Dmitri asks gruffly, glancing up at me from beneath his eyelashes as he stabs a pancake with a fork, transferring it to his plate.
I have no idea what to do about him. No idea what that moment between us meant, what that kiss meant, or how to talk about it and get it back. He seems to be off-kilter, and I’m not used to that from Dmitri. He always keeps his emotions locked down pretty tight.
“Um, yeah.” I nod, trailing after them into the dining room. Cam sets down my plate at a spot between him and Asher, and I tuck into the food with gusto, covering my mouth with my hand as I blatantly talk around a huge bite. “Provost Johnson decided to go full psycho and try to kill me. I defended myself, knocked him on his ass like the little cock he is, and then something hit me and I blacked out. Now I’m here.”
“Do you remember before that?”
“The whole Trials thing and getting sabotaged? Hoo, yeah. Did any of you thank Kendal for her help, by the way?”
She may be part of a group of nasty girls who like to give me a hard time, but she’s actually not too bad herself. I think it’s peer pressure that keeps her with them. In any case, she helped the guys keep the sabotaging mages at bay so I could compete in the final challenge of the Trials fair and square. I owe her.
“No gaps in your memory, then. We did wonder about that,” Roman murmurs, his shoulders relaxing a little. It hasn’t escaped my notice that all four of the guys, and Maddy too, keep shooting me worried glances as I eat.
“Do you have any clue what caused all of this?” I ask, glancing around the table.
Roman shakes his head. Dmitri looks pissed as shit, while Cam and Maddy seem worried. Asher looks pensive and a little sad.
“We don’t know what made you fall asleep for so long,” Cam tells me, squeezing my leg under the table. “Spells were flying around like crazy that day. But we got the bastards who started this shit, so that’s what matters.”
“The Trials were being live-streamed,” Maddy says. “We saw the whole thing in my dorm. I watched your final challenge and everything, and Johnson going nuts at the award ceremony. And then the fight that broke out—all of it was on the live-stream. The whole magical world saw you be a badass.”
She sounds really proud of me, and I grin, feeling my face heat up. I want my sister to be proud of me—that means more to me than almost anything else in the world.
“The Circuit’s been looking into things,” Roman says. He’s watching me eat as if to make sure I don’t leave a single bite of food on my plate. Not that I would. It’s fucking delicious. “Johnson’s… not the only one of his kind.”
That stops me. I set down my fork for a second, glancing around the table. “What?”
“There’s this whole movement starting up,” Asher explains with a grimace. “The Circuit’s intercepted propaganda and messages meant to radicalize people, to turn them against Unpredictables.”
“It’s clever,” Roman acknowledges, although it sounds like it physically pains him to admit it. “Whoever this is behind it, a person or a group, they know what they’re doing.”
“Lucky for us, most of the magical community isn’t completely nuts,” Cam throws in. “Not yet, anyway. Most people are taking our side.”
“People are uncomfortable around Unpredictables.” Dmitri’s voice is quiet and taut, and he stares down at his plate. “But they don’t all want us to be treated like animals. A little casual prejudice is fine though, right?”
There’s a world of pain in his voice, and I want to reach out and help him, comfort him somehow, but I don’t know how—and I’m not sure he’d welcome it.
“So… do they know who’s behind all of this?” I ask instead.
All five shake their heads. “No clue,” Asher says. “And that’s what has the Circuit worried.”
Well, great.
At least I’m feeling like myself, which is good. Weaker than I’d like to be, but I guess that’s what happens when you spend three whole months in a magical coma.
I go back for seconds of everything, and as we finish breakfast, the conversation moves on to other topics. I mention that I’ll have to work hard to get back into shape for classes, and the guys all seem eager to help me exercise and eat properly—anything they can do