Chapter 29
The world around me became a blur as I sprinted to his side, muttering under my breath.
“No, no, no . . . please, no!”
“Hannah!” I dimly heard Marina’s panicked voice calling after me, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was getting to Typhon and making sure he wasn’t –
One second, I was running, the next, my legs flew out from under me. I hit the ground hard, and the breath whooshed from my lungs in a rush.
I was shoving myself to all fours when a hand pressed against my back and a low voice spoke.
“Unless you want everyone here to know what I know, you need to stand down. If he can be saved, trust that it will be done, child.”
Thalienne.
The blood pounded in my ears as I strained to see . . . was his back moving? Was he completely still, or had his finger just twitched?
Bryony rushed past to crouch at his side and, after a moment that felt like eternity, she tipped her head at Thalienne in a clipped nod.
“See there? He’s going to be alright. You need to go back over with the other students so we can get him to the infirmary.”
“What happened to him? I don’t understand . . .”
She helped me to my feet, her wise deep blue eyes full of sympathy, but her jaw set.
“When I couldn’t break the curse to get you out, he tried to force his way in.
He was stuck between this reality and that monstrosity that Mallachtan created.
” She pursed her lips and shook her head.
“I tried to free him, but he fought me. He wouldn’t leave you, the stubborn fool.
He was stuck until you broke the curse.”
“I need a stretcher over here!” Bryony called to the closest medic, who had been checking some of the students’ vital signs.
“Doyen Moreno’s trying to play the role of savior did no one any good.
The evidence is right in front of you. Can you do me a favor and not make an already dreadful situation even worse by following suit?
Go back to your cabin so I can sort out this mess, and I will come find you as soon as I’m able.
We have important matters to discuss . . . Harlow.”
Shit.
I tried not to stammer as I met her shrewd eyes. “Thalienne, I –”
“Go, before it becomes painfully obvious that you and your lot are the only ones here without worried family members, hmmm?”
Family members? We’d only been trapped a few hours at best, but how had they all gotten here so quickly?
Regardless, and with reluctance, I nodded, sparing one last glance toward Typhon as they loaded him onto the stretcher.
He would be alright. He had to be. And Thalienne was right.
There was nothing I could do to help him right now.
Making it obvious to everyone in the entire school, including the remaining and watchful Runecoats, that I didn’t fit in here would only get me trapped all over again.
The best thing I could do right now was wait.
If I thought I’d been tired that morning, it was nothing to what washed over me.
A bone-deep fatigue would have been a welcome feeling.
What settled over me felt as if it had started in the center of my very being, and dragged through weeks of no sleep, no food .
. . That rolling exhaustion settled over me as I headed slowly back toward my classmates.
Thalienne knew who we really were, and so did a shit ton of the students.
Word would get to Tarquinius soon enough. We needed to plan our next move.
Immediately.
Making sure to keep a reasonable distance between us, we all headed toward the courtyard exit with a mix of other students. One of the secretaries jotted our names down as healthy and accounted for, and we were allowed to leave the courtyard.
It was only when we were out of sight of the others that we stopped and stood still.
One by one we fell in toward one another, hanging on tight.
We hadn’t even known the danger was that bad, we hadn’t known until it was almost too late for Marina, and we’d survived – because we’d stuck together.
If there had been even a whisper of a doubt that we should go our separate ways, it went up in smoke with that understanding.
“Harlow, you saved us all. And the entire school,” Ellie said.
I shook my head. “I was . . . I was just trying to get to you guys. And it wasn’t just me. It was all of us . . . our connection. Stronger than any rune.”
Which I realized was the other reason it was the loophole at the same time Fable did.
“Mallachtan would have expected runes thrown at that curse. No rune would have broken it. I bet from the outside, the teachers, the Sage, they would have been trying and failing.” Fable shook her head in awe. “If you hadn’t figured it out . . . I don’t want to think about the outcome.”
“Thank the gods it wasn’t a rune we needed.” Ross grinned and winked, though he looked more than a little shaky. “We’d have all been dead with the way you cast them, Harlow.”
Zeed laughed, then covered his mouth, and I couldn’t help it, I laughed with them.
“You’re our rock, Harlow.” This from Marina. Her eyes filled with tears as she held me tight. “I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell us about your father. The way I acted only proved you were right to be afraid. I’m . . . I’m so sorry.”
“No. Don’t give me the out. There was no excuse for hiding it except for that I love you guys, and I was scared to lose you. It won’t happen again.”
We all held on tight a little longer.
“You think the other students who figured it out will really keep our secret?”
“They won’t need to. Thalienne knows,” I admitted with a wince. “We’re going to have to talk with her either tonight or tomorrow first thing.”
Noise sounded in the distance as the other students and their families began to stream out of the courtyard.
“Head back to your houses. I’m pretty sure this will be our last night apart, whatever comes next, so at least we’ve got that going for us.”
“If the jig is up, why don’t we all just go to Liam’s? Or your place?” Cat asked with a frown. “I hate the idea of you being alone.”
“I have Calypso. I just need a minute to myself.”
That wasn’t exactly true. I’d never felt closer to my team. But if I didn’t hear from Thalienne tonight with news of Typhon? I was going to sneak into the infirmary and see how he was for myself. No reason to drag the others into that . . .
Or let them see how much he matters to you.
Not because I wanted to keep secrets from them anymore. But because admitting it out loud meant I couldn’t keep it a secret from me anymore, either.
Fable and I shared a look, and she held her thumb and pinky to her face like a telephone.
I nodded. Once the dust settled and the grounds went quiet again – hopefully later tonight, after I had a chance to speak to Thalienne – I’d reach out through the stones, and we’d all meet up to decide what to do.
For now, though, I trudged off to my lonely House Phoenix abode for one.
Once inside, I realized with a start that my stomach was so empty, it felt like it was eating itself. My brain instantly tripped to Calypso, and I realized with a pang of guilt that I had told her I’d grab her at lunch break, which was hours ago.
I stripped off my clothes and glamor pendant, took a five-minute shower at the temperature of magma, then threw on a pot of water to boil for some ramen noodles.
Finally feeling slightly human again, I headed to my bedroom to grab the locket.
The second I flipped it open; there was a splash and a screech.
“Ahhhh!!!!! Oh gods! Harlow! You’re alive!”
I reeled back to plop onto the mattress as if the sheer decibels of her scream had knocked me down. “Mallachtan’s curse was that bad?”
“I . . . I thought . . . everyone thought you were all dead! What the fuck happened to you? Why haven’t you contacted me? Bandit came to see me. He said they got word that there was trouble with a curse at Heathermoor! That some students were trapped. I’ve been worried sick.”
Her agitation was clear in the number of bubbles that floated around her, making it impossible to see her at all.
“I’m so sorry. I’m sure it was a long day for you as well, but we –”
“Day?” she demanded, bubbles swirling as she stopped, pressing her face close to fill the tiny locket. “It’s been three fucking days, and the entire Dwimmer world has been in an uproar!”
I stumbled to my feet and made my way back to the kitchen, setting the locket on the counter. No wonder the families had been called in . . . they hadn’t been called in quickly, they’d had three days to get here.
“What else do you know, Calypso?”
“That bastard Mallachtan curse-switched the entire school of Heathermoor. It was a death spell, Harlow. One that had no counter curse. Thalienne was desperate enough to reach out to Tarquinius, but there was nothing he could do either. No one . . . no one has ever broken one of Mallachtan’s curses.
I thought you were dead. I thought you were all dead.
Don’t you fucking do that to me ever again young lady!
I told you not to die and then you went and almost did! ”
“I’m so sorry . . .”
She sniffed and crossed her arms over her scaly chest.
I smiled. “But it’s kind of cute. That you cared enough to be upset that I was dead even though I wasn’t dead.”
“Whatever,” she huffed. “It’s only because of the coin. You finally got it, and I want it.”
“Of course. Sure.”
“It has nothing to do with actually liking you.”
“Got it.”
She stared out at me. “So why are we talking about it?”
“We aren’t.” She was never going to admit she cared about me, and I had other things that took precedence anyway.
“Did Opie know we were trapped?” The idea that she might’ve thought me dead for any period of time made my guts twist. I knew she was mad at me, but to think I’d actually died would crush her.
“Well, she heard about Heathermoor like the rest of the students, but she doesn’t know you’re there.
Here. Whatever. Bandit said she was okay.
Distracted and irritable, but then again, she’s a teenage girl, and you did leave her in the dust, so to be expected.
I’m sure Neverthorn is behaving as if it’s business as usual.
Tarquinius used this whole thing as propaganda to highlight how much better and safer Neverthorn is – of course he failed to mention that it was a Senate-approved asswipe who did this. ”
“Of course.” I emptied a pack of noodles into the pot and then leaned on the counter. “She’s safe though, right? Opie and Phyllis are safe?”
“Yes?” Calypso ran her hands over her head, smoothing down her green locks for maybe half a second. “If anyone is safe anywhere these days . . .”
“Touché.”
My thoughts went instantly to the others. Fable, Ellie, Cat . . . all of us had been shaken big time. For as much as I’d complained about having to share a dorm back at Neverthorn, I’d have killed to have them by my side right now and wished I’d taken them up on the offer to stay together.
“I miss my friends not being with me,” I admitted. “Is that weird? I’ve been a loner most of my life and liked it that way.” Or thought I did, at least.
“Not weird, not for House Phoenix. You lot are known for bonding like this – same thing happened with Nocta and his friends. The ones he killed.”
A chill swept through me, the skin on my arms rising. “I can’t believe he could do that. When my friends were in danger all I could think about was getting to them – there was no question of what I would do to get to them and save them.”
“And they would have felt the same way.” Calypso sighed heavily. “I don’t want to put doubts in your head . . . but maybe there’s more to the story than you think?”
“I saw them die . . . the students that Nocta killed.” I shook my head. “I saw the memory of it, and there’s no mistaking who killed them.”
But her words did have me wondering, yet again. If Nocta was so bad, why did it seem like all the worst things we’d gone through had been at the hands of someone supposedly on our side?
The good side?
Movement just outside the window, a knock on the door. I motioned for Calypso to stay quiet.
It wasn’t so late that a visitor would be unheard of, but the thought of Sage Thalienne coming to tell me that something had happened to Typhon had me rushing to the door in a panic.
When I opened it, though, it was the last person I ever expected to see.
And I was so not prepared.
“Phyllis?”