Chapter 13: Ice

The Marlowe heir came through the gate on Monday morning in a black truck, and he did not go to the dean first.

He went to the girl in the silver dress.

Tilly and I watched from the Pine Hall steps, with Cade behind us, close enough that I could feel his warmth on my neck.

The heir was a broad man in his middle twenties with a red beard and a hunter's coat.

He took the Greaves girl's hand and bowed over it, and she smiled the way she'd been taught to smile.

Then he lifted his head and breathed in.

"Whose scent is that?" he asked.

Anson was at his elbow before the question finished.

"The thief Gunnar warned you about," Anson said, with a sad shake of his head. "Karrick marked her on Friday."

The heir turned and looked straight at me.

His eyes were pale and flat, and he was not looking at a bride.

"A thief out of my father-in-law's study," he said, loudly enough for the whole quad. "Under a Thornfield mark."

"She's under mine," Cade said.

He had come down one step without my noticing.

"Then I'll take her from it," the heir said. "I claim her for the Soderstrom law, and I call you to the ice, Karrick. Four o'clock."

The quad went silent, and then everybody started talking at once.

I took Cade's sleeve and pulled him around the corner of the hall.

"You'll lose control," I said. "You haven't had a pill in three days."

"I'll be fine."

"You'll kill him, and they'll hang it on you."

"He doesn't get to say your name in that voice."

"He didn't say my name. He said Nora's."

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