Lili St Crow - Betrayals

The malaika were still there, oiled wood with its own mellow gleam. So was Dad’s billfold. But the lock of Christophe’s hair on my nightstand was gone.

My heart leapt into my throat. I stared at the edge of the blue-painted stand, the cold coming back until I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering.

There, delicately caught on the grain of the wood, was a single, curling, golden hair. There were a lot of curly-headed blonds at this school, Dibs, Blondie the teacher, Irving…

Which one of them would be in my room?

I crouched there for a long time, hugging myself. The cold had finally won, and it didn’t go away.

I did manage to grab a couple hours of sleep with a wooden chair propped under the doorknob. As soon as I set it there, the feeling of relief was intense, but short-lived. I stumbled over to my bed, fell into it, and only woke up when a bar of weak, cold morning light struggling through fog and the window glass touched the foot of the bed.

My internal clock was all messed up by now, so it didn’t seem to matter. Besides, moving around during the day meant there would be no suckers, and most of the teachers would be asleep.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and ran through every curse word I knew.

You can do this, I told myself for the hundredth time. Come on. It’s no big deal. Rain-soaked sunlight struggled through the window of the blue room. I checked my sneakers again, scrubbed my hands against my sweater. Paced the whole length of the room, dropped down to my knees to peer under the bed, and saw the glowing curves of wood gathering dust.

When would Christophe come back? As soon as I asked myself, I shoved the question away.

There was no reason not to work on trying to find out who was after me, and to do that, I’d need allies. The djamphir boys weren’t going to be any help. So it was the wulfen, and Graves said—

Just then, there were two taps at the door. I bounded up, raced across the carpet, and jerked it open to find Graves right outside. The hall was shadowed, so his eyes flared green under his messy hair. He shook it back and gave me a fey grin, then laid his finger against his lips.

I nodded. He gave my outfit, jeans, thermal shirt under a big gray wool sweater, sneakers, my Mom’s locket safely hidden, a critical once-over and shrugged.

I suppose he thought I’d be cold or something, but I knew better. If we were going to do this, I was going to sweat.

No big deal. Come on, Dru. Buck up.

Besides, I was cold, deep down where no amount of wool was going to warm me up. Who would come into my room and take Christophe’s hair, and leave one of his own behind? It was pointless.

Unless it was Blondie the teacher, and he had a reason to tell someone, maybe Anna, that Christophe had been in my room. I didn’t know what would happen then, but it would probably be unpleasant.

But I most likely would have been yanked out of bed and questioned by now, wouldn’t I? I tried to tell myself to relax, that I’d figure something out. I didn’t even buy my own pep talk by now.

And what the hell was I about to do? But I couldn’t back out now. And Graves …

He beckoned. I stepped out and followed him down the hall. We threaded through the sunlit, sleeping Schola. Every once in a while he’d stop, holding up a hand, and we’d wait for a little bit, or he’d pick an alternate route.

It looked like he’d done a lot of exploring in the last three weeks. But that didn’t surprise me.

Knowing your ground is good strategic habit, and I had a good idea of the layout too. I should have had a better one, gone exploring instead of standing around in front of the armory or moping in my room.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda, Dru. Besides, you’re not going to be here much longer. I stepped softly, breathing through my mouth, and we finally ended up in a concrete-floored corridor somewhere in the depths of the building. Graves chose lefts and rights seemingly at random, and we took a right into a dead end, one blank door set in the wall. He reached up, going on tiptoe, and did something to the little plastic box clinging to the wall over it. Wires threaded away, his fingers flicked, and he swept the door open with a grin. Midmorning sunlight burst through, and we stepped out of the Schola.

I took a deep breath. Rotting leaves, wet dirt, rain on the wind that touched the curls springing free of my ponytail. The light felt good, pouring over me. The fog would probably come back around dusk, but for right now we had a clear, pale blue sky and a sun that looked like a yellow-white faraway coin. High horsetails of white cloud brushed what little horizon I could see with the trees pulled so close.

In spring it would probably be pretty here. Too bad I wasn’t sticking around to find out.

Graves closed the door with a click. “Come on, we’re almost late.”

“I am never going to be able to take that route again,” I muttered.

“Yeah, well, next time it’ll be different. They’re watching you pretty close, you know. It’s not so bad getting out when it’s just me.”

“Me being so valuable and all.” And there’s another svetocha. But I still hadn’t told him about that either. It seemed like a bad idea. I was struggling with what to tell him about someone stealing Christophe’s hair, too.

Two things stopped me. What could he do about it, and if he asked me what Christophe was doing leaving bits of his hair in my room, what would I say?

What could I say?

Secrets everywhere, pressing in on me.

I’m good at keeping them. I mean, Jesus, my whole life was nothing but secrets from the time Gran died. But it’s a whole lot easier to keep them when you’ve got someone else who knows breathing in the same room. Carrying them alone is like having a huge spiky weight digging into your shoulders and chest, a weight you can’t shift even while you’re sleeping.

Graves let out a tired sigh. He was almost sounding like Dylan now. “Yeah, well, I’m beginning to think there’s something else going on. See, you’re supposed to be trained to survive, right? Everyone here is slated for grunt work, infantry. Shock troops. But the instant you show up in a class, except for Kruger’s, that is, everything gets dumbed down and the kids get a day off. It’s weird. It’s like they’re waiting for something.”

Kruger? Does he mean Blondie in history class? It made me feel a little better, if he was honestly trying to teach me, maybe he hadn’t come into my room. I ran up against the problem of who could have and threw up my mental hands in despair. “Christophe said I was supposed to be learning and he’ll come back.” But he’s off making arrangements to spring me from this place.

Something I hadn’t considered before hit me: And where is that going to leave Graves?

I’d figure it out when the time came. Or so I told myself. But I felt even worse.

“Yeah, well. Christophe’s not actually popular around here. Half the teachers hate him, and the wulfen say he’s got a long history of being an arrogant jerk. About the only person who’s neutral is Dylan, but he’s got his own weird thing going on. He’s always watching you. It’s creepy.”

“Yeah. Creep central around here. But we’re in a school full of werewolves and part-suckers.” I wasn’t sure what to think about Dylan either. Everyone was acting weird. Which was probably to be expected in a place where the Real World was taken for granted, but…

I was glad to have Graves. And when Christophe came back, I’d argue him into taking Graves with us. He’d agree, he had to. And once we were out of here I could tell Graves everything.