Chapter 24 An Unexpected Visitor #2
I bided my time before I tried locating my father’s journals.
I attended the Circle but remained withdrawn, only speaking when the others pressed me.
Both Aspen and Sequoia tried to catch me before and after sessions, but I avoided them by feigning ill or busy and slipping away.
It wasn’t just what had happened with Sequoia that made me keep my distance, but there was a gnawing guilt over the kiss with Aspen.
Not that I’d had much say in the matter—he’d practically tricked me.
But hadn’t there been something real between us?
I couldn’t deny the attraction, the way he confidently carried himself in the Circle, the way he stood up for his beliefs, and pushed his fellow students to think critically, even if he did come across harsh.
And his artwork—it drew me in, stirred something deep in me.
Had he truly been friends with Julian, and genuinely wanted me to solve his murder?
Or was he just another one of the Meister’s pawns?
Circle had ended almost an hour ago, and I found myself sitting on the edge of my bed, shuffling the Skorn deck to keep my hands busy as my mind raced.
Aspen, the Council, the Meister. Was everything linked or was I descending into madness, just as my father had?
I needed to find my father’s journal, and for that, I’d have to return to the tunnels.
I surmised that from the coordinates which extended beyond the reaches of the House.
At least my encounter with Aspen hadn’t been for nothing.
A knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. “Ms. Blackburne,” a voice called, snapping me out of my trance. I stood quickly, a card slipping from my hands. The Hermit.
My eyebrows knitted together, and my intuition flared. “Gabriel,” I breathed.
I opened the door to see the familiar face of Richard.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Ms. Blackburne, but you have a visitor,” he said.
I pushed past Richard and rushed downstairs.
And there he was—my childhood best friend, standing in the foyer with his hands shoved into his pockets, glasses slightly askew.
“Gabriel!” I ran to him, my breath catching in my throat.
His face brightened at the sight of me, and he lowered his satchel to return my embrace.
I hugged him tightly, inhaling the familiar scent of parchment, leather, and rain—the smell of Greenwich, the smell of home.
A longing sadness settled into my chest.
“What are you doing here?” I pulled back, panic rising in my chest. Gabriel didn’t belong here. He’d be in danger. The Meister could walk through the doors at any moment and see him, breaking Foresyth’s strict code of no visitors.
“Dahlia, it’s so good to see you. I got your letters.” He smiled, missing the urgency in my tone.
“How did you find this place? You can’t be here. It’s not safe,” I whispered, searching his eyes for understanding, willing him to realize the danger he was in.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” he asked, his voice gentle but firm.
I sighed, leading him into the breakfast room and closing the door behind us.
The hour was late, and no one should be coming in.
Being with Gabriel felt like being back in the world I knew—safe, familiar.
But it also felt uncomfortable. He hadn’t changed a bit, whereas I had. His presence couldn’t change that fact.
“How’ve you been, Dahl?” he asked, his eyes scanning my face.
“Fine.” I forced a smile.
He wasn’t convinced. “Come on, I know you better than that. You look . . . different.” His gaze lingered on my clothes—a bright sweater Sequoia had picked out for me, paired with a black skirt that hit my hips just right. “More feminine.”
“There’s a stupid dress code here,” I said, sitting down at the breakfast table.
“So . . . you don’t like it here?” He leaned closer, concern etched in his brow.
“I . . . I don’t know. It’s confusing. I came here, well, for Julian.
But I’m getting tangled up in this place.
Managing research assignments, papers, relationships.
” The last word tumbled out of me before I could reconsider it.
What did I even mean by that, relationships?
Of course they weren’t real, they were lies.
“Sounds like going undercover for your first assignment isn’t as easy as you thought,” Gabriel teased, but there was a seriousness beneath his words.
“Fine,” I admitted, my voice quiet. “I’m in over my head, okay? I keep following the rabbit hole, and it just gets darker and deeper every step.” My voice faltered as I leaned closer. Gabriel brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, the gesture familiar, yet unsettling.
I’d grown out of the version of myself he’d known in Greenwich. I was different, even though I couldn’t quite explain how. But Gabriel couldn’t recognize that I had changed, at least not in the ways that mattered to me.
“Is Estelle doing all right?” I asked, breaking the silence between us.
“She’s fine. I’ve been checking in on her. She misses you.” He paused, then added, “I’m the one who’s a wreck, Dahlia. I haven’t slept a full night since you left.”
I lowered my eyes to my forearms, avoiding his gaze. I had barely slept, either, but for entirely different reasons that had nothing to do with Gabriel.
“Come back home with me,” Gabriel said softly. His hand jerked to touch my cheek, but paused mid-air, as if he sensed my hesitation. “There’s something wrong with this place.” His tone darkened.
I lifted my head to meet his eyes. “I can’t, Gabriel.
” His jaw tensed, and I saw the hurt ripple across his face.
No matter how much I missed home, I couldn’t leave now.
Everything at Foresyth was connected—my father, Julian, and now me.
If I didn’t figure out what was happening at Foresyth, others could get hurt.
Not just the current students, but the others after them. I had to stay, no matter the cost.
“Is it because of someone else?” Gabriel asked, his tone sharper. The word else felt like a dagger, implying that he was the one I was saying no to.
I furrowed my brows. “It’s not like that.”
“Have they tricked you? Brainwashed you?” His voice cracked, betraying the fear behind his question.
“No,” I said, my voice too high-pitched. “It’s not like that. The students here . . . they’re under the Meister’s spell. I agree that there’s something wrong with this place, Gabriel. But I’m so close to figuring it out. I just need more time.”
He clenched his jaw, his lines of frustration deepening. I could see how crazy I sounded, how reckless I appeared, staying in a place that was essentially a trap. But I couldn’t abandon the investigation. I couldn’t abandon my peers.
“This place—it’s even more sordid than I thought,” he said, opening his satchel. “I found this in the archives. Dahl, it wasn’t just Julian. There’s been a student every year for two decades.”
My eyebrows knitted together. “What do you mean?”
“A student has died under mysterious circumstances, gone missing, or unenrolled inexplicably, for the last twenty years. Julian was just the last one.”
I took the case file from him and thumbed through the newspaper clippings.
A few were from 1893, then started again in 1904.
Elizabeth Svenski, Michael Locke, Eden Kohnman, Jamie Gillard, Thomas Wood, Lily Fraser.
The names went on. Every name was like a vial of horror injected into my veins. Wait, Lily Fraser?
She was one of the names on the dismissal notices I had just found in the Meister’s office. Students were disappearing, and the Council was covering it up as academic dismissals.
The cycle of suffering. This is what Julian had meant. This is what he wanted me to end.
“I can’t leave now,” I said, resolution ripening in my chest. For better or for worse, I was a part of Foresyth’s history now. There was no sense or reason to explain what I felt, but I just knew it. Julian had known it, too.
“Why can’t you just admit it?” he snapped. “Admit that you wanted to come here—to be a student.”
“What?”
“It’s all you’ve ever wanted, isn’t it? To attend an elite school, to get a prestigious degree.
Greenwich was never good enough for you.
I was never good enough for you.” He stood, his voice dripping with bitterness.
His features, which were usually soft and demure, were now sharper, cutting in unison with his words.
“Wait, Gabriel, that’s not true,” I started, but his words had stung deep, laced with a truth I didn’t want to face.
It wasn’t just Julian that kept me here.
Hadn’t I spent years longing for something more, something that Greenwich could never offer?
Hadn’t I craved the validation Foresyth offered?
The acceptance of the students, the academic rigor, the feeling of being among equals?
I stood, trying to steady myself. “You should go. If you came to convince me to leave, I’m afraid it’s not going to work.
I’m committed to seeing this through.” The words felt like stones in my mouth.
I knew hurting him would make him fight less for me, maybe even forget about me.
It was the only way to keep him safe. “And there is someone else,” I added.
Two someones, if I was going to be honest about it.
Gabriel scoffed, shaking his head. He slung his satchel over his shoulder, eyes filled with pain.
“I hope this place is everything you’ve dreamt it would be, Dahlia,” he said, walking toward the door.
He turned to me one last time before leaving, and his anger was momentarily replaced with a flash of sadness. Then, he was gone.
My eyes drifted to the case file on the table, the newspaper clippings of missing students strewn about.
I thought about the letter from the Council, and the bloodwork analysis of mine and Julian’s blood.
Our blood. I was bound to this place, whether I liked it or not.
Julian had tasked me with ending the cycle, and I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—run away.
Gabriel had been right about one thing: Foresyth was turning out to be the exact nightmare I deserved.