Selenne could not place him.
The boy's manner was too deliberate to be simple arrogance, too measured to be careless bravado. He moved like someone who knew exactly which threads to pluck, which fault lines to press—enough to draw eyes, enough to make others lean in without realizing it.
From the outside, it looked like pointless needling. First Marisse, now Marcus. Even Lucien himself. But the precision of it… that was what unsettled her.
He wasn't just provoking them. He was choosing them.
Her gaze flicked briefly between the three—the two professors, the crown prince—and then back to Lucavion.
Nothing. Not a tremor in his expression, not the slightest flinch in his posture. The boy's black eyes were like sealed wells; whatever moved in them didn't reach the surface.
But it was Lucien's reaction that made her pause.
