Page 126 of Storm of Shadows

“Miss Storm,” she says, attempting to wrestle her mouth into an unconvincing smile. “I would like a word.”

“With me?” I say, utterly shocked. She’s hardly said one word to me since I started at the academy – both in and out of class. She’s far more interested in the shadow weaver students. She hardly gives us commoners a passing glance. Her sudden interest in me can mean only one thing. She knows it was me. My stomach plummets.

“Yes, you. Let’s go to my office where we can talk in private.” She spins on her heels and starts pacing away and I take it I’m meant to follow her. I peer at Fly with alarm, an expression I find mirrored on his own face.

“What did you do?” he mouths at me.

“I don’t know,” I mouth back.

“Miss Storm?” Madame calls, and I jerk into action, hurrying along behind her.

Her office isn’t anywhere near her classroom. It’s housed in the same building as the Great Hall, up a grand staircase and along a plush-carpeted hallway. The door to her office stands directly alongside the one marked Headteacher. I wonder if the elusive head is in there at this very moment. I wonder if anyone has actually checked he’s still alive.

Madame Bardin unlocks her office door with a wave of her hand and we step through into an elegant room, the carpet a dark maroon, her desk carved from a polished ebony, and heavy velvet drapes hanging around the ancient windows.

“Please,” she says, motioning towards a low maroon sofa that blends with the carpet, “sit.”

I do as she says, finding myself sinking into the sofa and my knees nearly hitting my chin. I shuffle forward until I’m sitting on the edge and rest my hands in my lap.

What the hell is this about? Did she see me in the library yesterday?

Madame remains on her feet, leaning back against her desk and tossing her glossy hair over her shoulder.

“You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”

I do. Muriel smoked like a chimney and it’s left me with an aversion to the smell, but I hardly think I can say no to the Madame.

I nod.

“Thank you.” She opens one of the drawers, takes out a small silver case and a box of matches. She examines me as she opens the case and selects a slim cigarette.

“You’re from Slate Quarter?”

I clear my throat. She makes me nervous. “Yes.”

She clamps the cigarette between her lips, strikes the match and holds it to the end of the cigarette, all the time staring right at me. Then, she shakes away at the match until the flame extinguishes and takes a long drag, closing her eyes as she does. Her eyelids are painted a dark plum color and they’re lined with black kohl that ends in a flick at the edge of her eyes. Her lids still closed, she plucks the cigarette from her mouth, and exhales a cloud of gray smoke; the smell doing nothing to lessen my unease.

“And did you know Professor Tudor back in Slate Quarter?” She opens her eyes and stares at me. Her irises are a violet that glow through the swirl of smoke from her cigarette.

“I knew of him, yes. But there isn’t a person in Slate Quarter who didn’t,” I frown, “who doesn’t.”

“He’s much older than you.”

“Yes.”

She takes another drag on the cigarette. “Ten years perhaps.” I nod. “So you can’t have been friends. Perhaps your families are acquainted.”

“No.”

“And yet you seem to have a friendship now?”

“What?” I say. Sure, Fox and I have had a couple of conversations – which, judging by his behavior and attitude, might be pretty rare – but we are most definitely not friends. Far from it. “He’s my teacher.”

“Yes, and any relationship between the two of you would be highly irregular and, it goes without saying, inappropriate.”

“There is no relationship,” I say, confused. Why would anyone think there was? She’s the one having a relationship with him.

She stubs out her half-smoked cigarette into a glass ashtray that rests on the top of her desk, and leans forward.