Chapter Fifteen
She only knew the wound she had made in the world had let the star fly through, when the sound of a bell rung out, and everyone
turned. Every one of them at once, even though some still sat astride brooms. Some were still in the middle of dueling. One
student had turned themself into a centaur, and he stopped and looked, just the same.
She wanted to say, It wasn’t me, under their sudden scrutiny.
And not just because she’d never liked crowds. There was something undeniably unsettling about it. Something too silent, too
still. Like she’d committed some terrible faux pas. “So this was the secret plan? To make me think this was something worth
winning, when they’re all now going to kill me for it?” she asked into that ringing silence. But she knew as she did it that
she wasn’t entirely serious.
It was hard to be, when he had said those words.
Most likely not meant at all, yet even so. They lingered in her mind.
And lingered even harder when he answered, “They could try, I suppose. But once you walk those halls, they will never be stronger than you, and they know it.” He shook his head, eyes bright with a kind of rueful amusement.
“I mean, did you really think I was popular because I’m so charming and handsome?
Everybody here is charming and handsome.
No, bookworm. I’m popular because I am powerful.
And power is the only thing any of these people ever understand. ”
“Yes, but here’s the thing, Harker: I haven’t gone through a door yet.”
“Maybe not. But you did just perform an impossible feat, in front of them.”
“And you think that’s enough to keep them at bay?”
“Even if it’s not, they will never get past me,” he said, and she knew what he meant. She knew why he wanted to protect her.
He thought that letter would drop if she was too dead to stop it. But the way he worded it—the way he sounded, so suddenly heated—made her look at him anyway.
She searched his face for something more.
And found precisely nothing. His expression was as bland as always—not to mention unfocused on her. He had fixed it on the
other students, as they climbed the steps toward them. Like a retinue, greeting their king and queen. Some of them saying
“well-done,” others smiling, a few as resentful as she had imagined.
But nothing serious.
She even turned back toward the ballroom. Safe suddenly, among the crowd, in a way she had never felt before. And now she
could see Anaya, in the glowing light beyond. She had stood on a chair, so Mina could see her above all the heads of everyone
trooping in, and she waved her arms in excitement.
Like she had seen and wanted to celebrate with her.
I wonder if I can take Anaya there with me, she thought, as she waved back frantically.
Though she suspected Anaya had other plans, for the foreseeable future.
As Mina watched, one of the boys she had seen holding serving platters swept her down, off the chair, and into a kiss.
And he was as handsome as she had imagined, when she had thought of her friend having someone.
Eyes like stars, a jawline to die for, skin a soft brown under the glittery lights.
It made her heart sing to see it.
She had been right about her friend having something sweet for herself. A little secret love affair that she couldn’t wait
to tease her about. In fact, she was only thinking of that, when she felt the sting over the back of her hand. The one that
was still lifted to wave, and entirely exposed.
“Just to make sure,” she heard someone say and saw the sandy-haired boy, Sebastian, with his wand raised. Then she looked,
and there was blood. He’d nicked her, just a little—to see if she was actually human under there, she assumed. No big deal, she thought, not exactly an attack.
But Harker moved anyway.
He put himself between her and Sebastian, and she saw his arm sort of jerk, just a little. Like he was hardly doing anything
at all. And yet people immediately backed away, all the same. They started disappearing indoors, fast. And now Sebastian was
looking at Harker aghast; he was clutching his hand.
Or at least, he was clutching the place where his hand used to be.
There didn’t seem to be anything at the end of his sleeve anymore.
It looked like he’d just tucked it inside, as a joke.
Except that nobody was laughing. In fact, she suspected Sebastian was so unamused that he wanted to do something more here.
Retaliate maybe. Strike back somehow. But whatever expression was on Harker’s face seemed to persuade him not to. He took
one look, then backed away with the rest.
Turned tail and ran into the crowd.
Leaving only her and Harker on the stone steps. Everything suddenly quiet, quiet, quiet. Everything suddenly dark. Someone
drew a set of curtains over the closed glass doors, and it got darker. She turned to him through so little light she could
only make out the shape of him.
Like that shadow, over Lilibet’s shoulders.
“You didn’t need to do that; it’s just a scratch,” she said, so caught up in the idea of Harker actually doing what he’d said
he would—covering anyone else who tried to hurt her—that she didn’t really process how he now looked. He had gone very still
and very quiet.
And when she put a hand on his arm, he didn’t seem to want to turn.
Instead, he said: “I can only give you a countdown from thirty.”
Then he covered his eyes. Both hands, she could see.
Like a little kid playing hide-and-seek.
At which point, it clicked—and so hard she felt her stomach drop right down into her feet. She got a flash of a passage from
a book on being hunted in the Underneath, of how the childhood games played here were the things done for real there. If a
human was caught and had no favor in the halls, this was what you got.
A head start before they sought you out.
Though, of course, none of that explained why.
She didn’t get it; she didn’t understand at all, until she remembered what had started this. She looked down at the back of
her hand and saw the blood. Barely there, but barely there didn’t matter.
Because it was also on him.
She could see it between his cupped hands.
It had made a stripe, over his lips.
“Thirty,” he said. “Twenty-nine,” he said.
And then she ran.
She didn’t wait for her heels to hold her back. She kicked them off and went barefoot across the grass, huge dress hoisted
into her arms, hair a black streamer behind her. Every part of her knowing she would never be able to outrun him to a place
of safety. But all of her willing to try just the same.
And especially when she realized in a hot rush:
She didn’t have to make it to her room at all.
The only thing she needed was a door. A door through to Calabaraia—where she would now be safe, but he couldn’t even cross
the threshold to. He’d bounce off it as surely as he would bounce off the iron barrier she had made for her bedroom. So really
the only question was: Could she make one?
She knew it was forbidden without permission, of course.
But it was also relatively easy. Just draw an outline on anything at all.
Though, of course, in order to do that, she had to stop. And when she glanced back over her shoulder, she was sure she could
already see him. A dark shape in the glow from the moon. Going slow, almost sauntering, but still too close.
It wouldn’t take him hardly anything at all to cross the distance, once he saw what she was attempting. But when the rotunda
attached to the east wing came into view, she knew she was going to try anyway. She practically flung herself around the curve
of it, until she was out of his sight line. Leaned against that cool gray stone, as she brought her cupped hands together.
Once, twice.
Nothing.
What’s the good of being the queen of this place if you still can’t cast? she thought wildly, as she glanced back around that curve, for some sign of him. Then when there was nothing, she took a
long, slow breath. She tried to focus on something that sparked it—those words in her ear.
And there it was. A bright bloom of light, that melted down into a familiar cylinder the moment she positioned her thumb and
finger just so. She clutched it like a pen, before it appeared. Now all she had to do was draw the shape on the stone beside
her. Easy-peasy, really.
Or at least it would have been.
If it had not been for the state she was in. For some reason her eyes were blurry with tears. She couldn’t seem to control
her breathing—it grated in and out of her chest, fast enough that it was starting to make her dizzy. And her hands shook when
she touched the pen to the stone.
She had to steady one hand with the other—and even so the line she drew came out shaky. It came out with gaps that were probably
going to make it fail. She found herself going over them frantically, almost scribbling, tears now cooling on her cheeks,
heart trying to beat out of her body.
And still the thing came out crooked.
The top was practically on a diagonal.
The whole door was too small, too low—she was going to have to stoop to get through it. And that was if it even worked. It seemed doubtful, considering the door handle she was trying to grind into the stone. A sloppy mess full
of jagged lines, half of them going outside the circle she was trying to make.
It looked pathetic.
She stepped back and almost laughed.
In fact she most likely would have done so if it hadn’t been for that sudden prickling feeling. That coldness all along one
side, like she’d felt that first day in the lecture hall. And then she turned and saw him.
Barely ten feet away, eyes blank and staring, mouth full of teeth.
She didn’t know why she reached for that door handle. It didn’t even seem like she’d be fast enough—never mind believing that
it would be good enough to work. But it did, oh god it did. Her hand seemed to sink in and clasp around something at the same
time. Light bloomed around it, and around the edge of the crude door she’d drawn.
Go, go, go, she urged herself, and tried to push right away.
First with her hand, then when nothing happened, her shoulder. She slammed against it, hard enough that she felt some bone
or muscle protest. Pain shot through her, and still she tried again. She had to try again.
That was the sound of him growling, at the thought of losing his quarry.
And it was close, so close, god, she could almost feel the breath he’d used to push that grating rattle out. It brushed against
the nape of her neck, and she nearly lost her mind. She didn’t just shove at the door; she begged it with her body. She flung
herself against it, half screaming, sure it was done.
And that was when it gave.
It swung inward, so fast she couldn’t stop herself tumbling through.
She practically fell to her hands and knees, wrists barking and dress suddenly around her face—though she could hardly care, of course she couldn’t.
Because all she felt of him was the rake of his claws over that silk, that velvet, that taffeta.
Then she was through.
She was on the other side.
She was in the Underneath.