Gabriella Poole - Blood Ties (Darke Academy)

Are you sure he won’t? Do we trust him?

‘Of course we do!’ she hissed.

‘Cassie?’ Ranjit frowned down at her. ‘What?’

‘Sorry. Nothing,’ she said hastily. Looking up, she met his anxious gaze.

Can we trust him not to leave us?

Shaking her head to try and loose Estelle, she forced a little laugh, reached up and kissed him quickly. ‘I should get going.’

‘Don’t worry, Cassie. OK? You don’t have to worry.’

‘Sure.’ She smiled a bright fake smile. ‘It’s only the Council of Elders, right?’

Ranjit laughed quietly. ‘Right. See you soon.’

She gave his hand one last squeeze, then hurried away, before Estelle said anything more. Ranjit had told her she didn’t have to be

worried, and she believed him. She took his word for it. She did trust him.

Didn’t she?

As Cassie rounded the corner in the stacks she noticed a familiar figure walking away from one of the desks and heading for the door,

clutching an armful of files. Jake. She almost called out to him, wanting to harangue him about abandoning Isabella again earlier in the day,

but he was already gone. Beneath his desk, though, she could see a single sheet of paper that had slipped to the floor. Cassie bent to pick

it up.

It was a page of plain text, a printout from a computer file, that much was clear. The title alone was enough to send shivers right through

her:

Highly Classified – Enquiries into the death of Jessica Marie Johnson

But what took Cassie’s breath away were the four words that encircled a blue and gold seal at the very top of the page:

Federal Bureau of Investigation

‘Jake,’ she whispered to herself. ‘What the hell have you done?’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Insomnia was making the hunger worse. That and stress, Cassie figured. After a sleepless night, Cassie felt so groggy and weak, she

skipped a class for the first time in her Darke Academy career. Signor Poldino would accept a sob story about a headache, she decided,

groaning as she flopped back on to the pillows. As for confronting Jake about the FBI file, it would just have to wait.

Isabella took a little more convincing than the art master, but as soon as her roommate could be persuaded to leave her in peace and go

to class, Cassie blew out a sigh of relief. She rolled over and tugged the melted photographs out from under her mattress. Sitting up cross-

legged, she stared at them once more. She could barely comprehend the catalogue of issues confronting her: the melting frames, and then

Isabella’s bangle; Carnegie Hall and the implications of her new power; the horrible incident with Isabella at Coney Island; Jake and the

whole Katerina mess; Ranjit; and, of course, the icing on the cake – a summons from the Council of Elders. Everything seemed to fall back

on her, on what she’d become. She’d never felt so heartsick and helpless.

The weather wasn’t helping. Beyond her window, a weight of dirty snow-cloud lay over the city, and desultory grey flakes drifted down,

sticking to the glass. The day looked like she felt.

There was a lot she needed to know, and no one else to ask. Swinging her legs off the bed, she stared out of the plate-glass window. Sir

Alric, she thought. He’d promised to research her strange power, and maybe he’d already found more information. She knew she couldn’t

bear another day without asking, anyway.

When she stepped out of the elevator, the door to his office was open. Unaccountably nervous, she approached. Sir Alric was there in

front of his desk, propped against it, talking to someone in the armchair in front of him.

All she could make out of the visitor was the back of his head. It looked familiar – stupidly familiar, because clearly she was mistaken. It

couldn’t be him – not here in New York. All the same, she felt her heart begin to pound.

It just couldn’t be him … Could it?

She gave her head a quick, hard shake. Instantly Sir Alric glanced up, catching the movement. In his face shock dawned, and something

like anger. He wasn’t expecting her. She was interrupting. Cassie raised a tentative hand – partly greeting, partly to indicate that she’d wait –

but he didn’t acknowledge her.

Instead he snapped his fingers once at someone out of sight, and a secretary stepped into view. ‘Sir Alric is busy just now.’ The young

man gave her an anodyne smile, and closed the door firmly in her face.

Cassie gaped, open-mouthed. ‘I’ll wait,’ she muttered grimly.

There were a few impeccably designed chairs in the corner of the anteroom, but Cassie ignored them and the glossy magazines and the

bookshelves. She could only pace back and forth, scowling, as the minutes ticked by. The hideous certainty was growing that she did know