Page 33 of Fractured Fates

“It was a lie by omission,” I tell him as we finally come to a stop and he spins me around to face him.

He rolls his eyes in that stupidly infuriating manner that tells me he thinks I’m childish.

“Why aren’t you wearing your uniform?” he barks at me, crossing his arms over his broad chest and making the arms of his jacket pull against his biceps.

“Because I didn’t want to.”

“You want to get expelled?”

I stare at him. “Yes, actually, I would, although I think that would be highly unlikely. You and the authorities have exerted a lot of effort dragging me here. Everyone keeps telling me attendance is compulsory. I can’t see anyone expelling me any time soon.”

He grunts. “You don’t know York. Just because she made a ridiculous exception and let you bring that stinky pig–”

“He isn’t stinky!”

“–doesn’t mean she’s going to go easy on you. Break the rules and she’ll have no problem slinging you out of here. Then see where you end up. She doesn’t tolerate troublemakers.”

“I’m not a troublemaker.”

“Really? You see anyone else out of their uniform this morning?”

“It’s ridiculous! The skirt is obscenely short,” I point to my thighs, drawing his eyes there, “and as for the socks … It’s highly sexualized–”

“It’s the uniform. It’s the rules. You obey them or you’re out.”

I shake my head slowly. “I don’t care if they expel me.”

He considers me, leaning back against the desk. “They’ll send you to the detention center, or worse a labor camp.”

They won’t. I won’t hang around for them to send me to either of those places.

Stone tilts his head to one side. “You won’t last five minutes on the run.”

I suck in a breath. How did he know that’s what I was thinking?

“Really? Because I lasted four days last time,” I say.

“That was before you killed Marcus Lowsky’s favorite brother.”

“Me?”

“You.” He uncrosses his hands and rests them by his sides. “You know who he is?”

“No,” I say quietly, thinking of my knife and that skull.

“He’s the leader of the Wolves of Night, and I certainly bet you know who they are.”

I nod, chewing on my thumb.

“There’s a price on your head now, Blackwaters.”

I peer into his eyes, trying to decipher if this is all bullshit to keep me here. “They won’t know it’s me.”

“Your magical fingerprints will be all over that knife. The knife you left in his little brother Joey’s head.”

I swallow down vomit. “What do you mean?”

He sighs. “You are so ridiculously ignorant. If you’d been to school, you’d know this stuff.” I simply glare at him. “A magical who uses an object for a serious purpose like murder leaves their fingerprints with the object. Fingerprints that can never be wiped away, not with magic, not with time. A skilled tracker, some of whom work for gangs like the Wolves of Night, can read those fingerprints and link them to their owner.”