He pauses and looks down at me, his eyes bright blue and sharp as ever. "Is that a problem?"
"No," I say as we start to walk again. "Not a problem. I'm just… surprised."
We stop again, this time in front of my room. "Good. Now, I believe you're late for class. Best get changed and hurry along. Ragathon doesn't like stragglers."
I chuckle. "Ragathon doesn't like much, it seems."
"Too true," my grandfather says. "Too true."
I place my hand against the door handle, then turn to the Chancellor. "You saved my life in there."
He reaches for my free hand and holds it. "You're my granddaughter. My kin. Yours is a life very much worth saving."
"Thank you," I say. And then I look at him and realize, I feel the same. He's kin. My kin. My last remaining family. "Thank you, Grandfather."
CHAPTER 8
DAY ONE
I shower and change in record time, but I'm still painfully late to Law, and Ragathon isn't in the mood to offer any leeway given my morning.
As soon as I walk in, his eyebrow shoots up, and the corners of his lips turn down. "Thank you for joining us, Miss Night. I hope we haven't inconvenienced you in any way. Spoiled your morning?" Half the class chuckles at his sarcastic dig on me, and of course everyone knows why I'm late.
Corinne and Wytt are staring at me like I grew horns while I was gone. As I sit between them, Wytt whispers, "Are you okay?"
I nod.
"Then I'll need all the details after class."
I grin as I pull out my books. Of course he would. Wytt, our little gossip.
I sneak a glance at Kai, who's sitting across the class. He's staring at me, and doesn't break eye contact when he sees me looking, so I don't either.
I try to read his eyes, to figure out what he's thinking, but Ragathon interrupts my thoughts by standing between us. "Miss Night, are we interrupting your daydreaming, or would you care to venture an answer to the question?"
I look up. "Could you repeat it, please?"
"Repeat it? Were you not sitting right here in the class?"
Snickers drift around the room, and Corinne points down at her notebook. She wrote, Give an example of a new law that was created after the discovery of para-powers.
"The Standardized Registration Act was passed," I say, "requiring Zeniths to register their para-power with the appropriate agency or face fines or imprisonment."
Ragathon smirks. "I should have known you would go for the most obvious. That law is known by children learning to talk. This is not grade school, Miss Night. If you cannot manage to bring something more, I'm afraid you'll not fare well at Castle Vianney."
A voice from behind Ragathon interrupts him. "Isn't that why we're here? To learn this stuff?"
Ragathon turns in surprise to face Kai. His face softens when he looks at his nephew. "Of course, Kai. You are. But there is an expectation that you come with some semblance of knowledge before starting the classes."
"I'm sure she does," Kai says in my defense. "But everyone has their own unique skills, right? So Scarlett may not know a lot about law, but she undoubtedly knows a lot about other subjects, given her family."
Ragathon turns to face me with a look of subdued rage. "I'm sure she does… given her family." He walks to the front of the class and uses his eGlass to project a list of assignments on the board. "Write this down and complete the work before our next session. Class dismissed."
He leaves the classroom while we're all still taking notes. I wonder if this was his original homework plan, or if it was tripled on my account.
I want to thank Kai for sticking up for me, but when he passes us he doesn't look happy. "I'm surprised they let you come back," he says.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Granddaughter of the Chancellor gets special privileges it seems. Anyone else pulled that they'd be flagged for using para-powers without authorization during a training."
"Cut it out, Kai," Wytt says. "Like the son of a King doesn't get special privilege?"
He throws his backpack over a shoulder. "Being Varian's son hasn't exactly been a privilege for me."
I'm over this. I stand, books in hand and lean toward him. "At least you still have a father. Don't ever use my parents against me again, or I won't hold back next time."
I leave as Corinne and Wytt scramble to catch up. They flank me on each side. "What happened?" Wytt asks.
I explain the test results and the Council's ruling. And I tell them what Kai said to trigger me.
Corinne shakes her head, a sad look on her face. "Try not to take it personally, though I'll definitely smack him for that. Our father is a fair man, but he's also a hard man, and he's always been especially hard on Kai. It's hurt him. When we came to Castle Vianney, Kai only agreed to come for two reasons. To watch out for us, and to get away from our father."
"Looks like he failed on that count," I say, feeling a small tinge of pity for him as we head to lunch. "But he needs to grow up and stop acting like he's the only one who's been hurt by life."
***
I'm completely in my element for our Espionage class. Finally, I don't feel like the black sheep in the group. My grandfather is teaching the class, and he asks us all to pull out our laptops.