Chapter 3 #3
“Technically, she cannot,” Fiona says, big eyes behind her oversized glasses jumping back and forth between the both of us. Penny’s hand squeezes mine. “But we can hide her there while the school is under the care of the new interim dean.”
Penny and I release twin sighs of relief.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
But Fiona’s already ushering us toward the utility closet with the broken kiosk. “Me.”
When she closes the door behind us, the smells of mothballs and cleaning fluid fill my nose. In Fiona’s hand is a new lymantrian coin just for Penny. “I have to warn you,” she tells her. “Once you go through the gateway, you will be changed.”
My throat constricts.
“Changed how?” Penny asks.
“Mortals cannot see most deviants. Beasts, the undead, half-borns—they all appear as natural phenomena. Animals, fog, men. Only those at the top of the deviant strata, like vampires, lycanthropes, and demons can choose to show their monstrous forms to the mortal eye.”
“The claws,” Penny breathes, horror seeping into her face.
“After this, Penny, you will be able to see everything. And there is…more than you can imagine.”
Penny looks at me as if it’s somehow my decision.
Fiona does the same.
“Come on, Penny,” I say, mustering strength. “Down the rabbit hole.”
We try our best to brace Penny for the experience of stepping through a gateway for the first time, but she still pukes outside the rotunda once we arrive.
She’s not any more at ease when Fiona looks like a totally different person upon entry to the school.
She’s back in her Professor Lisette form—frizzy blond hair pulled into a low bun, horn-rimmed glasses—but her cartoonishly large eyes and freckles haven’t changed. How did she ever fool me?
We ask Penny what she told the cops and her family about her abduction just to get our stories straight—inept criminals trying to get a ransom out of her dad, but she escaped before they could even make the call—and then try to explain shifters and as much backstory on Harker as we can.
By the time we reach Elkfore Hall, Penny is just nodding along, numb.
Total information overload. My heart breaks for her.
Hound barrels inside my dorm room with a joyful howl and nearly tackles Sophia. “Hey, bud,” she coos. “What are you doing here? Viv, did you finish that essay…” When she clocks me, Professor Lisette, and Penny of all people, she stands ramrod straight. “Do I need my crossbow?”
“Whoa,” Penny breathes.
“Down, girl,” I tell Sophia. The last time she saw me—a mere twenty-four hours ago—she thought I was sneaking out to go make up with Reid, not to take our dean down. A lifetime’s worth has happened since then. “I’ll fill you in in a sec. I need to talk to Professor Lisette. Stay with Penny?”
“Okay.” But she looks wary. Even in her booty shorts, pimple stickers, and massive Harker sweatshirt that I’m pretty sure belongs to Elliot, she’s ready to rip. God, I love that girl.
Fiona and I step into the hall, and I release an extra-large exhale. I’m beginning to ache all over. There’s too much happening. I’ve been in fight-or-flight mode since Reid and I discovered Driscoll was behind everything and had murdered my father. And now Driscoll’s dead and Reid’s…
“What do the Elders know?” I ask, clenching my jaw against the tears and the fatigue.
Fiona looks both ways down the wood-paneled hallway, but there are no other students to be seen.
It’s nine a.m. on a Sunday. No college student on Earth is awake.
“After I left you and Reid, I spoke to Dawnmere and then Crowley. Made sure they were both with us—and the three of us went to the Citadel. But you and Reid weren’t there.
We told the Elders that we believed Driscoll to be compromised.
They took apart his cottage, removed his clearance, but couldn’t find him. I tried to reach you…”
I was a little busy, I want to say. The missing dean was putting a fucking syrabraxa in my back.
“As soon as I got your text, we took a team of Citadel hunters to the docks.”
And showed up just in time for Deacon to narrowly avoid them. “But we were gone.”
Fiona nods, and for the briefest moment, I see what finding that warehouse empty—splattered in my blood and Reid’s—must have been like for her. I reach for her hand and squeeze. “What did you tell the Elders?”
“That Driscoll was working with the Brood. That he brewed a syrabraxa and seems to have succeeded in transferring the spell into a host.” Her lips twist with fury. “They know he killed poor Kitty and Lyra. Maybe even other students before them…They know Reid killed him and is now…presumed dead.”
Hot tears threaten my eyes. I look down at the stained fibers of the Elkfore hallway carpet. The stubborn wraith blood not even magic could get out. “He’s not dead. They took him. The Brood—”
“Viv, I have to ask.” When I look up, Fiona’s eyes are as big as I’ve seen them. “Do you know who Edgar’s host is?”
I steel myself. One more person learning my biggest secret. But I’m not sure what point there is in keeping my aeon nature from Fiona now. I rip off the truth like a Band-Aid. “Yeah, it’s…It’s me.”