Хлоя Нейл - Firespell

After a couple of minutes, the music stopped, replaced by scuffling on the other side of the door.

Without preface, the door opened. A blonde blinked at us from the threshold. She was dressed simply in a fitted T-shirt, cotton A-line skirt, and Mary Janes. Her hair was short and pale blond,

a fringe of bangs across her forehead.

“Hi, Lesley,” Scout said, hitching a thumb at me. “This is Lily. She’s the new girl.”

Lesley blinked big blue eyes at me. “Hi,” she said, then turned on one heel, walked back into the room, and shut the door behind her.

“And that was Lesley,” Scout said, unlocking her own door and flipping on her bedroom light.

I followed, then shut the door behind us again. “Lesley’s not much of a talker.”

Scout nodded and sat cross- legged on the bed. “That was actually pretty chatty for Barnaby.

She’s always been quiet. Has a kind of savant vibe? Wicked good on the cello.”

“I got goose bumps,” I agreed. “That song is really haunting.”

Scout nodded again, and had just begun to pull a pillow into her lap when her cell phone rang.

She reached up, grabbed it from its home on the shelf, and popped it open.

“When?” she asked after a moment of silence, turning away from me, the phone pressed to her ear. Apparently unhappy with the response she got, she muttered a curse, then sighed haggardly.

“We should have known they had something planned when we saw her.”

I assumed “her” meant the blonde we’d seen outside at lunch.

More silence ensued as Scout listened to the caller. In the quiet of the room, I could hear a voice, but I couldn’t understand the words. The tone was low, so I guessed the caller was a boy.

Michael Garcia, maybe?

“Okay,” she said. “I will.” She closed the phone with a snap and paused before glancing back at me.

“Time to run?”

Scout nodded. And this time, there was a tightness around her eyes. It didn’t thrill me that the tightness looked like fear.

My heart clenched sympathetically. “Do you need backup? Someone else to help clean up the litter?”

Scout smiled, a little of the twinkle back in her eyes. “I’d love it, actually. But community improvement isn’t ready for you, Parker.” She grabbed a jacket and her skull-and-crossbones bag, and we both left her room. Scout headed for a secret rendezvous; I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going.

“Don’t wait up,” she said with a wink, then opened the door and headed out into the hallway.

Don’t count on it, I thought, having made the decision. This time, I wasn’t going to let her get away with mumbled excuses and a secret nighttime trip—at least not solo.

This time, I was going, too.

She’d closed the door behind her. I cracked it open and watched her slip down the hallway.

“Time to play Nancy Drew,” I murmured, then slipped off my noisy flip- flops, picked them up,

and followed her.

She was disappearing around the corner as I closed the door to the common room. The hallway was empty and silent but for her footsteps, the limestone floor and walls glowing beneath the golden light of the sconces.

Scout headed toward the stairs, which she took at a trot. I hung back until I was sure she wouldn’t see me as she rounded the second flight of stairs, then followed her down. When she reached the first floor, she headed through the Great Hall, which, even after the required study period, still held a handful of apparently ambitious teenagers. Unfortunately, the aisle between the tables was straight and empty, so if Scout turned around, my cover was blown.

I took a breath and started walking. I made it halfway without incident when, suddenly, Scout paused. I dumped into the closest chair and bent down, faking an adjustment to my flip- flop.

When she turned around again and resumed her progression through the room, I stood up, then hustled to squeak through the double doors before they closed behind her.

I just made it through, then flattened myself against the wall of the hallway that led to the domed center of the main building. I peeked around the corner; Scout was hurrying across the tiled labyrinth. I gnawed my lip as I considered my options. This part of playing the new Nancy Drew was tricky—the room was gigantic and empty, at least in the middle, so there weren’t many places to hide.

Without cover, I decided I’d have to wait her out. I watched her cross the labyrinth and move into the hallway opposite mine, then pause before a door. She looked around, probably to see whether she was alone (we’re all wrong sometimes), then slipped the ribboned key from her neck and slid the key into the lock.

The click of tumblers echoed across the room. She winced at the sound, but placed a hand on the door, took a final look around, and disappeared. When she was gone, I jogged across the labyrinth to the other side, then pressed my ear to the door she’d closed behind her. After the sound of her footsteps receded, I twisted the doorknob, found that it was still unlocked and—

heart beating like a bass drum in my chest—edged it open.

It was another hallway.

I blew out the breath I’d been holding.

A hallway wasn’t much to get stressed out about. Frankly, the chasing was getting a little repetitive. Hallway. Room. Hallway. Room. I reminded myself that there was a greater purpose here—spying on the girl who’d adopted me as a best friend.

Okay, put that way, it didn’t sound so noble.

Morally questionable or not, I still had a job to do. I walked inside and closed the door behind me. I didn’t see Scout, but I watched her elongated shadow shrink around the corner as she moved. I followed her through the hallway, and then down another set of stairs into what I guessed was the basement, although it didn’t look much different from the first floor, all limestone and golden light and iron sconces. The ceiling was different, though. Instead of the vaults and domes on the first floor, the ceiling here was lower, flatter, and covered in patterned plaster. It looked like a lot of work for a basement.

The stairs led to another hall. I followed the sound of footsteps, but only made it five or six feet before I heard another sound—the clank and grate of metal on metal. I froze and swallowed down the lump of fear that suddenly tightened my throat. I wanted to call her name, to scream it out, but I couldn’t seem to draw breath to make a sound. I forced myself to take another step forward, then another, nearly jumping out of my skin when that bone-chilling gnash of metal echoed through the hallway again.

Oh, screw this, I thought, and forced my lungs to work. “Scout?” I called out. “Are you okay?”

When I got no response, I rounded the corner. The hallway dead-ended in a giant metal door . . . and she was nowhere to be seen.

“Frick,” I muttered. I glanced around, saw nothing else that would help, and moved closer so I could give the door a good look-see.

It was ginormous. At least eight feet high, with an arch in the top, it was outlined in brass rivets and joints. In the middle was a giant flywheel, and beneath the flywheel was a security bar that must have been four or five inches of solid steel. It was in its unlocked position. That explained the metal sounds I’d heard earlier.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that door was keeping out of St. Sophia’s, but Scout was in there. Sure, we hadn’t known each other long, and I wasn’t up on all the comings and goings of her community improvement group, but this seemed like trouble . . . and help was the least I could offer my new suitemate.

After all, what were they going to do—kick me out?

“Sagamore, here I come,” I whispered, and put my hands on the flywheel. I tugged, but the door wouldn’t open. I turned the flywheel, clockwise first, then counterclockwise, but the movement had no effect—at least, not on this side of the door.