CHAPTER 181: _ COLLECTING THE FAVOR

Daphne is there in the lobby too, goofing off like a cat on the staircase. It is not until she gets up that Amias notices her.

"You can’t treat her like that," she says, offended on Lira’s behalf as if she’s the one who’s personally been denied a treehouse.

Amias knows that Daphne and justice don’t relate. She also doesn’t believe in sentiments, at least not in the serious real-life way. Her defending Lira right now must mean there’s something in it for her.

Amias doesn’t bother dignifying the complaint. "Go home," he says. "You’re gossiping in the school. It’s unbecoming. You should go home and do whatever you want, not stain the Bellamy name in public."

"Unbecoming?" Daphne flares. "Says the Bellamy who has no ounce of regard for his girlfriend’s feelings." Her mouth snaps shut with a comedic flourish, and still, it’s all performance.

I will not stand here and exchange words with an eighteen-year-old, Amias internally affirms.

"Since you’re an empath wolf, how about you sniff the urge to lock you in a dark room engulfing me?" Amias fires calmly, making his loud mouthed half sister jump.

He sighs. "You go home, Daphne. Before I make you do more than scold me."

She pouts instead and lets out a thin protest. "I don’t gossip." She follows him with a look that promises trouble and then demands it be dramatic. "I only say things that are basically morality plays."

"Daphne..." Lira calls her back.

With that, he leaves them arguing about who has the right to be offended between him and them and steps out into the cold.

Outside, sunset has scolded the clouds into bruises, and the Academy’s courtyard bakes with the last of the light. Duskwind, in this hour, is a creature bending toward dusk. Cobblestones burn underfoot, and the scent of roasted bread wafts from the kitchens. Students drift past, some going home to their families, some lingering in dorms — but tonight, because of the Labyrinth survivors and the ceremonies and the general electric unpleasantness, the campus breathes differently. It smells of possibilities and fear.

It’s funny, Amias thinks, how the world will part for you sometimes, and how sometimes it will pretend you don’t exist. Female students turn as he walks by, eyes lighting up in that flirty way the Bellamy name provokes. Boys step aside to pave his way. One sophomore trips, recovers his dignity, and stares like he’s seen a comet.

He focuses on moving. The students’ comments without shame, but he hears them, all the same.

"If only he weren’t with Lira."

"He’s so handsome."

"Imagine his hands on me..."

Their whispers are a chorus of small blades. They have no idea what it takes to be him. Or how sad to see others obliviously fawn over something so broken. He rehearses in his head the truth: it’s a pretense. We made a deal when we were foolish boys with damaged parents and thinner options. But every time he says it inside his skull, it tastes like dishonesty.

Because he is the kind of man who keeps every promise even when the promise itself was a lie.

The sundial lies at the center of the Academy, hardly tended but perfectly visible. It’s a patch of shadow and moss and old stone. Corvin is there already, leaning against the base like a gargoyle that has read too many books. He’s a tall man with the air of someone who has measured people and decided early which are worth the trouble.

His coat smells of tobacco and old leather. He looks like someone unsentimental about favors, which makes him the exact sort of friend you want — someone who will do things for you begrudgingly and expect accountancy in return.

Amias stops a few feet away, the silence heavy as he lets the weight of his own unresolved violence fill the space between them. His hands, still faintly tacky from where his healing wounds had wept, clench at his sides.

"I assume you’re going to tell me I’m late, Corvin," Amias says in a rough rasp, still tasting of the whiskey he’d used to try and cauterize his heart.

Corvin, the Academy’s school disciplinarian and keeper of all things grim and orderly, lifts his gaze slowly. "I believe I was taught that the higher-ranking individual sets the schedule, Amias. However, you’ve kept me waiting for precisely three minutes and twenty-two seconds." He checks a watch that looks like it could stop a bullet. "Keeping the school disciplinarian waiting is an unusual choice, even for a Bellamy."

"Tch. It seems he hasn’t learned that we are no ordinary Alpha’s son." Vark scoffs, filling Amias with the urge to smash the nearest wood on Corvin’s head.

Amias takes a step closer, closing the gap. He smells the man’s predictable fear beneath the scent of tobacco. The half-moon cut on Amias’s lip pulls painfully, but he doesn’t let it show. He simply raises an eyebrow, a gesture that carries the threat of a snapped spine.

"Are you complaining, Corvin?"

The change in the atmosphere comes immediately. The professional detachment Corvin usually wears begins to dissolve in the presence of a man who could make or break him.

He sees the look in Amias’s eyes and can not find the usual arrogant dismissiveness of an Alpha heir, but the look of a man who has already hurt himself and is therefore not afraid to destroy others.

Corvin’s spine stiffens, then softens just as quickly. He shifts his weight in almost a flinch. "No, Amias. Of course not. Not complaining." The word ’not’ is a hasty, almost breathless expulsion of air.

Amias gives a lethal gesture with a nod. Good."

He refuses to waste another second on pleasantries, on the pretence of respect he rarely extends. "I’m not here to waste both of our time. I’m here to collect that favor."

Corvin lets out a soft, defeated sigh, a sound that whines like air escaping a punctured tire. He looks toward the silent Academy, toward the windows where other wolves buzz, unaware of the deadly ledger being balanced beneath the sundial.