The first thing Raze noticed was that the courtyard had grown louder after Headmaster Sariah left.
Four hundred and fifty delegates had survived the Culling Games. Some celebrated. Some stared at the enormous leaderboard as if the numbers might rearrange themselves out of pity. Others were already measuring the distance between their own names and the ten displayed at the top.
Raze stood beneath the western colonnade, watching the crowd without appearing to watch it. Bephe had curled beside his boot in the compact shape that fooled most people into believing he was an unusually ugly dog.
Three thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight points. Second place.
He had come within one hundred and nineteen points of Gareth Valorian.
A small difference, objectively. A larger one politically. At Elmbridge, the top position belonged to a Valorian, and the name carried weight even before one considered the man's actual strength.
'You're counting again,' Fedora said.
