They Sold Me as a Brood Bride, So I Enrolled in the Boys' Alpha College novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: The Slate Whistle
I did not speak.
I could not have said a word if the Warden had put a knife to my throat.
The older Penhallow son turned the letter over in his fingers and smiled at the room.
"Open it," said his brother from the doorway.
"I think I will," said the older one.
He slid one thumb under the wax.
"Penhallow," said a voice, very quiet, from the other end of the dormitory.
Everyone looked.
Iolo Merrick stood in the doorway in his quarry jacket with his hands loose at his sides.
He had not come in.
He just stood there, with the grey morning behind him.
"Put it down," Iolo said.
"Or what, Merrick?" the older Penhallow said.
"Or nothing," Iolo said. "Put it down."
It was the most dangerous voice I had ever heard.
It was flat and soft and had no threat in it at all.
I saw the older Penhallow's thumb stop on the wax.
I saw him look at Iolo's hands, the hands of a boy who cut slate for a living and had pulled a drowning boy out of a freezing tarn with one arm.
He looked at the quiet in Iolo's face.
He put the letter down on my bunk, very carefully, as if it were hot.
"It's nothing," he said. "A joke."
"Yes," said Iolo.
"I'll see you in the Hall."
"Yes."
They went out.
The dormitory let its breath go.
The two first-years who shared my room stared at the floor.
I snatched the letter off the blanket and held it against my chest.
The wax was whole.
Iolo was still in the doorway.
He gave me a single short, steady look, and he turned and went away down the passage.
I followed.
He did not slow down for me.
He walked out of the east wing, across the back yard, and up the long cart track to the rim of the quarry, and I went after him through the rain with the letter inside my jacket.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of They Sold Me as a Brood Bride, So I Enrolled in the Boys' Alpha College are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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