Chapter 162: The Street That Argued
Helen shook her head slowly, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth despite everything, and moved along the benches to refill the mugs that had been abandoned mid-drink during the laughter.
The noise settled gradually — not all at once, but in stages, the way laughter always wound itself down when there was more to watch.
And there was more to watch.
Baron Redwick spoke.
And even Mercer's Row, which had opinions about most things and hesitated to keep them to itself, found something worth listening to in the way he talked about Stoneford.
He spoke like a man accounting for something. Like every word was being weighed before it was spent. And the people of Mercer's Row, who knew what it was to be careful with things of value, heard that.
When he mentioned the academy, Brianna sat up.
She had been half-listening, her attention drifting as it often did, but the word academy pulled her back as though she had been waiting for it.
