Chapter 57. Eloise
Eloise
It took me four tries to get the Chancellor into the chair after I tied him up with fabric from my sleeves. The man is tall. But pushing the chair toward the door is no easy task, either. He has eighty pounds on me.
I pause by the door, hoping my plan works. Don’t you dare die, Grayson Stone. I’ll never forgive you.
Here goes nothing. I turn the handle, staying hidden behind the door as I crack it open so only the tied-up Chancellor is visible.
But I don’t get the door open by more than two inches before someone barrels into it.
For a second, it’s chaos.
I land on my butt. The Chancellor’s chair skids back a foot. And the room fills with the scent of magic and musk. Then all of a sudden, sapphire-blue eyes stare down at me in shock.
“Claws?” Grayson says, offering me a hand.
I take it, righting myself as his gaze flits to his chair-bound uncle.
Which is also when everything goes eerily quiet.
The door is wide open. And in the hallway Akari stares us down with her throwing daggers. Right behind her is Maggie, her eyes wide.
Then all at once we’re in motion. I’m saying Maggie’s name, she’s lunging toward me, and Grayson’s grabbing the door. But Akari’s faster than all of us. She flings her arm out, stepping into the doorframe, blocking Maggie from entering and us from shutting her out.
“Now someone is going to tell me what’s going on and fast,” Akari commands.
Grayson’s mouth opens, but I beat him to it. “I’ll do better than tell you,” I say. “I’ll show you.”
I slide the Chancellor’s and Grayson’s phones out of my boot and hand them to Grayson.
The skin tightens around Akari’s eyes as Grayson starts pressing buttons.
But a second later there’s a ding, and Grayson’s smiling as the air shimmers between us.
It also shimmers next to Maggie and Akari in the hallway.
The video pops into existence like a small hologram, just like it will in every house for every person in our magical world.
Tears spring to my eyes. No matter what happens now, people will know.
They’ll know the Chancellor’s been killing them; Laborers will know their children have been held back on purpose; people will realize the Lawless aren’t the ones to blame. Things will change. They have to.
Akari watches the recording, eyebrows raised. The noise from the video stirs the Chancellor, who groans. It takes a minute before his eyes fully open and another before he comprehends what he’s seeing. Watching the horror dawn in his expression is satisfying.
The Chancellor immediately pushes against his restraints, probably reaching for his inaccessible magic.
“Akari, untie me this moment and kill them,” the Chancellor demands, and Grayson looks from his uncle to Akari, readying for a fight.
“You know as well as I do that I have no jurisdiction in the Archive Room and neither do you,” Akari says, and now it’s me who’s thrown.
Even Grayson looks shocked.
“In that case,” Maggie says, trying to step forward, but Akari blocks her.
“You’ll stay exactly where you are, O’Donnell,” Akari says, and Maggie swallows.
“I have jurisdiction everywhere,” the Chancellor says coldly. “You work for me, Akari. If you’d like it to stay that way, you’ll heed my orders!”
My eyes flit to Akari, who hasn’t moved. She remains just outside the Archive Room.
Which is also when the holographic video broadcasts the Chancellor saying: “First, when I order Akari to kill her uncle. And then when I kill her and blame it on the Lawless.”
A muscle twitches in Akari’s jaw. “Seems like a hollow offer, Chancellor, considering your plan was to kill me.”
Grayson smirks and the Chancellor’s expression sours.
“You bitch,” the Chancellor seethes. “I gave you everything. I dragged you out of the gutter—”
“Too late for that, Chancellor,” Akari says with a calm that almost frightens me. “Your secrets are no longer your own.”
Grayson
Emotions tumble over me like sand in a wave, gritty and powerful as I hear my uncle admit to killing my brother. It’s done, the thing I always hoped for—and more than that, there’s justice for the Lawless.
“Bring me the Chancellor,” Akari says to us with her no-nonsense command.
“Yes, get me out of this godforsaken room,” my uncle echoes.
Eloise answers before I can. “If he crosses the threshold and gets his magic back—”
“I am well aware of his magical ability, Belrose,” Akari says briskly.
Eloise and I share a look.
“Now, first-years,” Akari says.
As much as I hate it, we have no choice but to let Akari take it from here. So I nod, and Eloise and I each grab an arm of the chair.
“I’m giving you one last chance, Grayson,” my uncle says. “Untie me now, and I’ll let you live.”
“Like you let Liam live?” I ask, looking him dead in the eyes as I push him the last inch to Akari.
“What are you going to do, Akari?” my uncle chides. “That video may have incriminated me but it also incriminated Grayson. He stole from the Academy.”
Akari’s eyebrows rise. “Grayson Stone, did you personally raid the greenhouse?”
I could smile. “I did not personally raid the greenhouse,” I reply, telling the absolute truth. I lifted no plants.
“There you go,” Akari says, and now my uncle is fuming.
“You ungrateful little—” he starts, but that’s also where he ends because Akari spellworks a cloth around his mouth.
“That’s more than enough of that, thank you,” Akari says.
My uncle’s eyes promise violence and he thrashes, but then she touches his bound hands and he stills. I know without asking that she’s draining his magic. And for the first time ever, I scent my uncle’s fear.
“I’m a wee bit scared of you,” Maggie says, staring at Akari in awe. “Ye handled the Chancellor like he was nothing more than a cranky toddler having a scream.”
“It’s well past your curfew, O’Donnell,” Akari says as she casts a spell to reinforce the Chancellor’s bindings and stands him up.
“Didn’t say it wasn’t,” Maggie says, lifting her chin. “But ye will have to drag me out of here by force if you think I’m leaving without Eloise.”
Akari’s face remains neutral, but I can scent a faint whiff of amusement coming from her. “Belrose, does O’Donnell have your permission to enter the Archive Room?”
Eloise’s eyes widen. “She absolutely does.”
“Get on with it, then,” Akari says, yanking my fuming uncle out of the way.
Maggie doesn’t waste a second. She barrels through the door and the girls embrace. They cling to each other, tears in their eyes, and they billow the scent of love that smells like coming home.
“You got pulled out of a window, ye daft cow,” Maggie says into Eloise’s hair. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again or I’ll kill ye myself.”
My gaze shifts to Akari. “You didn’t attack us,” I say. “Or immediately defend my uncle. Why?”
Akari raises an eyebrow, remaining on the other side of the threshold with a hand on my bound uncle.
“I’m the head of the Guardians, Stone. My loyalty is sworn to the University and to the magic that created it, including the Key.
You two are now the Key Bearers. The Chancellor does not supersede that. ”
I study Akari more closely, realizing that must be why she didn’t tell the Chancellor that Eloise was in this room.
Which is when it also occurs to me that she did something else.
“It was your method of unlocking the door during our punishment that allowed me and Eloise to get into the Archive Room.”
“Was it? How interesting,” she says, giving nothing away. “Now, I must get my prisoner to his cell and call off the Guardians in light of recent circumstances. But given that it’s the middle of the night, Archive Room or not, I expect you three to get to your dorms.”
Now I’m even more convinced. Akari was helping us.
“Wait,” Eloise says, pulling back from Maggie. “We can’t leave. The wards, Grayson—your uncle fixed the tear.” She gestures to the table and the tree.
I make eye contact with Eloise, understanding passing between us.
“What are ye on about?” Maggie asks as she follows me and Eloise to the table.
“The Lawless—they’re trapped outside the wards and if they stay out there for too long without supplies, they’ll die,” Eloise says, and it does something to me, hearing her defend the people I’ve been fighting beside for so many years.
Akari simply observes and my uncle narrows his eyes.
“Isn’t that the point of the wards, to keep the Lawless out?” Maggie asks, but stops. “Scratch that, yer video disproved all that, it did. But what do ye plan on doing about it? Yer not going to—” She stops, color draining from her face. “Saint Patrick above, yer absolutely mad.”
“Think about it, Mags,” Eloise says, the iridescent blue of the dome reflecting off her face. “It could just as easily have been Gran who refused her Labor post and got trapped out there. Or your mom.”
My uncle loses his shit. But Akari only tightens his bindings.
“Settle down, Chancellor,” Akari says. “Or you’ll miss the show.”
“Gray?” Eloise says, and I meet her gaze, offering her my hand, palm up. She slips her slender fingers into it and pulls out the Key from her pocket.
“We do it together,” I say.
“Together,” she says.
We both grip the Key handle and glide it over the outside of the dome—the same way we unlocked the door and the same way we survived Akari’s punishment. The Key blazes a golden trail along the gossamer bubble and the instant we complete the arch, it pops, dissolving into a million flecks of light.
Eloise squeals. My smile reaches my ears. And my uncle screams so loudly the cloth around his mouth doesn’t stand a chance at containing it.