Gabriella Poole - Divided Souls (Darke Academy)

let go of her.

‘God knows. Cleaning up the evidence, probably. He was adamant we’re to go.’

Cassie rubbed one sleeve across her face as Richard came to her side and kissed her cheek. He too put an arm round Isabella to support

her. Dawn was a hazy pearl light now and beyond the mosque grounds the city was coming alive, car horns blaring, people shouting and

laughing and calling out. Normal life, thought Cassie. Normal life. High on the air a recorded muezzin cried mournfully, amplified and

rebounding off ancient stone and modern streets.

‘All right.’ Cassie’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. She hugged Isabella tighter and led her towards the stone steps, though it was

like moving some inanimate chess piece. ‘We’ll do as he says. For now. But not for ever.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Perhaps he was never going to speak. And that would be fine. If Darke never spoke, maybe Cassie would never have to think about any

of this. She’d just sit here till the end of time, on this richly upholstered Ottoman sofa, knees together and hands clasped tightly, while Sir

Alric leaned against the arched stone window frame and stared out across the green garden and the sea to the dusky Istanbul skyline.

‘I did a terrible thing when I brought Jake Johnson to this school.’

Oh well. The silence couldn’t last for ever.

‘It’s too late to think that.’ She ought to add something like You couldn’t have known o r It wasn’t your fault . But she couldn’t say

anything like that. Not right now. She had absolutely no problem with sharing the guilt, especially with a man like Sir Alric Darke. He was

more than equally culpable. And if she felt the full weight of it all herself then she’d implode. Every time she closed her eyes she saw

Jake’s limp body, the terrible angle of it … the blood. Sometimes she thought she’d never sleep again.

She wanted to press Sir Alric for every detail about Jake, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

‘How did you find out, Cassie? About the Pendant?’

She met his gaze. ‘What do you mean? Richard called me, saying he and Ranjit were going to meet, but by the time I got to Hagia Sophia,

Ranjit was crazy. I didn’t know it had anything to do with the stupid Pendant.’

He didn’t blink. He watched her eyes for a long and steady minute, but at last let it go. She was confident now that he believed she knew

nothing about the artefacts’ true nature.

‘You should not have let Ranjit leave, Cassie.’

‘Yeah, so you said.’

He turned, clearly irritated, but he couldn’t look at her directly.

‘He’s had some sort of a breakdown. Anything might happen to him.’

‘He’s himself again, I told you.’ And you, she thought, are still keeping things from me. Perhaps he always had.

‘The boy has killed three people. Who knows what’s going through his head right now?’

‘That’s why I would never have forced him back. Even if I could. He wasn’t himself then. He felt guilty enough.’ She sat back on the sofa,

hugging herself, but not dropping her fierce gaze.

‘Oh, you could have stopped him. I think we both know that. You’ve let your misguided loyalties get in the way of bringing Ranjit to

justice.’ He lowered himself into his desk chair, his angry gaze holding Cassie’s. ‘And in any case, why, Ms Bell, would Richard have gone

to see Ranjit alone?’

‘I don’t know,’ she lied. She knew at least part of the reason. He wanted to help Cassie, to prove his worth.

‘It’s an absolute mess.’ Sir Alric’s eyes held a faraway look now. Probably worried about answering to the Council, Cassie thought with

no sympathy. ‘Isabella was out of her mind, smuggling Jake into the school,’ Darke continued. ‘What did she hope to achieve?’

‘I doubt she wanted to achieve anything. She loved him. She wanted to see him, she wanted to help him. What’s so terrible about that?’

she said, her jaw tense.

‘Look how this has ended, Cassandra.’

‘That’s not Isabella’s fault. Don’t think you can dump our guilt on her.’ Cassie stood up and walked to the bookshelf. She could still

sense the Few manuscript, behind the old leather spines, hidden in its safe.

He gave a small sigh. ‘How is Ms Caruso faring, in any case?’

‘The doctor gave her sedatives. Her parents are coming to get her this afternoon.’ There was nothing else to add. How was Isabella? She

dreaded to think. As for what Sir Alric planned to tell the world about Jake’s death: Cassie didn’t care. That was his problem, and one he

richly deserved. Let him try and cover it up again.

But there was someone she did still care about. ‘Will Richard be OK?’

‘Yes. Though it was a close call. Without the Tears, he would have died.’