Page 15 of Storm of Shadows

A handful of the other powerful shadow weavers are already making their way along the line, inspecting the other students, ready to make their picks. Kratos, Prentice, and Nathan stop right in front of the brunette. Kratos draws his hand down her arm, making her shiver as Prentice leans in, nose pressed to her throat and inhales her scent.

“Fuckers,” I mutter.

That’s the girl that should be ours. We outrank those losers. We’re more powerful than them. We come from better families. If we picked the brunette, they’d have to find some other student to be their thrall.

It doesn’t look like that is going to happen.

Freaking Beaufort would have to have other ideas.

The Smyte sisters have their hands on a young-looking boy, his hair golden, his features beautiful. Elaine and Dahlia are talking to a boy from Iron Quarter, so big you’d think he was the offspring of giants.

“What do you think, Thorne?” I ask, appealing to my other friend.

He’s glaring at Beaufort’s girl, his square jaw hard as stone, his dark eyes black as night. He doesn’t say a word.

I sigh.

“Can we at least give it some thought? I mean, it doesn’t look like she’ll last a week at the academy.” I scoff. “It doesn’t look like she’d last a night in my company.”

Which gives me an idea. Maybe I’m best playing along. She’ll be gone in a matter of days. Then we can choose someone better.

Or maybe I should trust my best friend. If he says it has to be her, then there is a reason for it. There always is.

“She’ll outlast us all,” he says cryptically in that way that really pisses me off.

“You want to go claim her now?” I mean, I doubt there’s any hurry. No one else is going to pick the girl as their thrall.

Beaufort doesn’t answer, he’s already strolling down the line, oblivious to all the girls fluttering their eyelashes at him and all the boys flexing their pecs. They all want him to pick them. Even the brunette is no longer focused on her admirers, smiling Beaufort’s way instead.

The only one not following his progress down the line, is the one girl he’s heading towards. Her eyes are trained straight ahead at the morning’s mist swirling across the stone walls. She seems oblivious to everything going on around her, lost in her own world. She doesn’t even register Beaufort’s presence when he stops right beside her, although she must feel him. His magic is powerful. It’s impossible not to.

All the other students are watching, a silence falling over the crowd.

“Hey, Dray,” Dallan calls my way, “what’s your pal doing down there with all the Slate scum? You do know they carry infectious diseases, right?” He chuckles, probably expecting me to join right in.

“Shut the fuck up,” I snarl, my eyes flashing at him. His gaze falls immediately to the floor. He’s always been weaker than me.

I return my focus to my friend. He’s stopped right by the girl, the distance between them mere inches – so close she must be able to feel the tingle of his powers against her skin. Skin that is bruised around her eye and scabbed along her cheek. Someone got to her last night which proves just how weak she is. I groan again and strain my ears to hear Beaufort’s words as he speaks to her.

“Be at our rooms by seven o’clock tomorrow night.”

She jolts as if she really has only just realized he’s there, then swings her face up towards his. Recognition, alarm and something I can’t read flickers over her face quickly, before she schools her features into something emotionless and void.

“Excuse me?” she replies. Her voice isn’t how I thought it would be. I expected the voice to match the expression – sour, screechy – like fingernails dragging down a blackboard. It’s not like that at all. Although she’s trying to sound tough, her voice is soft. As pathetic as the rest of her.

“You heard me the first time,” Beaufort says. “Do not be late.”

Beaufort doesn’t wait for a reply, he never does. He turns his back on her and strides right back up to his spot at the head of the line, ignoring all the other students staring open-mouthed at him.

“Seriously,” Ashleigh Pickford whispers beside me, “you’re pickingheras your thrall? You could have anyone you want.”

“Yeah,” I say, peering back towards the girl whose name I don’t even know. “But we’ve chosenher.”

Chapter Eight

Briony

“Oh my stars!” Fly whisper-shrieks beside me, because Madame Bardin and two other teachers are now strolling our way and the line of students have dropped their voices.