Chapter 47
I bolt across the night-dark, snow-laden campus.
It’s nearly dawn. If I’d thought Harker was cold and off-putting yesterday, that hollow, snow-tinged evening in the commons has nothing on the hanging darkness that creeps toward me now.
There’s not even a sliver of white in the sky. There will be a new moon today.
Reid races after me, and Fiona, back in her hunter form, runs after him.
I bolt through the Old Campus courtyard, past all the hunting trophies and trinkets and over to that winning photo of my dad.
I knew, somewhere in the corners of my mind, that I’d be back here.
It’s become one of my favorite parts of going to Harker, walking by his smiling face every time I make the journey from Elkfore Hall to the gateway or to class.
Tonight it feels like I was waiting for this moment all along.
“What’s going on?” Reid huffs behind me.
I read the plaque below the photo once more:
David Caddel wins Harker Lacrosse Championship for the Marksmen, 1994. Also pictured: number fifteen, Tim Hawkins; number twenty-six, Edgar Driscoll.
I read it twice more to be sure. Number twenty-six, Edgar Driscoll.
Edgar Driscoll.
A shock to the system. The warlock dean of Harker, my father’s friend…and his killer. The one he recognized. You. After all this time…At least tell me why.
It all clicks together now, as if before I was looking at the jigsaw upside down.
Edgar was the one collecting the ingredients for the High Thane all along.
Of course the dean was able to find the object of origin the night of the lacrosse game.
He’d cast the spell. He’d had access to the locked case in the armory and the hidden garden for the asphodels…
Probably faked the emails to Reid about Kitty’s hunting abroad.
He had every reason to send me on a deadly, purposeless goose chase after the White Stag.
I bet he even left the bag of poppy for me in the first place as soon as he caught wind that Reid and I were looking into the hidden garden.
I was so foolish—I begged Reid to ask the dean for help.
I could pummel myself for my own stupidity.
“Oh god,” I breathe. “Kitty. And Lyra.”
“You need to tell me what’s happening,” Reid says.
“The dean. It’s been the dean all this time. He’s turned, Reid. He’s working for the High Thane. He killed—” A sob escapes me. “Oh god, he killed my dad.”
Reid pulls me close against his chest as the tears of horror break free and spill onto his shirt.
If my dad had learned the dean of Harker had joined the Brood, that would have been a decent enough reason to change his name and hide me from Harker.
He’d probably had my records destroyed long before the night they came after him.
That night. My father had told me he couldn’t run forever. But why was Edgar hunting him down in the first place? Every time I loose one thread, another knots itself tighter. I finger the worn grooves of my locket as the tears flow.
“I can’t believe…” Fiona’s voice fades into the night.
“He doesn’t have a brand,” Reid says quietly. I can’t imagine the betrayal.
“I’m sorry, Reid.” Then I remember the scar I noticed on Edgar’s neck before he purposely sent me on a death march to Reid’s own brother. “He has a horrible scar on his neck. Like he sliced off a chunk of skin.” I eye Reid’s brand. “About the size of your brand.”
“God damn it,” Reid bites out.
I don’t tell him or Fiona the last bit I’ve worked out.
That as an aeon, I should have been able to feel that he’d turned.
I can sense all deviants, even warlocks and witches who cross to the dark side.
But Peter inadvertently answered that for me when I thought it was Lisette who was behind all this.
A powerful turned witch could mask themselves or others, he said. I had no way of knowing.
“You need to go to the Citadel,” Fiona says. “Right away. It’ll be safer than remaining on campus. I’ll alert the other faculty.”
“I’ll get her there,” Reid tells her. “Then I’ll come help.”
Fiona gives me one last worried look before she hurries off toward Mortimer Tower. When Reid casts his eyes back down to me, they are deadly focused. No more pain. No more hurt. “You need to leave campus.”
Something inside me stills. It might be my heartbeat. “What? What about the Citadel?”
“I know Edgar better than anyone. As soon as we tell the Elders and he learns we’re after him…he’ll tell the High Thane. That means war. I can’t have you in the middle of that.”
“Okay. Okay…” My brain is turning over a new course of events. “We can go to my apartment, I’ll tell Penny—”
“There is no we.” Reid shakes his head, irritated. “You are going to keep out of this mess, and I will take it up with the Citadel.”
“Let me go with you.”
“No. I already—” He grinds his jaw so hard I hear the enamel of his teeth scraping. “I almost lost you, Viv. I think about that night at Fever Dream constantly. I wake up sick in the middle of the night.”
“Reid…” But I have no words. I’m not allowing him and Fiona to do this without me.
Reid steps closer and cradles my chin in his hand. “I can’t fight Edgar, much less the High Thane, unless I know you’re safe.”
But I’m already backing toward Elkfore. “And I can’t sit by and do nothing.” Not after my dad. Not ever again. “You can either meet me at the gates of Old Campus in five minutes or meet me in front of the Citadel when I beat you there.”
Reid looks physically pained. “Is there anything I can say to convince you to let me do this alone?”
I cross my arms only to realize I’m shivering. “Would you let me do this by myself?”
Reid’s jaw tics. “Not a chance.”
“That’s what I thought. Gates in five.”
Back in the commons, I find Peter asleep on top of our notebooks. There’s a steady string of drool slipping from his mouth onto a page marked Rare Venoms. The fire’s retreated into cooling embers, the jazz we put on long since faded away.
I debate waking him to tell him what’s going on but think better of it. Something like this will only terrify him. Sophia can decide if she wants to fill him in. Same with Elliot.
Upstairs, the wood beneath the carpet creaks under my feet. The fibers are old and weathered and a little gray in spots. I guess no amount of cleaning or magic can get wraith blood out of wool. It’s impossible to reconcile who I was the night they attacked with who I am today.
Inside our dorm, Sophia’s fast asleep. One heel still on, minidress hiked up, empty bottle of some electrolyte-heavy sports drink clutched in her hand.
The periwinkle dawn paints her copper hair in hues of blue.
Like an angel, I think. Despite her reckless side, Sophia really is as pure as they get. As a friend, as a hunter.
I’m a foot away, hand outstretched to wake her, when I realize how much danger I’d be putting her in by doing so.
Telling her that our dean is a member of the Brood and we’re going to the Citadel to take him down?
That he let wraiths in to distract everyone from his taking Kitty and covered up her absence?
That he did the same with the zombie spell so he could steal the dagger from the armory?
Those are complicated plots to pull off.
He could have students working for him. Professors too.
For all I know, the entire commons is bugged.
Reid and I have Lisette on our side. Soon we’ll have the Elders. I don’t need to put anyone else in harm’s way.
I throw on a pair of black jeans, a black tank, and my favorite black boots. An OG Viv Abbot ensemble for a day when I’ll need to feel the most like myself. A warrior. A hunter. An aeon. A courageous take-no-prisoners bitch. I slip my winter coat on and head for the door.
“Where are you off to so early?”
I turn to find Sophia, half-awake and rubbing sleep out of her eyes.
Shit. “Nowhere.” Sophia raises a brow. I guess nowhere doesn’t really scream unsuspicious. “I’m meeting Reid,” I amend, because it’s not a lie.
Sophia kicks off her remaining heel and pulls the covers up and over her body. “I’m glad you two crazy kids worked it out. Penny’s going to come around too. And your mom, I’m sure.”
My heart surges up toward my throat with how badly I want her words to be true. “You really believe that?”
“ ’Course,” she slurs, and I can tell she’s drifting off again. “We’re hunters. We take care of people.”
And she’s right. That’s always been what we do.
“I really love you,” I tell her.
Sophia rolls over and a mess of tangled hair covers her face. Her response is barely audible against her pillow, but I think she says, “I know.”