The papers the next morning are about as bad as I thought. Some are harsher than others, but there’s a definite focus on the fact I’m Malaina and a fair few mentions of the incident with Mildred. And then a line in the Herald that is worse than anything I expected.

She was a student at the General Elizabeth Waterford School in Crelt up until she Fell. A description of the incident suggests it was unprovoked, coming in response to a request for help with homework.

I freeze, spoonful of porridge hovering halfway to my mouth. It seems as if the world’s stopped turning.

It was supposed to be a secret. My secret. The one thing I could never let anyone know if I didn’t want to be seen for who and what I really am.

Now they know. Now the entire starry country knows. Now Edward knows.

Not quite yet he doesn’t. Not until we exchange papers and he reads this one. I have a wild, irrational impulse to burn it before he has a chance to read it, but that won’t help anything – and the thought of fire only reminds me of the pages of Ruby’s notebook crumbling to ash –

Charles First-King. Edwin the Just. Simon the Drunkard. Thomas the Defender.

“Tallulah? What’s wrong?”

He noticed; of course he did. I can’t hide it from him any more. I hand him the paper with shaking hands, point silently to the relevant line.

Eleanor the Bold. Timothy the Peacemaker. I don’t think I’ve ever been more afraid. Not in those first few moments after waking up in that hospital bed. Not when I thought I would be crushed by the mob. Even Malaina seems to wait for his response.

“Do you… want to… talk about it? We can go to a meeting room?”

Just forming words is an effort. Maria the Seafarer. I force myself to take a shaky, shallow breath, and then manage to say “No.”

“Can you at least tell me if… if there was more to it than that? If there’s someone at that school, someone who hurt you…” His eyes flash, leaving me in no doubt that he would do everything in his power to destroy that hypothetical person’s life for me.

I say nothing, but I at least manage to take a couple more breaths.

“You don’t have to give me a name,” he tries. “Just… please. I’m here for you, Tallulah.” He reaches across the table to take my hand. “Tell me how I can help.”

I shake my head. It occurs to me suddenly that I could lie. I could tell him that some nameless person hurt me, that there actually is a secret underlying trauma that caused my Fall.

But I can’t lie to Edward. “No,” I force out. “You can’t. There’s nothing more to it.”

Something flickers across his face: surprise? Confusion? I can’t tell. He doesn’t reply.

“I’m sorry I didn’t – didn’t tell you before.”

He shakes his head. “There was no obligation to. With Malaina… you shouldn’t have to reveal anything until you’re ready.” Edward jerks his hand at the paper in a series of swift cutting motions, removing the scrap of paper that holds the pair of sentences that reveal what I couldn’t tell him.

Then he tears it in two. And again, methodically pressing the pieces together and tearing them in half until there’s nothing left of the scrap.

“I feel like I lied by omission,” I say. I have to make him understand. There’s no use hiding it any more. “I let you believe I was… you know. Traumatised. When I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

I narrow my eyes and stare at him.

“I’ve researched Malaina in as much detail as I can. It doesn’t manifest in people who haven’t undergone trauma. There’s no record of it happening before.”

I laugh bitterly. “I suppose that makes me unique, then. New to magical science. You could study me.”

“Tallulah – no. I just…” he hesitates. “This doesn’t change anything.”

“Of course it does.”

“No. I don’t care how you Fell, Tallulah. Maybe you’re Malaina, but you’re also so much more than that. I’m not your friend because we both have tragic backstories. I have a few theories about why you Fell, but they don’t matter. Not really. It’s over now. Whatever happened, it’s behind you.”

It’s as if the tension that’s been holding me together suddenly vanishes, leaving me to collapse as if I’m a puppet whose strings have been cut. I find myself suddenly sobbing.

Edward vaults over the table and wraps his arms around me, letting me bury my head in his shoulder and cry until I have no more tears left.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Sorry,” I say when it’s finally over, wiping my eyes. “I made a mess of your robe.”

“Do you really think I don’t know basic cleaning spells?”

I can’t help laughing a little at that. We won’t cover cleaning spells in class until after Holy Days, but I shouldn’t even be surprised that isn’t going to stop Edward Blackthorn.

“Bathroom?” he asks.

I stare at him blankly.

“To clean yourself up before classes.”

“How long do we have?” I ask.

“Still forty minutes. It’s fine. Take as long as you need. I’ll walk you there?”

Part of me wants to protest that I don’t need to be escorted to the bathroom as if I was a child, but I don’t want to be alone right now. “Thanks.”

I end up leaning on him more than my crutches. I must look as pathetic as I feel, but I eventually make it to the nearest bathroom.

“I’d offer to come in, but…”

“I’ll be fine,” I say, hobbling through the door.

“I’m just outside.”

“Thanks.”

I lean on the sink and take deep, shuddering breaths for a while, then turn on the tap and splash icy water over my face. It’s colder than I expected, and I flinch, but it feels surprisingly good.

I’m going to be okay, I tell myself. That could have gone so much worse.

I didn’t have an active episode. Edward didn’t abandon me.

What has my life come to that I consider that a genuinely positive outcome?

I manage to compose myself after a few more minutes, and then return to the dining hall to finish my breakfast. It feels as if people are staring at me. Maybe it’s just my imagination. But I am undeniably more interesting than I was two days ago.

I want to go back to being boring.

We have Countering Magical Effects first thing that morning. Electra doesn’t treat me any differently to normal; that is to say, she criticises my vague explanation of specific counterspells harshly and spends nearly three minutes correcting my poor casting technique.

I don’t mind it as much as I usually do. It’s almost nice to know that some things never change. Though I suppose Electra already knew what the papers revealed, didn’t she? And she’s never treated me any worse than my fellow students.

I muddle through the morning until about lunchtime the questions arrive. The headmaster has sent me an annotated list with what I’m supposed to answer. I don’t agree with many of his suggestions. But he does know far more about these things than I do, so maybe…

All I have to do to banish those thoughts is remember him telling me to sever contact with Edward. I’m not going to let my decisions be made by anyone who would tell me that.

It’s just like a slightly strange history exercise, I tell myself. If I were in the place of this historical figure, what would I say? How would I justify my actions? I don’t quite believe it, though; I know that it’s real. I know that it is actually me mixed up in this.

I go through three drafts of my answers to most questions, leaving a few that are particularly difficult, before lessons start again for the afternoon. My fingers are stained with ink from so much scribbling of notes.

“I’ll get my dad to make you a dictation quill,” Edward says as we walk to class together.

I stare at him for a long moment. “You can’t do that – “

“…what do you mean?”

“Dictation quills,” I explain, “for people who aren’t Blackthorns, are absurdly expensive. Each one has to be custom-made by a master enchanter, and then the spellwork to key it to its owner’s voice is so hard only a few dozen people in the entire country could manage it.”

“You know a lot about this,” he says.

“I wanted a dictation quill when I first started Genford. It would make essays so much easier. So I did some research, which crushed that dream pretty quickly.”

“Until now, anyway. My dad, you seem to be forgetting, is a master enchanter and one of those few dozen people.”

“I knew that, but – “ I try to find the words. “I don’t want to put myself in debt to him. I don’t want to become one of his people in exchange for enchanted items, however useful.”

Edward shrugs. “As far as he’s concerned, you already are.”

I stop walking and stare at him. “…since when?”

“Since two days ago. He wouldn’t be giving you the emergency enchantments otherwise.”

“I don’t want…” I manage.

“Sorry.”

Stars help me.

“He’s not going to use you,” Edward says, as if that’s reassuring. “He won’t drag you any further into his schemes.”

“How do you know?” We’re outside the Alchemy classroom now, two minutes early, but I hesitate instead of opening the door.

“I won’t let him,” says Edward simply, and tugs open the door.

It’s an absurd idea, on the surface: that any sixteen-year-old, however brilliant, could stop the Black Raven from doing something he set his mind to. But having seen them together, it seems a lot less so. Lord Blackthorn really does care about his son, and I think if Edward insisted strongly enough he would go quite a long way for his sake.

Or maybe he’s just saying that because it’s what I want to hear.

Once lessons are done, I go back to trying to answer the country’s questions. I’m not satisfied, not with any of it. Every time I look back I wonder why I chose this particular word, whether it could give an impression I don’t want, how it could possibly be interpreted by someone biased against Malaina, Blackthorns or both.

Especially since some of the questions are blatant traps. Were you afraid of him? What did he do to you?

The latter has the obvious and true answer of nothing, at least, but the former… there is no right answer to that. If I answer no it means I either have no sense of fear or am one of his people, and if I answer yes then to some extent I’m accepting the idea that he’s a monster, someone who should be feared.

I settle in the end for explaining the truth, that it all happened so quickly there wasn’t time to think or be afraid. That I was acting on instinct and hope and sheer relief I was still alive.

Edward drags me out of the study room and away from the small stack of rejected answers I’m creating at dinner time. “You need to eat, Tallulah. This isn’t going to turn into the Cavendish research project again.”

Maybe if I hadn’t let that break me, none of this would have happened. If Mildred hadn’t made it so personal, if Lord Blackthorn hadn’t betrayed her as a result, would Edward and I have gone to the execution? Perhaps we could have just been friends in the normal way, the way that didn’t involve finding out secrets from newspapers.

Or perhaps nothing about Edward and I was ever going to be normal, and sooner or later something else would have happened to bring that home.

“Fine,” I mutter. “Once I’ve finished this – “

“Now.”

I let my quill fall through my fingers, pile the papers into my satchel, and follow Edward to the dining hall. Elsie, Elizabeth and Robin have already claimed a table and food, so I get my meal and join them.

Edward is gone by the time I sit down. He didn’t even say goodbye. Does he hate the idea of spending time with people other than me that much?

That’s when another neatly-folded note flies up to me. What does the headmaster want now? I unfold it quickly, expecting not to like it, and am still unpleasantly surprised:

Your mother is with me, and demands to see you at once.