Semua Bab Echoes of Ruin: Bab 11 - Bab 14

I could sense it before I even walked into the strategy compound. Suspicion had a smell. It was heavy, greasy, and bitter. It clung to the air just behind polite smiles and curtains and in the corners like cobwebs. And today? It filled the air. It wasn’t the usual simmering, low-level unease you got when a bunch of oversized egos were herded under one roof. This was pointed. Intentional. And I didn’t have to guess who it was pointed at. Or rather, who it was pointed at us. A first-year wolf nudged me in the hall, hard enough that I stumbled but not enough that I didn’t catch his name before he flicked a taunting smirk over his shoulder. Two more over near the west stairwell stopped talking the second I passed, eyebrows narrowing between me and the runes in the arch above the door,

I’d barely made it five steps into the common room before Maeve Holloway intercepted me like a sentry on a mission. Her braid was looped in a crown around her head, her expression already brimming with the exact kind of chaos I didn’t have the patience for today.“Don’t say no yet,” she warned, finger raised. “Hear me out. Then you can throw yourself off the balcony.”I arched a brow, tugging my hoodie sleeves past my knuckles. “Always inspiring confidence, Holloway.”She launched into it anyway. “The council is throwing a Valentine’s Day Ball. Mandatory attendance unless you’ve got a death certificate, a valid portal malfunction excuse, or proof you’re already bonded and gross.”“And let me guess, they put Hawthorne House in charge of the planning?”“Technically, no. They tried to stick Everley with it, but Isolde Delmar’s been on a power trip since the winter massacre. She pitched a full-blown Heart & Thorn theme and bribed two of the Everley girls, Sera and Nadine, to get on board.