Surprising nobody, she did not appear. Professor Derhin let out a forlorn sigh.
“She’s sick,” another girl said.
“Sick?” Derhin said. “What with?”
The girl—Alex remembered her as Ellabell, Natalie’s roommate—shrugged.
Derhin smirked, an oddly triumphant expression. “One less for me to teach, then,” he said. “We’ll continue as normal—she can join us when she decides she’s ready.”
Alex’s gut did a somersault. Without Natalie, he was as magical as the chair he sat on. While he had never been an impressive student, he had thus far managed to avoid being the abject failure he had begun as. And what did that mean? One less for me to teach. Derhin seemed like he might be pleased that one of his best students had fallen ill. He drummed his fingers on the desk in front of him, frowning.
“Webber, you look unsettled.”
Alex looked up, and was surprised to see Professor Derhin just feet away from him. He gave Alex a knowing smile.
“Worried about the lady?” he said.
There was a titter of laughter, but Alex seized the excuse.
“Yes, sir,” he said, which got a muttered wave of whispers. “Could I go check on her?”
Derhin put a hand over his heart, his eyes fluttering coquettishly. “Ah, young love.” The class tittered again and Alex felt the heat rise in his cheeks. “Well, don’t let me stop you. Off you go, then.”
Alex rose, then hesitated.
“Will I be able to get into the girls’ dormitory?” he asked, remembering Jari’s warning from his first day here.
Derhin looked over at Ellabell, who shrank into her chair. If she was trying to hide, it didn’t work.
“Magri, let Webber into the girls’ dorms. And if you feel the need, stay to chaperone the lovebirds,” he leered.
If Ellabell was upset, she hid it well. She smiled primly. “Yes, sir.”
Wondering if that hadn’t been a little too easy, Alex set off toward the girls’ dorms with Ellabell.
She was a small thing, with a crop of brown curls sitting over a pair of wire-framed spectacles. She walked with a brisk efficiency, her footfalls clacking on the floor.
“Thanks for letting me in,” Alex said, hoping she didn’t really feel the need to stay and supervise.
Ellabell shot him a look. “Just don’t tell Petra where I sleep these days,” she muttered. “His last salvo of affections is only just wearing off.”
Alex chuckled. Aamir had told him during breakfast one morning about Jari’s attempt to woo Ellabell. The girl had been harassed half to death by magic bouquets that exploded into petals over her head in class, violins bursting into song in the dining hall, and even love letters written on the face of the moon. To hear Aamir tell it, she had been driven to some rather extreme measures to get rid of Jari, trying to find information about how to perform anti-magic and eventually mastering invisibility magic.
“I’d never do that to someone,” he assured her.
She gave him a crooked smile.
They traveled down a series of twists and turns, then past doors with little brass numbers that indicated they had entered the girls’ dormitory. As they walked, Ellabell’s brow furrowed. She seemed to grapple with something, looking more and more uncertain until she finally spoke.
“How is she doing? I mean, how is she really doing?” she asked hesitantly.
Alex blinked. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just,” Ellabell said, lines deepening beneath her eyes, “I can tell something’s wrong, but she insists she’s just fine. I chalked it up to a rough adjustment at first, but now…I worry about her. That’s all.”
They passed a line of old paintings of teachers with stern expressions.
“I worry about her too,” Alex said, hoping his secretiveness hadn’t rubbed off on her too much. “I don’t think she’s fine. But are any of us really fine here?”
Ellabell bit her lip. “I guess not,” she said, frowning.
A moment later, they stopped at a door with a brass number twenty-eight affixed to it, and she looked at Alex before knocking.
“Natalie,” she called, “you’ve got a guest. Are you presentable?”
She opened the door a crack, and a muffled groan rolled out into the hallway.
“One minute,” Alex could hear Natalie saying croakily from inside.
Ellabell nodded, then turned to set her back firmly against the door, barring Alex’s way.
“You know,” she said conversationally, “I’m not sure boys are technically allowed into our rooms.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Well, I promise to behave myself.”
Ellabell gave him a mocking look. “If you say so.”
“All right, I am ready,” came Natalie’s voice again. It was nasal, cracked, and hoarse. Alex winced just hearing it.
“I’m going back to class, then,” Ellabell said. “Don’t get up to any mischief, and don’t touch my things.”
She turned, and with a whirl of her brunette curls, she melted away into the air. Alex stared at the place where she had been standing a moment before. Then he shook his head and tugged open the door to Natalie’s room.
It bore a striking similarity to his own quarters, only these hadn’t been bedecked with Jari’s unbridled enthusiasm. There were a few modest garlands of paper snowflakes hung upon the walls, and a shimmering strand of lights hung along the back wall over the desks. As if in deliberate contrast to the simple furnishings, an acrid scent hung in the air.
Natalie had drawn her sheets up over her nose, her hands clutching the top of the blanket, so that only her eyes peeked out at him as he entered. Even by that slight glimpse, Alex could tell that Natalie’s face was flushed with fever, and her hands were shaking and pale.
“Natalie, you look awful,” he said, dragging a desk chair over beside her bed and sitting down.
“I know,” Natalie croaked dismally.
She lowered the blanket down to her shoulders, and now Alex saw chapped, cracked lips. Natalie sighed.
“I couldn’t go to class,” she said. “Ella wouldn’t let me.”
“I can see why. You’re really sick.” He looked worriedly at her, recalling what Jari had told him about magical people having a hard time getting sick.
Natalie struggled to sit up, her expression indignant. “I’m fine,” she said, grimacing and putting a hand to her forehead.
Alex frowned. “You don’t seem fine.”
Natalie changed the subject. “Did class go okay for you?”
Alex shook his head. “Derhin let me out early to come check on you.”
“That is good,” said Natalie weakly.
Alex stared at her for a time, trying to figure out exactly what her symptoms were.
“How do you feel?”
“Dreadful. Like I am getting every illness I never had.”
Alex licked his lips, glancing toward the door. “Are you getting any better?”
Natalie set her jaw. “I am still coming with you on New Year’s Eve to get the book, if that’s what you are asking,” she muttered.
Their plan to raid the Head’s office was only two days away, and Natalie looked closer to a corpse than a living person. Alex watched as she shook, rolling away from him to face the wall.
“I will get better,” she said, her voice full of determination.
Alex ground his teeth. “This is absurd,” he said. “This is an institute of magic. There should be a nurse here, or some kind of medical expert! It should be simple to get rid of an illness, shouldn’t it?”
Natalie coughed. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” she said. “Ella says we don’t have a nurse. Magical energy is supposed to make someone immune to this kind of thing.”
Alex paused. “Then what could it be?”
Natalie rolled back toward him, her eyes full of frustrated tears. She pointed toward a metal bucket at her bedside, which seemed to be the source of the acidic smell. Alex leapt up to retrieve it,
and saw that it was indeed filled with vomit.
She drew in a breath, and Alex watched as magic gathered around her. It looked…wrong, somehow. Her magic was not its normal shade of gold; it had a coppery tint that ran through it like diseased veins. As it surged around her, the little veins burned bright red before flashing angrily. The magic vanished. Natalie turned a sickly shade of green and doubled over the bucket, heaving. Alex sat next to her, holding her hair and rubbing her back.
“There,” he said, setting the bucket aside. “Do you feel any better?”
Natalie lay limply against her pillows with a morose expression. “Not really.” She looked over at him, blinking slowly. “What will we do?”
Alex stared at his friend, his jaw working. “I don’t see that we have much of a choice,” he said.
“Alex,” Natalie said, her eyes frantic, “we can’t just give up. We need to—”
“I’ll go alone.”
The words hung in the air. Natalie stared at him, her lips parted.
“But…” she started, but Alex waved a hand.
“You aren’t well,” he said. “You can barely stand, and you won’t be ready in time. I’ll go alone.”
Natalie sighed, looking miserable, but then set her jaw and nodded.
After dabbing her forehead with a cool cloth and getting her fresh water, he left her room, feeling the cold in his bones and the hugeness of the manor around him as he hadn’t done since he’d found her.
Chapter 25
Natalie’s condition did not improve. While she was able to get to her feet, staggering to and from class and summoning paltry displays of magic, Alex had no illusions about her ability to carry out a dangerous nighttime operation in the forbidden sections of the school. Professor Derhin almost threw her out of class when she nearly vomited after attempting a complex control exercise. Alex wished he had, as Natalie clearly needed to rest, but she was being unbelievably stubborn.
“If I cannot come with you,” Natalie said, “I will at least buy you some time.”
Alex eyed the girl with concern. They were in the mechanics’ lab; Alex found that tinkering with the gears and parts often helped him think. He missed his bedroom at home, with its clean lines and its solitude, and his laptop which he’d use to code all night. It was often difficult to concentrate in his dorm room—especially when Jari was excited about something, which was often. While his lack of magic meant he couldn’t create anything nearly as impressive as the rest of his peers, he was happy to tinker and problem-solve.
In this instance, however, his tinkering was somewhat disrupted by the fact that Natalie had splayed herself facedown over his workspace. Her dark hair lay in lank tangles across the table. Alex was left holding the screwdriver Aamir had given him, twirling it in one hand, looking down at her.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, eyeing his friend with a worried frown.
“I do not know,” Natalie said. “Throw up on someone, perhaps. Nobody can make a scene like a French girl.”
Alex smiled forlornly. “Can’t I convince you to go back to bed? There’s some soup in it for you if you do.”
Natalie’s head rolled just enough to reveal a small grin. “Nope,” she said.
Alex waited until it was dark, and all the other students had gone to the dining hall for dinner and the Head’s subsequent speech, before sneaking off into the hallways of the manor. He had memorized the route to the Head’s golden line, and now he retraced those twists and turns, his heart pounding in his ears with every step.
If he was being honest, he wished that he could have listened to the Head’s speech. He hadn’t even seen the man since his admittance into the manor; perhaps something in his words would alleviate some of the mystery of this place. Still, he pressed on, winding through the hallways.
With no windows to look through, Alex found himself thinking about a great many things. About Natalie, who should have been getting medical attention. About the shadow, Elias. About Finder, the ghost of Malachi Grey. About all the homes with empty rooms scattered about the world, waiting for a child who was never coming back. About the Head.
And, not for the first time, he thought about how none of it made any sense.
The line appeared before him almost without warning, leaping out from the dark like a sword swung at his feet. He stopped, hesitating just shy of it, and could feel a wave of familiar cold washing over him. He shivered, gritting his teeth. He closed his eyes, offering up a brief prayer that what he was doing wasn’t just plain stupid. Maybe the line in the cemetery had been old, or faulty. Maybe the ones here had been updated, strengthened. Maybe he was being a damn fool.
But he had to know.
He stepped swiftly across the golden line.
The cold surged into him as the line snapped and whipped about at his feet, but this time he was ready for it. He gritted his teeth as twin founts of steam gushed from his nose, icy crystals pouring over his skin. He swallowed hard, gasping, watching in disbelief as a long icicle dipped slowly down off his fingertip, then broke and shattered against the floor with a dull tinkle. Though he had known what to expect, it was still a shock.
Alex didn’t know how much time passed like this, but the spell eventually weakened. His limbs were shaking, but the ice had melted to cool water, which pooled around him. Breathing hard, he tried to rally himself. Whoever had created the line would probably realize soon that it had been broken. He had to keep moving before he was found.
As Alex crossed into the Head’s wing of the manor, the hallways around him grew more eerie. He remembered them from that first day, but without Siren Mave’s chatter, the place felt much emptier. The gray ivy grew everywhere, coating the decrepit walls. The doors were coated with moss, and the air was full of the subtle scents of ice and blood.
If he hadn’t promised Natalie, he would have explored here long ago, but as it was, he had to search every room he passed for the Head’s office. Many of the doors were jammed, unmoving in their frames. Others opened onto empty rooms, or dark chambers holding four-poster beds draped in veils long since shredded by moths and decay.
He opened door after door, revealing rotting quarters, empty spaces where once life had been. He started moving faster, the images appearing only as blurs as he dashed from door to door, seeking only the one he remembered, with the stone desk and the tree-filled fireplace.
He almost didn’t pause when he opened the door into a stone chamber about the size of his own bedroom, but something about the place made him hesitate. The smell of blood surged into his nostrils, and this time he let his eyes linger, sweeping the room.
It was almost empty. There was a table strewn with tools, and opposite that a grate had been built into the floor beneath a pair of manacles that hung from the ceiling, almost invisible among the hanging ivy all around them. Alex felt a shiver run through him as he approached the chains.
The ground near the grate was sticky, and Alex could guess why as he looked up at the hanging manacles. They should have been hard to see, but something about them drew the eyes. The black crust that flaked on their surface. The gleam of oil on the locking mechanism.
The smell of blood was so strong here.
Alex turned away, looking back toward the table, and for the first time he noticed a painting hanging above it. It depicted a large mouth, rows and rows of teeth layered one on top of the other, dripping with spittle, an unnaturally long tongue twisting at their center. Looking at it, Alex felt a wave of nausea roll through him.
The table itself held only a few things. A shirt, ripped at the sleeve, where a dark stain covered the fabric. A rather ordinary-looking clipboard, with a list of names and dates. The handle of a knife which seemed to have lost its blade.
Alex leaned over, picking up the list and glancing over it. There were several pages, and he flipped through them, skimming the entries. It seemed that most of the names were associated with a single date: the 7th of May. Frowning, Alex flipped to the most recent p
age, and saw a name there that he recognized.
Blaine Stalwart.
The boy who had been caught out of bounds.
A date, the day the boy had disappeared, was written beside his name in neat handwriting. Alex looked back at the bloody shirt, then over his shoulder at the manacles. He looked up at the painting, the mouth full of teeth seeming to smile at him.
Beside the name and date, there was another note, written in a short, frustrated hand.
Not matured enough.
Alex rose, feeling sick. He wasn’t here to look at these things. He needed to get going, find the book on necromancy. For a moment, he thought about swiping the papers, or even the bladeless knife, but he thought better of it. It was best to make as small an impact as he could. He could come back for them if he needed.
He exited to the hallway, breathing hard. The torches crackled, the smell of blood mingling with the oil and smoke as he tried to get his bearings. The manor suddenly felt an awful lot like that mouth, with all of them sitting inside it, waiting for it to swallow. He looked around, then made his way deeper in.
But if he had thought to escape the image of the mouth, he quickly found that he could not. There were more paintings in a similar vein, and even the ivy itself seemed to align itself like gaping lines of teeth. The leaves brushed against him, and he could feel the way they clung to him, leaving his skin icy as they passed.
Once more he opened door after door, but now he was almost grateful when he found them empty. The smell of blood faded behind him, leaving only ice and dew and rot.
He didn’t know how long he had been searching when he finally came across the Head’s office. He opened the door, letting out a sigh of relief as he saw the familiar features: the stone desk, littered with papers; the bookshelves; the tree-filled fireplace; the great window overlooking a frozen lake.
Alex let himself in, his breath catching with anticipation. This was it. What he had come for. He was almost there.