it?" Yukine asked, barely moving her lips.

"I know exactly what it’s worth, which is nothing if I stand where he says."

Class One crept down from the ridge to the roadside, drawn by a voice nobody could ignore. Pryce stood in front with his enormous hat clutched to his chest, listening to every single word.

At the grove’s edge Lucas lifted his voice, the brass token chiming so the whole ridge could hear him.

"I witness: Dorian handed the dead man the knife."

"I witness also that Dorian smiled while he did it."

The Record chimed once, the words settling over Class One like a dust sheet thrown over very old furniture. Every cadet on the ridge looked at Dorian, then at the page in his hand, then very slowly away.

"A clerical matter," Dorian said smoothly, "the record will be cor—"

"I witness: it will not, I do not correct what I see," Lucas said.

"You gave it the blade, I heard every word," Sorrel whispered.

"He sold the villain to a tree," Ormond added, "and now he is coaching the villain’s twin."

"Is anyone else hearing the cheating?" Tamsin asked, to nobody in particular.

"I am revising my opinion of that notebook," Pryce said stiffly, "and of the man holding it."

Dorian closed his notebook and walked back along the ridge, his stride faster than a man with nothing to hide. No one blocked his path, though several cadets slid a half step away as he passed, whispering behind their hands.

---

At the edge of the grove Riven faced the seven on his beat and told them to stay.

Nobody argued aloud, though every face on that road found a different way to refuse him in silence.

"It’s my ending, I sign it myself," he said.

"Objection noted and overruled by the objector," Veska replied, "I will log it."

Yukine stepped in front of him and straightened his collar, a gesture she never once offered to anyone. Her gloved fingers lingered a half second too long, brushing the frost her signet left on his hand.

"Black is not finished with white," Yukine said, tugging the last fold flat, "so do not resign."

"I never resign, I only sacrifice a piece for a better position."

"That is precisely what frightens me," she said, stepping back.

Isolde tied a single thread of light around his wrist, pulling the knot tight with two precise tugs. The thread glowed gold against his skin, warm as a held hand, humming in time with his pulse.

"For procedure," Isolde said, not meeting his eyes, "it does nothing, I merely wished to tie it."

"Do not break the thread, I will know the moment it happens."

"It’s warm, I can feel it in my back teeth," Riven said, turning his wrist in the light.

’A thread for procedure... she’s the least procedural person alive.’

Nix lifted the Receipts box from his coat, shook it beside her ear, then returned it a full second later. A new stub sat on top when he finally looked at it, inked in her crooked handwriting: Luck, prepaid, nonrefundable.

"I’ll invoice you for the luck," she said, "after you win."

"You’d bill a man for winning, that’s cold even for you."

"I would bill a man for dying too, so winning is the bargain of the century."

"If you lose," Nix added, her voice cracking on the last word, "I keep the box."

Mara pressed her forehead against his sternum for exactly three heartbeats, then stepped back without a word. Her tail brushed his wrist as she retreated, a promise left behind on the thread of light.

"Come back through the front," she muttered, "I am not carrying you again, my back has opinions."

Veska saluted from the line, spear grounded, lips moving silently as she counted his remaining breaths again. Beside her Bram lifted the bucket in a solemn salute, steam rising from the rim like incense.

"I’m holding the line and the soup, nobody gets near either one without my permission."

Cassen caught Riven by the sleeve before he could step past, jaw working, golden hair stuck to his brow. Years of scripted rivalry lay between them, with neither able to find a single honest word to use first.

"Tell me there’s a plan," he said, "even a bad one, I will accept a bad one."

"There is a plan, it is bad, it involves every single one of you."

"Hold everyone back," he told him, "nobody crosses that road until it’s over."

"Win or I will never forgive you, I hold grudges for a very long time."

"That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me."

Riven walked the last stretch of road alone, thread glowing at his wrist, seven heartbeats in his chest. The copy raised the twin of Overdue in both hands, its face as smooth as a river stone.

"You should have stayed down," the copy said, "it was quiet."