They Sold Me as a Brood Bride, So I Enrolled in the Boys' Alpha College novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Rite of the Hall

By dusk the Hall was full.

Three hundred students sat on the long benches.

Every master in the college sat on the dais, and the Warden stood among them in his black gown.

The Penhallow men stood in a bloc along the east wall with their arms folded.

My father sat in a folding chair at the end of the dais, with a blanket up to his chin and the slate paperweight in his lap.

My brother stood behind him.

I waited in the vestibule with my hand on the cold doorframe.

I wore the same grey jacket I had worn for six weeks, and the binding was pinned tight under it for the last time.

Cadoc stood on my left, with the blood washed from his face.

Iolo stood on my right, in a quarry jacket he had mended himself.

Neither of them said a word, and neither of them left.

"Ready?" said Cadoc.

"No," I said.

"Good," said Iolo. "Nobody is."

The Warden's bell rang once.

The Hall fell silent.

I walked in.

I went down the long aisle between the benches in boots still damp from the drain.

I did not look right or left.

I heard them whispering.

I heard the word girl, and the word Crown, and the word hut.

Somebody laughed.

It did not matter.

I stopped at the foot of the dais, under the lamp, in front of the great chained book.

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