Her eyes flicked past Jereb to Gruff, who’d stopped his mirthful laughter, his eyes locked on hers. It was so obvious now that it had all been a prank. While the stick had, in fact, turned out to be magic, it wasn’t the sort of magic where if you stole it, the thief would be granted more power. Nope, in her desperation to learn how to master her Ability, she’d fallen for his silver-tongued words hook, line and sinker. Which, in her opinion, was nobody’s fault but her own. And she wasn’t raised to be a snitch, nor to shirk responsibility for her actions, regardless of who else had encouraged her to take them.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I only wanted to see if that stick o’ yers—” She looked at Lady Brenner as she said this, the woman’s eyes narrowing in response. “—was really magic. It is, in case anyone else is wonderin’.” She forced a sheepish smile onto her face, tasting the blood from her nose on her lips.

“You could’ve just asked,” Lady Brenner said. “Now I’m going back to bed. We’ll discuss the consequences for your actions in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Perfidy said, hanging her head and inspecting her feet for something she couldn’t quite define. She only looked up again after she heard the door slam shut.

She wished she hadn’t, Jereb’s disappointed expression there to greet her. “You’re saying you did what you did out of pure curiosity?” He turned around, offering a glance in the direction of the other novices, as though he suspected her of having an accomplice. No, Perfidy realized. In the direction o’ Gruff. “Because if someone else put you up to this…”

“They didn’t,” Perfidy said quickly. “It was my dumb choice. I can see that now an’ I regret it. I’ll accept whutever consequence Lady Brenner thinks is fair.”

“Fine. Have it your way, though you may soon wish you hadn’t protected whoever else was involved.” Once more, he stared daggers at Gruff. “Now I’m going back to bed and I’d better not be woken up again.”

Perfidy felt awful as she watched him reenter the sleeping quarters, Julio and Mirac in tow behind him. Clemmy and Aliza also left, leaving the door open a crack for her. Gruff was the last to go, mouthing a silent Thank you before disappearing behind the closed door.

Perfidy lingered only a few moments more, wincing as she reached up to touch first her nose, then her ear, both of which were crusted with blood. The damn stick’s blows had been brutal, solid cracks meant to inflict real damage on its victim. If she hadn’t been the one being brutalized, she might’ve enjoyed the spectacle. There were more than a few people back in Northpoint she wouldn’t mind introducing to Lady Brenner’s magic stick. “A real, live magic stick,” she said, a grin forming on her lips. “Well, I’ll be damned. No one back home would believe me if I told ’em. Not that I’d want to anyway. The bastards.”