Did the High Arbiter Break His Oath Today?

I had one hand on the silver-haired man's elbow and the other wrapped around a paper cup of punch when Vivian Holt saw his face and fell. The cup hit the floor. Red liquid spread across the polished boards beneath the graduation banners. For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then the room erupted around us. Faculty called for the campus medic. Students pushed back from the display tables. My companion's fingers closed around my wrist, careful but firm. "Lena," he murmured. "We should leave." I looked from his pale profile to Vivian, who was sitting on the floor with one hand pressed against her chest. She stared at him as if he'd stepped out of a grave. "You know him?" I asked. Vivian's lips parted. No sound came out. I had brought him here to thank her. Twelve months earlier, when I'd found him beneath the east observatory's collapsed stairwell, Vivian had been the only senior student willing to help me petition for an emergency bloodbound placement. She'd lent me her notes, brought supplies to the infirmary, and stayed with me through the long nights when he woke choking on words that weren't his. I'd expected her to be pleased that he was standing beside me, alive and dressed in a clean black suit. Instead, she looked as though she'd just seen a man she had helped bury. The campus medic arrived with a folding chair. A faculty member moved between Vivian and us. I felt my companion's thumb brush my wrist, a silent request. "Are you all right?" I asked him. "I am," he said. His voice was level, but his gray eyes had gone distant. "Then we're not leaving until I know why she reacted like that." "Lena," he said again, softer. The faculty member looked at my hand on his arm. "Miss Vale, perhaps you should take your bonded companion outside. We can handle this." "He's not a piece of exhibition equipment," I said. "I didn't say he was." "You called him a bonded companion as if he couldn't speak for himself." My companion straightened. The room quieted enough for his answer to carry. "I can speak for myself," he said. "And I'd like to know why Miss Holt is afraid of me." Vivian flinched at the sound of his voice. I felt him tense beneath my hand. For a year, I'd known the small signs: the stillness that came before a panic, the way his shoulders tightened when someone stood behind him, the way his gaze fixed on a door if a room grew too loud. This wasn't fear. It was something colder. Recognition, maybe. Or the effort not to show it. The medic helped Vivian into the chair. She waved him away and kept her eyes on the silver-haired man. "You're dead," she whispered. A murmur traveled through the crowd. My companion didn't answer. "Vivian," I said. "What are you talking about?" She shut her eyes. The medic asked her to breathe slowly. I watched her fingers twist the fabric of her blue graduation gown. "I'm sorry," she said. "For what?" I asked. She looked at him again. "For what they did." A faculty member stepped forward. "This is neither the place nor the time." "Then where is?" Vivian asked, her voice suddenly sharp. "In a locked room after the ceremony? A private hearing where we can all pretend the record is clean?" The words drew more attention than the collapse had. Faculty moved closer. Students lifted their phones. My companion's grip eased from my wrist, but he didn't let go. "Take the display down," the faculty member told the event staff. "This area is closed." "It's my exhibition," I said. "And I'm not taking it down." My project was a restoration study of the academy's old bloodbound registry. I'd spent the year cataloging damaged files, and the exhibit included a timeline of every transfer and release recorded in the last thirty years. The records had gaps. Vivian had helped me understand some of them. I'd thought those gaps were clerical. Now she was looking at the man beside me as though the missing entries had just walked into the room. "His name is Adrian," I said. "He has no memory of anything before last winter. I found him injured under the east observatory. He has been in my care since then." "Adrian," Vivian repeated. Her voice broke on the name. He watched her closely. "That isn't my name." I turned to him. "You've never told me that." "I don't know what my name was." It was the first time he'd said it with certainty. A hush settled over the gallery. Across the room, the dean was already walking toward us, his expression composed in the way people look when they've decided that the truth is a problem best managed quietly. Vivian gripped the chair arms. "He was the High Arbiter." I heard the title more than once before the meaning landed. The High Arbiter was the academy's senior judicial officer, the person who presided over hearings involving bloodbound students, faculty, and donors. The last one, Adrian Vane, had been declared dead after a fire in the old court building. I looked at the silver-haired man beside me. He had never told me that. The dean reached us. "Miss Holt is unwell. This exhibition is over." My companion's fingers slid away from my wrist. "No," I said. "It isn't."