Chapter 4: Nine A.M.

Grant stood through breakfast, and nobody mentioned it.

He stood while Felix buttered toast, and he stood while Harry read the morning bulletin aloud.

He stood so correctly that it began to look like a decision.

"Is something wrong with the chairs?" Felix asked.

"The chairs are adequate," said Grant.

"Then sit."

"I prefer to stand."

Felix looked at James over the toast. James chewed.

Felix looked at Grant's ramrod back, and at James's very relaxed one, and his green eyes began to dance.

"Oh," he said softly. "Oh, that's good."

"Eat your toast," said Grant.

The first lecture of the year was Bloodline Theory, in a tiered hall with a hundred stone benches.

The professor wanted every first-year seated and silent by the bell.

Grant took the back wall and stood against it.

"Mr. Skyreach," the professor called. "Sit."

"I am comfortable here, Professor."

"Sit, or leave."

A hundred heads turned.

Grant's jaw worked once.

His grey eyes crossed the hall and landed on James with open murder in them.

James sighed.

He was three rows up, perfectly comfortable, and a little sorry for him.

He lifted two fingers under the desk and reached for the cold hum behind his ribs.

Skyfold answered at once.

A velvet cushion from the empty front bench rose off its seat.

It floated up the hall over a hundred heads without a sound.

It came down gently on the bench beside Grant.

Nobody noticed except the three men who were looking.

Grant stared at the cushion.

James mouthed: You're welcome.

Grant sat on it with a stiffness that could have been carved, and his ears went bright red.

Beside James, Harry put down his pen.

"You smell like him," he said quietly, not turning his head.

"Like who?"

"Sky and sweat. And you just did magic that isn't yours."

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