Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 71 - Chapitre 75

Lyra put her tray down across from us and said, "Good morning. Has anyone told you two that you look like you've been awake since the moon was invented?"Cassian looked up from his coffee."That's not a compliment," I said."It wasn't meant to be." She sat down and stole a piece of bread off my plate without asking. "You both need to eat something that isn't stress. Ronan, back me up."Ronan, arriving two seconds behind her with a full tray, said, "I'm staying out of this. I value my continued existence.""Smart man," Cassian said."I have my moments."Lyra pointed her stolen bread at Cassian. "You smiled. At Ronan. With your actual face.""I didn't smile.""The left side of your mouth moved upward. That's a smile. Val, back me up."I had been staring at him. I looked away. "I didn't see anything.""You were absolutely staring.""I was looking in his general direction.""She was staring," Lyra told Ronan."Noted," Ronan said, and started eating.Cassian's expression had gone back to n

I threw the note at his chest the moment we got back to our room.He caught it. Looked at me."We have to do something," I said. "That's Lyra's blood on that paper. She knew something about Cain and now she's gone and Soren is standing at a podium calling it a voluntary withdrawal and nobody is doing anything—""We can't go to Soren," Cassian said."I know we can't go to Soren—""Then lower your voice." He set the note on the desk carefully, like it was something that could break. "Cain has been at this academy for six years. He teaches two mandatory electives. He sits on the academic review board." He looked at me. "He and Soren have worked together since before we were students here. If we walk into that office with a blood-smeared note and no proof of anything, Soren buries it in a day and Cain knows we're looking.""Then what do we do?" My voice came out thinner than I wanted it to. "We just — what? Attend classes? Keep our heads down while Lyra is somewhere in that building—""W

The ward hit me like ice water poured down my spine.I staggered. One hand shot out to the stairwell wall and missed and then Cassian's hand closed around mine, fingers locking between mine, and he was moving, pulling me up the stairs fast and low."Go," he said. One word.We went.Below us the footsteps were multiplying. Not one set, several, moving with the coordinated spread of a search pattern. Enforcers. Fanning out from the corridor below, looking for whatever had tripped the ward.Ronan was three steps ahead of us. He hit the top of the stairwell first, pushed the false wall open, held it.We came through into the old west corridor. Dark, empty, the nearest security light around the far corner."Split point," Ronan said, already moving sideways toward the main corridor junction. "Give me thirty seconds."He didn't wait for an answer.Cassian's hand was still in mine. He pulled me left, into the shadow of a recessed doorway, pressing us both flat against the stone. I could hear