Page 38 of Legacy Found

Faris's expression doesn't change. Not a flicker. She looks at me for a long, cool moment, and I have the distinct sense of being catalogued.

"An interesting opinion," she says. "Another two Merit Marks deducted."

I bite the inside of my cheek. Hard.

Okay, I think, as I watch my total tick down on the app under the desk — weeks of work erased in ninety seconds. Okay. Now I'm irritated.

But I don't say another word, because I'm not going to give her the satisfaction, and I bend back over my own analysis and finish it, correctly, in furious silence.

Renzo catches me the second we're in the hall, already apologizing. "Jess, I'm so sorry, that was my fault, you lost seven marks because I couldn't read a date—"

"No." I stop him flat. "Don't. You needed help, I helped you, and I'd do it again. Every time. That woman can keep her seven marks."

"You'd do it again," he repeats, half disbelieving.

"In a heartbeat."

And that's when Natasha drifts past us, unhurried, that same satisfied smile in place. She slows just enough to make sure I hear her.

"My mother warned us the scholarship students wouldn't understand how things work here," she says lightly, to the air, to me. "It's a shame, really. Some people just aren't built for a place like this."

I smile at her. Wide and warm and completely genuine.

"Oh, goody." I brighten. "I never think about you, and apparently I'm a whole topic of conversation at your house. I had no idea I was this popular. Tell your mom I said hi."

Natasha's smile disappears.

She stares at me for a second, opens her mouth, apparently finds nothing useful in there, and stalks away.

Beside me, Renzo makes a strangled sound. Then another.

By the time I look at him, he's leaning against the wall, wheezing with laughter.

"I never think about you," he manages. "Jesus Christ, Jessica."

"What?"

He waves a hand at me, still trying to breathe. "Nothing. Just deciding where I'm getting that tattooed."

"Please don't."

"Too late." He sucks in a breath, immediately loses it to another laugh. "It's meaningful to me now."

Chapter sixteen

Jessica

By late afternoon, my first day of the new semester has already cost me seven Merit Marks.

So that's going well.

Then the message goes out to every freshman at once, and the whole class feels it hit like a dropped glass:

Mandatory assembly. Great Hall. Now.

"Someone died," Renzo says with total confidence as we funnel into the hall with two hundred other freshmen. "Or got expelled. Somebody definitely got expelled."

"It's a visitor," Sophia counters, up on her toes trying to see the dais. "Someone important. Look how many faculty are up there. You don't get that many professors for bad news."