Mr. Quinn gave Ms. Harper a brief, cool glance, then said,
"In this matter, Ms. Harper, I'm afraid there's nothing more for you to say."
He turned away before she could answer.
Facing the students who were still mopping and sweeping near the doorway, he raised his voice.
"Class One, everyone stop cleaning and go back inside, please."
A wave of confusion passed through the hallway.
The Class One students put down their rags and brooms, filing back through the door with puzzled faces.
Across the corridor, students from other classes began to drift over, drawn like moths to the promise of drama, peering in through the open doorway and craning their necks to see what was going on.
Ms. Harper stood at the threshold, her brows drawn tight.
"Mr. Quinn," she said carefully, "the district inspectors are coming this afternoon. My students have been working very hard to make sure everything is in perfect order. Two of them only just received their pre-admission offers today. I really don't want any of my students to—"
"Ms. Harper," Mr. Quinn cut in, his tone still polite but his eyes hard, "everyone knows Class One has excellent grades. Your students are outstanding. But anonymous reports have already reached my office."
He paused then, pitching his voice so that it carried clearly to the students inside—and to those crowding like spectators outside.
"The school rules explicitly forbid bringing unrelated books onto campus," he went on. "You know that as well as I do. If I don't investigate now, what will the other classes say? That I favour your students? That I turn a blind eye?
"Unless," he added, "you can guarantee that no one in your class has been reading such books."
Silence stretched taut.
Ms. Harper looked at her students.
She wanted to say yes.
She wanted to swear that not a single one of them would break the rules.
But she couldn't.
So she said nothing.
"Then please don't make this harder for me," Mr. Quinn said at last.
He stepped past her and walked to the front of the classroom, taking his place at the podium.
"Everyone," he said, "finishing touches later. Go back to your seats now."
Chairs scraped against the floor as students hurried back to their places, exchanging quick, nervous glances.
At the very back, Jaynara Stevens pressed her lips together until they blanched.
Every nerve in her body felt tight enough to snap.
Because Ginevra wasn't back yet.
"Excuse me!"
A voice rang out from the doorway.
Jayna snapped her head up.
Roy William walked in at the front, with Ginevra just behind him.
Her grip on the edge of her desk eased a fraction.
Her gaze tracked Ginevra all the way down the aisle, not relaxing until she saw her reach her seat.
"Where were you?" Jayna hissed under her breath as Ginevra walked past. "I looked everywhere for you…"
As Ginevra drew level with her, Jayna slipped a small, tightly folded scrap of paper into her hand.
A quick, urgent movement.
Don't drop it. Don't ignore it.
Ginevra sat down, unfolded the paper under the desk, and glanced at the eight hastily scrawled characters.
Surprise inspection. Do what I say.
She crumpled the note at once, fingers smooth and unhurried, and slid it into her pocket.
Jayna forced herself to face the front, eyes on the podium.
But her voice was a whisper that barely stayed trapped behind her teeth.
"Please," she murmured, so quietly that only the space between them could hear, "just listen to me this time."
The answer came back almost immediately.
"No."
Two letters.
Flat, calm, immovable.
Jayna's heart dropped.
Mr. Quinn cleared his throat.
"The Academic Office has received anonymous letters," he began, "more than one, in fact, claiming that some students in this class have been secretly bringing unrelated books to school."
His gaze swept the room.
"Frankly, I don't want to believe this," he continued. "You are the best class in the entire second-year cohort. Each of you is an excellent student. You should be leading by example.
"But I can't ignore multiple reports. So today, I'll do a check myself.
"Of course," he added, a small, humourless smile tugging at his lips, "I hope the letters turn out to be false. For that to happen, I need your full cooperation."
The words sounded gentle enough.
But everyone in the room knew:
Mr. Quinn was not a soft-hearted man.
Anyone caught by him breaking the rules—no matter who—never escaped public disciplinary notice.
For any student, that was a brutal blow to their pride.
For someone in Class One, the class everyone else fought to enter… it would feel like being dragged from a pedestal and paraded through the streets.
Ms. Harper stayed by the door, fingers curling and uncurling at her sides as she watched the corridor fill up with faces from other classes, pressed in close to watch the show.
She hated this—the spectacle of it, the way Mr. Quinn had turned her classroom into a stage.
But she had no authority to stop him.
All she could do was pray nothing went wrong.
"Everyone, put your bags on your desks and unzip them," Mr. Quinn ordered. "I'll start from the front row. Open books only when I ask."
He began at the first desk, flipping through each bag methodically.
Jayna watched him advance down the rows.
Her fingers dug into her skirt, knuckles white.
The sense of danger climbed slowly up her spine, cold and steady.
With every desk he passed, the feeling grew.
She turned her head.
Ginevra was sitting upright, eyes forward, her expression as calm as ever.
No nervous fidgeting.
No darting glances.
She looked like someone calmly walking toward a firing squad.
There was something unbearably lonely about that steadiness.
The thought rising in Jayna's chest hardened, sharper, clearer than ever before.
She didn't want this girl—this careful, quiet, stubbornly decent girl—to be humiliated.
Not here.
Not like this.
Mr. Quinn walked slowly down the middle aisle, flipping, checking, nodding.
He reached the last row.
He gave the students there a fleetingly warmer look; the hint of pride he felt in his "model class" still flickered beneath his sternness.
When he reached Ginevra's desk, his movements changed.
He only glanced at the top of her bag, at the visible textbooks and notebooks.
"Nothing to worry about with her," he said almost indulgently.
"She's fine."
He tapped his finger toward the desk next to her.
"Next one."
Jayna, who had already pulled her bag onto the desk, opened it at once and dumped the contents out, every book spread so plainly that no one could accuse her of hiding a thing.
"Mr. Quinn."
The voice slid into the room like syrup—sweet, sticky, and somehow cloying.
He paused mid-page and turned toward the source.
"Yes?"
It was Zoe, of course.
She sat with her back straight, eyes wide with feigned innocence.
"I just feel like you're being a little unfair," she said. "You checked all of ours book by book, but for Ginevra you only took one glance."
Ms. Harper's face went cold.
"Zoe, sit down," she said sharply.
"Yes, Zoe, that's too much," Lydia added from behind her, the picture of gentle reason. "There's no way Ginevra would bring unrelated books. You shouldn't say things like that."
If looks could kill, Lydia and Zoe would have been pierced a hundred times over from the back row alone.
Jayna's eyes burned holes in the backs of their heads.
Mr. Quinn gave a short, humourless laugh.
"Well, since it's been brought up, I can't afford to be seen as biased, can I?" he said. "A dean has to be fair."
He turned on his heel and came back to Ginevra's desk.
"Put your bag on the table," he said. "Open it, please."
Ginevra pressed her lips together, then lifted her bag onto the desk without protest.
Her fingers slid the zipper open.
She began to take her books out, stacking them neatly in a pile.
One. Two. Three.
When her hand closed around the last book, she stopped.
Just for a breath.
Then she placed it carefully on top of the stack.
"What book is this?" Mr. Quinn asked.
His face shifted.
The faint, indulgent smile vanished, replaced by something tight and severe.
He could hardly believe that the student he himself had recommended, the one he cited as an example to other teachers, would bring such a thing to school.
Ginevra dropped her gaze briefly to the cover.
"An unrelated book," she said.
The word was barely out of her mouth before the room exploded.
Gasps, low exclamations, the scrape of chairs as students craned their necks.
Even the students outside fell silent for half a second, stunned.
Then the murmur started up again, louder than before.
Ginevra?
Top of the grade Ginevra?
Somewhere near the back, someone's phone camera quietly popped up over the crowd of heads, its lens winking in the fluorescent light.
Ms. Harper rushed down the aisle, squeezing between desks until she reached the back row.
She looked at Ginevra, then at the book, then at Mr. Quinn's darkening expression.
"Mr. Quinn, this matter—"
"Enough."
His voice cracked through the air like a whip.
"Everyone is to remain silent."
The classroom fell still at once, the noise from outside muffled to a low buzz.
Mr. Quinn's brows were drawn into a hard knot.
He had not, under any circumstances, expected this.
He stared at Ginevra, complicated emotions flickering behind his eyes—disappointment, anger, something like disbelief.
"You admit it's an unrelated book," he said. "So why did you bring it to school?"
Ginevra's lashes lowered.
She knew exactly why.
And she knew exactly what staying silent would mean.
Public criticism didn't frighten her.
Losing the pre-admission didn't either.
If anything, the thought of it drifted through her mind with an odd sort of lightness—she'd never been sure she wanted that path as much as everyone assumed.
What stung was not the consequence.
It was the sheer pettiness of the method.
The fact that someone had chosen to come at her from behind, using a rule and a rumour instead of a face-to-face fight.
It was so cheap it was almost funny.
"I don't have anything to explain," she said finally, her voice flat, almost cold.
It was as good as a confession.
"Mr. Quinn, that book is mine."
The words cut in almost over hers, bold and clear.
Ginevra's head snapped around.
Jayna was on her feet.
For a second she looked as startled as Ginevra felt, as if she herself hadn't quite believed the sound of her own voice.
Then all the eyes in the room swivelled toward her, and something in her seemed to settle.
She drew in a steady breath.
"That book is mine," she repeated, firmer this time, letting each word fall clean and heavy into the stunned silence.