Now Kael was in it too.
The hall doors slammed open again, and Professor Lenira Thale strode in, her green eyes flashing sharper than any spell.
“Enough!” Her voice cracked through the dining hall like a whip. Conversations died mid-breath.
She jabbed her finger toward us. “Punishments. All of you!”
My stomach dropped as her gaze pinned me, then Kael, then Seraphina.
Seraphina gasped, clutching her golden Luminor as if it were proof of her innocence. “What? I’m a perfect blood! I don’t get punished!”
Professor Thale’s expression didn’t flinch. She stepped closer, her ink-stained robe whispering against the floor. “You do what I say, Seraphina. And right now, what I say is detention.”
Gasps rippled through the room. No one ever spoke to a Goldblood like that.
Seraphina’s face flushed crimson, her mouth opening, then snapping shut again. She sat down hard, her glow dimming in her fist.
Professor Thale’s eyes lingered on me a fraction too long. “Tomorrow. My classroom. All three of you. Do not test me again.”
“You’re lucky I don’t expel you three!” Professor Thale snapped, her voice ringing through the hall.
Seraphina’s scowl deepened. “Lies! You’d never expel me—the perfect-blood, top of my class! And you wouldn’t expel Ryder either. His parents are dead—probably from doing something stupid!”
The words hit me like a stone to the gut. My jaw clenched; my hand curled tight around the Luminor in my pocket.
Professor Thale’s face darkened, her green eyes burning with fury. “How dare you insult Mr. and Mrs. Ravenwood! They may have disgraced their stone colors, but they were good people. Very powerful.”
Seraphina scoffed, her golden glow flaring hotter. “His father was a common! He’s not great—just a peasant crawling on the floor for scraps.”
Kael’s fists tightened on the table, but I nudged him under the wood, groaning. “Maybe I shouldn’t have disabled that spell,” I muttered.
“You’re telling me,” he sniggered, low enough for only me to hear, pretending like he was about to shout EXPLOSIONAS again.
Before either of us could laugh, a shaky voice called from farther down the table. “Um… Professor?”
Thale turned, jaw tight. “Yes, Mr. Calder?”
The boy—Calder, a scrawny Blue—shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. “What color of stone did Mrs. Ravenwood have?”
The hall leaned forward, breaths held.
Professor Thale’s lips pressed into a thin line. “That is private information, Mr. Calder,” she said firmly. “And it will remain so. Sit up straight before I assign you detention as well.”
Calder swallowed hard and ducked his head.
The whispers started again, softer this time, heavier. My ears burned, and I pushed my glasses higher up my nose, wishing the weight of the whole hall would vanish.
But Seraphina’s golden eyes never left me.
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