33. CAUGHT RED-HANDED
CAUGHT RED-HANDED
EMbrY WOODCROSS HAD BEEN STUNNED MANY TIMES OVER IN the past few days, but nothing beyond the shock of seeing Oakley’s body matched the jolt to her system in that moment.
Balthazar Hale.
The intruder in her room. More than that, he was currently wedged inside her closet, bent over a crimson bundle of structured silk that was most definitely Oakley’s missing dress.
Embry gaped. “You?”
It was unmistakably him, even though he’d dressed in all black, right down to a literal burglar-style knit cap pulled low over his usually immaculately coifed hair.
Despite the purposefully dark ensemble, his typical black leather jacket was missing.
A sure sign of his under-the-radar intentions.
Even more damning—Oakley’s infernal backpack was at his feet.
The one Oakley had left in her room before the presentation of the homecoming court.
The battered old thing was undeniable, as was its purpose—to hold the gown.
Balthazar’s bright eyes shone like beacons in the night. He had the audacity to grin.
“Hello, Princess.”
Embry blinked at him and realized that Balthazar wasn’t simply planting Oakley’s missing clothing in her closet; he was in the middle of going above and beyond to frame her.
He’d pilfered a vial of her signature stain-removing potion—the kind almost anyone on campus could verify she made—and dumped it onto the fabric.
If the search warrant came through, this would be the first thing they’d find.
Oakley’s missing dress. It wasn’t stained with blood, but rather grass—bright green streaks marring the fabric like the perfect char on grilled chicken. As if she’d been tackled to the ground in a struggle that only lasted long enough for poison to be administered.
And then there was the corsage—Wait. No.
The ring of orchids was no longer there.
That stupid grin still in place, Balthazar dropped the dress and unfolded to his full height. He stepped out of the closet, magic sparking at the fingertips of his black gloves.
Sorcerers were twenty times more powerful than witches. Allegedly.
Embry didn’t know why Balthazar was doing this to her, but in that moment, she knew that he would not hesitate to use the full measure of his magical gifts against her if she tried to attack him.
Balthazar’s grin widened, those sparkling eyes dancing with knowing.
He had her. Attack, and she’d be injured or worse.
He could probably make it look as if she’d done it to herself, so overcome with guilt over what “she’d” done. Asshole.
So Embry did the only thing she could think of to stop him.
She started screaming.
At the top of her lungs, so loud it sounded as if she herself were in the middle of being murdered. There was always at least one screamer a semester and this time, she was it.
Smile plummeting, Balthazar lunged forward. “What are you doing? Stop that!”
What Embry was doing was simple: sounding the alarm. She’d be found out, for sure, but so would Balthazar. Not a perfect plan, but Embry couldn’t just let him get away.
Unfortunately, her hollering was such a good imitation of bloody murder that Rye broke her immobilization spell and rolled out from under the bed. He’d been there for Daddy’s lessons, too, of course, and knew the secret reversal enchantment—something she’d forgotten.
“Em! Are you—YOU.”
A surge of magic gathered in Rye’s hands, so strong Embry could feel it pulsate behind her as he took in the scene: Embry, head back and screaming; Balthazar reaching toward her, the detritus of his planted evidence in a heap over his shoulder past the open closet door.
A defensive spell shot over Embry’s shoulder, toward Balthazar, its hot signature teasing the hair away from her temples as she renewed her damsel-in-distress howl. The force of it made her watch as the sorcerer’s hands flew out in protection.
But just as Rye’s enchantment met its target, the spell and her raging scream died out.
Like, literally stopped.
As did everything else but Balthazar.
The sorcerer held up one hand and coolly reapplied a sparkling, unbothered expression as he straightened. Rye’s spell—meant to stun—sat mere inches from Balthazar’s nose, frozen in time and space, the warm signature of its magic just held there like an arrow in suspension.
Embry was suspended, too.
Unable to move, breathe, make a ruckus. Rye was still—a silent wall at her back, his reaching fingertips in her periphery. She hoped his eyes were open, and that he could see this.
So sorcerers were more powerful than witches.
If Embry could say anything she wouldn’t, because she was speechless.
Balthazar sidestepped the frozen spell, rushed to the window, and hiked one leg up and over the sill, all the while holding fast to his own enchantment, netting the pair of them. Balthazar seemed to make sure Embry could see him as he tipped her a salute.
“Have a nice life behind bars, Princess.”
Then, with the most devastating version of that sparkling Balthazar Hale smile, he vanished into the night. The moment his magic went out the window, time shot into motion as if discharged from a gun.
Embry’s flailing body tipped forward. Rye’s flailing body followed.
She caught herself in a low lunge, facing the empty window. He caught her around the waist. And they both caught themselves defying gravity for a split second, looking very much like ballroom dancers in the throes of a particularly dramatic dip.
Embry’s gaze met Rye’s staring down at her—panic rolling in waves off him, his sea-green eyes no longer calm, his lips parted, his breathing shallow and quick.
Rye’s biceps contracted, and suddenly she was pulled flush against him, her mouth only an inch from his own.
His pupils blew black and full. And then, with the slowest blink of his long-lashed eyes, Rye set Embry upright on her feet.
His palms lingered atop her arms, double-checking she was steady.
Embry was anything but. Yet her heart still raced a mile a minute, her mind elsewhere. “The backpack—could it hold clues?”
Rye hesitated, surprised by this aside. “It could…” He trailed off, just as Embry clocked the thundering of footsteps over that thundering of her heart.
Her ploy had worked but without the intended consequence.
Now there was no Balthazar to catch. Only her. And Rye.
Rye. Her pounding heart suddenly quivered. Embry couldn’t bring down Rye with her. A charge of breaking and entering would certainly sink his law school hopes before he even started his freshman year. He had no family to call his own and she wouldn’t take his dreams from him. Not now, not ever.
Without hesitation, Embry shoved her phone into his fumbling hands, muttered the incantation for the cloaking spell, pointed a finger at Rye, and let the magic rip.
All at once, time that had once stood still seemed to triple in speed.
Denial forming on his handsome face, Rye vanished before Embry’s unspelled eyes.
The moment he disappeared, the locked door burst open. Valentina, the dorm manager, rushed over the threshold, the same magical stunning spell at the ready that Rye had attempted to use only a moment earlier.
“Stop right there!”
Embry spun from where Rye stood, only inches away, and raised her hands in surrender.
Valentina blinked at her, shock climbing the dorm manager’s features as she took in the scene. One that very much looked as if suspended head prefect/current murder suspect Embry Woodcross had snuck onto campus and into her room to collect and destroy evidence.
It took every acting skill Embry had learned in the last three years to ensure she wouldn’t hint at Rye’s presence.
He was so close, she realized she could feel his breath against her cheek.
Though Embry couldn’t see him, she knew he’d frozen, too.
She silently pleaded with Rye to sneak toward the window rather than do as he always did and stand beside her.
Valentina’s brows scrunched together. “Embry? What on earth?”
Before Embry could produce a reasonable answer, the hallway filled in behind the woman, students stumbling from their rooms.
If she hadn’t already gone through the abject humiliation of half the student body turning on her over Oakley’s dead body, this would’ve been absolutely devastating.
But long gone was the girl everyone looked at as queen bee of Raven’s Head.
Standing before them was Embry Woodcross, the dictionary definition of the mighty fallen.
Embry watched Valentina’s face, waiting for condemnation. Yet she caught a whiff of rosewater perfume and was comforted knowing Ames was there. Probably Fairfax, too.
“What’s going on here? Move aside, move aside!
This room was locked for a reason!” Headmaster Martinelli’s voice grew louder as the congregation of students parted like the waters of Ravenwood Harbor for the arrival of Hiram Woodcross all those centuries ago.
“I pop into the admin building for hawk biscuits and someone breaks down the door to a suspended student’s room?
I can’t believe the audacity of—Valentina? ”
The headmaster shifted her attention from the dorm manager to who the dorm manager was looking at. “Miss Woodcross.”
Not a question.
Martinelli’s features settled into the same tenor of anger that tinged her voice as she’d stated Embry’s name.
“Headmaster, I can explain—”
“I’ll bet you can.” Embry felt that statement like a slap to the cheek.
“I vividly recall sitting in my office, pleading with you not to interfere with the investigation into the murder of Oakley Riddle. And yet, here you are, Miss Woodcross, just you and your sense of entitlement, tampering with the contents of your room, which we have not yet been able to search because of frivolous obstruction from your personal team of lawyers.”
An audible murmur rose from the students lined up in the hallway. Some shuffling of hands covering mouths. Embry’s heart dropped, her knees softened, and tears fluttered in her vision as shame rolled over her in a wave.
If she’d thought her reputation couldn’t get worse, she was sorely mistaken. Wishing Rye wasn’t witnessing this, Embry sniffed—she would not cry here. If Martinelli noticed her wet eyes, it didn’t register as her expression hardened into a patchwork of dissatisfaction.
“Miss Woodcross, to say I’m disappointed is an understatement.” Martinelli’s nostrils flared as she barked an order to the dorm manager. “Valentina, shut that damn window and then call the Riddle murder task force and request the presence of Inspector Brown.”
Embry spoke past the lump forming in her throat. “Headmaster, you should leave the window open. They’ll want it for evidence of how I entered.”
Martinelli frowned, considering it. Embry held her breath.
“Fine. Yes. Leave it open. I’ll stay with Miss Woodcross as we wait. Go, go, Valentina.” Then she turned to the gaggle of onlookers. “As for the rest of you, please respect curfew and our ongoing investigation, and return to your rooms in an orderly fashion.”
As Headmaster Martinelli swung her arms at the sluggish crowd, Embry gently swept her hand to the side and connected with Rye’s invisible body. Under her palm, his forearm was solid, and strong from all that time in the eight-man boat with Fairfax.
Even now, even through this whole shitty sequence, she couldn’t deny her love of a shapely forearm.
Locking away that ridiculous line of thought, Embry gave a barely perceptible squeeze and nudged Rye toward the open window.
She didn’t dare say the word, but the directive was obvious: go.
If Rye waited for the investigators to arrive, the spell would wear off. Even if he hid under the bed, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t be found out.
This was Embry’s mess alone.
Rye had to know that. He had to accept that.
The best way for him to help now was to be with Daddy and figure out the path forward.
Martinelli was waving her arms more furiously now, as the students finally unclogged and moved down the hallway.
Embry made eye contact with Ames, registered a supportive nod from her very best friend, and felt as Rye shifted beneath her palm, wrapped his fingers around hers for just the barest of moments, and then simply vanished.
Relief flooded Embry’s system, the rolling wave of it so strong, she had to grit her teeth to avoid a lift in her expression.
The headmaster whirled around, satisfied with the students’ progress, and briskly moved toward Embry.
“Miss Woodcross, through the window? Like a common cat burglar? Really? You do understand that this will not reflect well on your assertion that you had nothing to do with what happened to Miss Riddle.”
In the middle of her chastisement, the headmaster’s gaze caught on something beyond Embry. Not the window—thank the Goddess—or even the backpack, which was dark and grubby, but something Embry knew would ultimately be far worse.
The gown. Bloodred, impossible to miss. And when the headmaster and the investigators got a closer look, the stain remover from Embry’s own stash would be right there—intent glaring, a story unfolding.
Embry Woodcross snuck into her dorm room to cover up evidence that she killed Oakley Riddle before the Table’s warrant came through. Balthazar’s efforts were perfectly timed.
Embry had a lot of explaining to do and very little ground to stand on.