Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Briony
There’s one major flaw in Fox’s plan for me to blend in with the other students at the academy: I don’t have my uniform.
It’s sitting in the wardrobe at the very top of the Prince’s Tower – a tower I suspect is being watched – which means I’ll stick out like a sore thumb among the other students, and that definitely isn’t what I want right now.
So when I stir awake the next morning, glancing at the clock on Fox’s mantelpiece and finding the hour still early, I slip from his embrace, leaving him sleeping, throw on some of his clothes, and tiptoe out of his room, the classroom, and then up the stone steps and out onto campus.
The morning light has barely penetrated the sky and the academy is still and silent. I scan the pathways for any signs of patrolling soldiers, and then I hurry in the direction of Fly’s tower.
At one point I hear footsteps from far behind me, and I duck into the nearest doorway, hiding in the shadows as I watch two soldiers in their purple uniforms and caps pass me by.
When I’m sure they’re gone, I continue, utterly relieved when I slip into the tower that used to be my home, and creep up the stairs.
Fly’s never been one to lock his room, especially at night when he’s sleeping, so I let myself in and pad over to my friend’s bed, relieved to find him sound asleep, lying on his back with his arms spread wide and a silky black sleep mask covering his eyes, his hair drawn back in a net.
It’s so good to see him I have to resist the urge to fling my arms around him and squeeze him tight. Instead, I rest my hand on his shoulder and shake him gently, whispering his name.
My tall, skinny friend snaps upright, draws back his fist, and punches me right in the face.
I shriek and fall onto my backside, scrabbling away as he yanks off his sleep mask and stares down at me in horror.
“Briony!” he shrieks.
I clasp my hands to my bruised and throbbing cheekbone. “You hit me!” I yelp.
“Because you gave me a freaking fright!” he says, resting his hands above his heart for dramatic effect. “I was sound asleep, and I wasn’t expecting you.”
“No wonder you don’t have a regular boyfriend,” I mutter, clambering up to my feet, “if this is how you treat people.”
He pulls back the covers and swings his feet to the ground. He’s wearing a black silky pair of pajamas that match the sleep mask and that I assume must have come from his trip to the Onyx Quarter. He beckons me forward, pulls my hands away from my face, and winces.
“Shit,” he says. “I think you’re gonna have a shiner.” His eyes flick up to mine. “I’m dead meat, aren’t I? Those Princes are going to kill me.”
I flop down onto the bed beside him and shake my head. “The Princes aren’t here.”
“They’re not?” Fly says. “Then where are they?”
“I’m assuming news of their arrest hasn’t been broadcast across the realm yet, then?” He shakes his head. “Or news that we’re now traitors to the realm?”
“Oh,” he says, looking suddenly nervous. “That news I have heard.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. The new headmaster, Sir Sterling Spanks-a-Lot—” I peer at him quizzically, but he shakes his head, making it clear that piece of information will have to wait. “—has been subjecting us to nightly rants in the Great Hall.”
“What does that mean?” I say.
“He likes to stand and trumpet propaganda from the Empress. Apparently you and the Princes have been working with the demons. You destroyed the magical shield protecting our realm and are planning a demon invasion.”
“What the fuck?” I say.
“I know. You’re definitely more badass than you used to be, but seriously…” He shakes his head.
“Are people actually believing it?” I ask. My gaze drops to the ground.
“Some people, Briony,” he says quietly. “Some people are that stupid. Others know you, and they’re not so easily fooled. Besides which, Clare’s been going around telling everybody it’s lies.”
“Is that safe?” I say, alarmed for my friend.
“Most definitely not,” Fly says. “I keep having to smack my hand across her mouth.”
“More violence!” I tease.
“It’s for our own good,” he says. “Honestly, how I’ve ended up with two friends with such extreme death wishes, I just don’t know.
The plan was to come to the academy and keep my head down.
Anyway,” he continues, “anyone with any sense knows it isn’t true.
Destroyed the border protecting the realm – are people insane?
!” I nibble on my lower lip. Fly narrows his eyes. “Oh shit,” he says.
“Uh huh,” I say.
He looks at me in shock, and then as quickly as I can, I catch him up on everything that’s happened since we parted ways back at the palace in the Onyx Quarter.
“I told you,” Fly says. “I told you not to trust the Empress. I had a funny feeling about it and you didn’t listen.”
“I didn’t have any choice though did I, Fly? I had to find Fox.”
“And where is the Professor?”
“He’s here,” I say. “Sleeping in his bedroom.”
“Does he know you’re here with me?”
I shake my head.
Fly groans. “So he’ll be the one to kill me.”
“No one’s going to kill you,” I say. “I can heal it.”
I stride over to his clouded mirror – cheap looking compared to the highly polished, well-crafted mirrors I saw hanging in the palace.
A vicious red mark streaks across the brow of my cheekbone.
I lift my fingers to my face, let my light dance across my skin, and heal away all the damaged tissue. Then I spin back to Fly.
“See? Good as new.”
He walks toward me, tilting my head up to his gaze and humming with approval. “Impressive,” he says. “And useful.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So you’re an outlaw now?” Fly asks me.
“Seems so.”
“And if you’re in my room, that makes me an accessory to an outlaw – one who’s been branded a traitor to the realm.”
“You got a problem with that?” I ask him.
“No,” he says, grinning. “I always wanted to be badass, and now it seems I am. So what’s your plan?”
“My plan?” I ask.
“Oh, come on, Briony. You always have a plan.”
“Beyond rescuing the Princes from the Black Tower, I don’t know,” I say.
“The what?” Fly cries.
But I get the sense he heard me the first time. “That’s where they’ve been taken. At least that’s where we think they’ve been taken.”
“If the Empress has accused them of being traitors, then yes, that is where they are. But Briony—”
“I know,” I interrupt. “No one has escaped successfully from the Black Tower in three hundred years. Yadda yadda yadda.”
“Nobody’s had a dragon for three hundred years,” Fly points out. “Or been able to wield light.”
“Exactly,” I say, pleased with my friend’s optimism. “But I figure there must be a way in and out. There always is, right?”
Fly shrugs, skeptical. “I’m assuming you think Clare can help you with that little puzzle?”
“Clare and the library?”
“So you want me to go find her?” Fly asks.
I peer toward the long narrow window up here in the top of the tower. “Yes, please. I don’t think it’s safe for me to be walking around the academy.”
“No way,” Fly says. “Sterling’s doubled the number of soldiers patrolling here. They’re questioning students too.”
“Why is he questioning students?”
“He seems to believe that… well, there may be other people in the realm who have been working with the demons too.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I snap. “The only person who’s been working in league with the demons is the Madame – and she’s been working alone.”
“How about Fox?” Fly says quietly, not quite meeting my eyes.
I scowl at him. “Fox isn’t working with the Madame. You know that, Fly.”
He sighs dramatically. “Honestly, Cupcake, I don’t know what to believe anymore. There are so many rumors swirling – some really crazy stories. Some, like you destroying the wall, I was convinced were untrue and seems I was wrong.”
“There are always rumors at the academy,” I say dismissively.
“Not like this,” Fly says, shaking his head. “Everyone’s… well, everyone’s scared.”
“Everyone’s always scared,” I point out. With trials ever looming, I think every single student at the academy has some nerves lingering in the pit of their stomach – even the strongest and cleverest of students. We’ve always feared we’ll be the one heading back to our Quarter in a coffin.
“It’s different,” he says and for the first time I see real fear in his eyes. For all his bravado about wanting to be a badass, I can see he’s frightened.
“Fly,” I say, taking his hands in mine. “Has he questioned you? Has he questioned Clare?”
“Yes, and Damien too.”
“Did he …” I swallow. This is all my fault. I’ve wanted to keep the people I love safe and all I ever seem to achieve is throwing them in harm’s way. “Hurt you?”
Fly shrugs. “Nothing I haven’t endured a thousand times before at the hands of my loving older brothers.”
“Bastards!”
“I’m fine, Briony. I’m tougher than I look.” He adopts an unconvincing smile that makes me love him all the more.
“But Clare …”
“Is clever. She ran rings round that smarmy creep.”
“Good,” I say, “good for her.”
Fly leaves to fetch Clare, and fifteen minutes later we’re huddled in his freezing cold room together and I’m recounting the story of the last few days all over again.
“I’m guessing Fly’s told you what’s been happening here,” she says, her eyes darting behind her glasses toward her friend.
“Yeah,” I say. “He said you were interrogated.”
Clare shrugs. “He wanted information about you and the Princes. I don’t think they’ve worked out that you’ve been reunited with Fox yet.”
“One advantage we have then,” I mumble. “We think the Princes are being held in the Black Tower. I need to get them out and then…” I trail off, because then what?
We’re still considered traitors in this realm.
Even if we escape once, it doesn’t mean they’ll stop hunting us, that they’ll stop coming for us.
The realm isn’t that big – there are only so many places we can hide, so many places we can run to. And then what?
My gaze falls to my hands in my lap.
“You really believe Bardin?” Clare asks. “You believe that the Empress was responsible for ordering the deaths of talented students in the academy?”
“As mad as it sounds, I do,” I say. “I know Bardin is evil and completely unhinged, but I think on this matter she’s telling the truth.
I can’t believe that Bardin could have gotten away with all those murders for so long unless they’d been sanctioned by the Empress.
And she never investigated those deaths.
She never even questioned them. Which doesn’t make sense unless… ”
“Unless she was behind them,” Clare says.
“Yes.”
“I still don’t understand why, though.”
“No,” Fly says, scratching his head and looking confused. “We’ve been told all our lives that we need the shadow weavers to protect us from the demons, right? So why kill students with powers – powers that could be used to help protect us?”
“Because they’re a threat to their position, and their powers,” I say. “They don’t want to give up what they have in Onyx. They don’t want to share it. That’s why.”
Clare turns her gaze to Fly. “You should have seen it,” he says. “Everything was gold and sparkly and luxurious. It was like stepping into a whole new world. I never knew such riches existed before.”
“You have to tell everyone,” Clare says with a determined look on her face.
“You have to reveal the truth. Everyone deserves to know that this whole place,” – her gaze sweeps around the confines of Fly’s small room – “is one big massive lie. That there is no chance, no opportunity, that we’re all going to end up in the same shitty Quarters we always did, while the shadow weavers live in luxury in Onyx Quarter. That isn’t fair.”
“It isn’t,” I say. “But even if people were to believe me – and I’m not sure they would,” I think about how unconvinced the other students in the academy have always been about me, how ignored and invisible I was back in Slate Quarter, “even if they did believe me, what then, Clare? The shadow weavers are strong and powerful. They won’t want to change the system. And how would we make them?”
“We couldn’t,” Clare says. “But you could. Briony, you’re a lumomancer. You have a dragon. And four powerful fated mates.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. All I want to do is find Beaufort, Dray, and Thorne – for us all to be together. I can’t think of anything beyond that.”
“Fate bound you together for a reason,” Clare says, in a voice that sounds remarkably like a teacher’s. “Fate has its reasons, and I think this is it.”
I shake my head again, and Clare stares at me crossly.
Fly holds up his hands. “Let’s start with one step at a time, shall we? The Princes. Whatever happens next, this one,” he points at me, “is going to need them. Which means finding out how we’re going to get them out of the Black Tower alive.”
“That’s why I was hoping you might be able to help me, Clare,” I say. “If anyone knows a way, then surely it has to be the library.”
Clare sighs. “I just… I don’t know, Briony. The library’s always been so helpful about everything – every little question I’ve had. Even when I went looking for love-life advice about my relationship with Damien.”
“You went to the library for love-life advice,” Fly says flatly, “and not me?”
Clare shrugs and adjusts her glasses. “But when I went looking for information about the demon realm – information that I thought would help you fight the demons and rescue Fox – it was like the library was holding back on me.”
“How do you mean?” I ask.
Clare sighs again. “I don’t know. I guess I could be imagining it. But it felt like she wanted to tell me something, but she couldn’t.”
“I think I’d better come with you then,” I tell Clare. “Talk to the library myself.”
“Whoa!” Fly protests. “Lessons start in half an hour, and if Clare misses one…” He trails off. A flicker of fear enters his eyes. “Sterling’s a monster, Briony. Way stricter than Bardin.”
“Then I’ll go to the library alone.”
Clare shakes her head. “No way. I’m not afraid of Sterling and I’m coming with you.”
Fly groans dramatically and yanks off his hair net. “Guess that means I’m coming too.”