I focus on the road again. Silence ensues, and for a while, all I hear is Roth sipping coffee. It makes me want to punch him in the face. I flex my fingers around my steering wheel.

“You know, as much as I like watching you work, I don’t need a bodyguard.”

My thoughts exactly.

“I’m more than happy to pass off this assignment.”

“Except that would ruin any chance you might have at ranking as a shadow knight.”

I roll my eyes.

“Has it occurred to you to question why you were chosen to guard me? A knight-in-training?”

“If you think I’m underqualified, you should have said something instead of wasting my time.”

He scoffs. “Like you have anything else to do.”

“Yeah, actually. I have a life outside the Compound.”

“Oh really? Tell me how that’s working for you.”

He knows perfectly well how it is working for me. I decide it’s best if I don’t respond.

Council isn’t held at the Compound. It’s held at a creepy-ass mansion that sits on a hill at the end of Frontage Street. We call it Temple. It was once the home of a wealthy Valryn named Nacoma Knight, our school’s namesake. A lot of people in town aren’t too fond of the place, say they feel they’re being watched…and, well, they are. The mansion’s a little more inconspicuous than an obsidian tower. It’s used to house members of the Order from all over the world, sort of like a hotel.

On Council, clusters of ravens swarm overhead like storm clouds. People claim it’s a sign of bad luck. When I was younger, we used to dare human kids to jump the fence and touch the door. They were almost always escorted off the property by men-in-black types, and we were almost always ratted out and made to dust the library, but it was worth it to see the looks on their faces.

I stop at the gate, enter a four-digit code, and pull around to the back, parking alongside a row of sleek, black SUVs—Roth and I aren’t the only Valryn who prefer wheels over wings.

We exit the Jeep and shift. From this point on, I have to remember my etiquette training—keep one step behind your superior at all times…unless there’s a door to open.

Freaking annoying.