Page 73 of Storm of Shadows

I need to get a grip.

I can’t be sniffing the air like some obsessive hunting dog – even if the urge to hunt her down is strong and real.

I snap up onto my feet and march to the back of my classroom. There’s a door at the back, hidden in the gloom and I pass through into my private quarters.

It’s not much of a living quarters: a bedroom and a room for study. It’s still a lot grander, much bigger and more refined than anything I had back home.

Home.

Even the word makes something in my long ago dead heart pang – despite the time that’s passed, despite the hellhole that place was.

One wall of my study is dominated by a bookcase – a piece of furniture they say belonged to one of the first scholars at the academy. It reaches from the floor right up to the low stone ceiling and on its shelves are the volumes I’ve collected, the bottles of potions I’ve brewed and the artifacts I’ve accumulated.

I don’t need to search for the book. I reach up and drag it down from the shelves, letting its well-worn pages fall open on my desk.

The girl.

Not just any girl.

Amelia Storm’s sister.

I remember Amelia vaguely from home – see her face in her sister’s. I was gone by the time Amelia joined the academy, but I recognize the name. Why? Why do I recognize that name?

Something happened to her. Something unusual.

Why the hell would the Princes want her little sister for their thrall? Why would they want Briony?

Is it because they know?

I wipe at my brow.

No, that’s impossible. They couldn’t possibly. There must be another reason. The Princes could have any girl or boy theywanted. They are the most powerful shadow weavers in this year’s intake – fuck, they’re probably some of the most powerful shadow weavers in the entire realm with wealth, privilege and connections too.

Why would they choose somebody from the weakest Quarter of all?

The book on my desk lists every student that has passed through the academy, where they came from and to what Quarter they were assigned at the end of the year. It also records any major or unusual events that occurred during the year, school prizes, and school records.

Amelia Storm is several years younger than me. I flip to the year I spent in the academy. Without intending to, I let my eye stray down to my own record and the picture that rests by my name. It makes me gasp. It’s been a long time since I stared at my own face. I was so young back then, so confident, so hopeful. I believed the world would see my fucking brilliance and reward me accordingly. Fuck, I was naïve and stupid, like every other kid that passes through here. Deluded, they are all deluded – happy to swallow the dreams the realm feeds them whole.

Not Briony though.

Something tells me she isn’t blinded by all the promises. Something tells me she sees through it all.

I look at my face with a detachment – like the boy staring back at me is a stranger, not me at all. They said I was beautiful. Maybe if I hadn’t been, maybe if I’d owned more of an ordinary face, none of this would have happened.

I drag my gaze away from that picture and flip forward through the book, running my eyes down each year group, searching for an Amelia Storm.

I find her four years later in the records, right at the end of the listings of students.

I was right about her face, about her hair. She wears it loose about her shoulders, flowing in waves. She’s beautiful. Eyes full of hope like mine were. Not hard like her sister’s.

I read the details printed by her name. Details of her parents are given – Annie, a housewife. Furgus, a laborer at one of the factories. Home: the low district of Slate Quarter – out on the outskirts, near the forest. The shittiest part of the shittiest place in the realm.

As I expected then, no money, no name – not even back in Slate Quarter.

My gaze slips over the words and then I halt.

The next few details have been scrubbed out of the book. Information about this girl was added and then removed – the words blacked out with shadow magic – impossible to read. My eyes continue along the line and then halt again. There’s one more detail that has been added about the girl’s sister. One detail that remains. This has not been scrubbed out.