She thought she saw a flicker of emotion in the ocean blue of his eyes – a hint of the loss she felt, too. And of the connection that always existed between them. Different from the one she had with Carter. Not a love like that. But no less real.
‘I must be insane.’ Sylvain let out a long breath. ‘Come with me. I think I know where they’ll take him.’
Turning on his heel, he headed down the hallway with long, confident strides.
Allie hurried after him. ‘Are you sure?’
‘No. But if it was me, I’d put him in one of the old storage rooms in the cellar. Secure, private…’ He glanced at her. ‘Soundproof.’
The lights were off in the classroom wing when they reached it, but they both knew it well enough to find their way through it in the dark. Sylvain moved with lithe grace. Allie matched him step for step.
She knew Isabelle wouldn’t be happy to see her, but it didn’t matter.
What she’d told Sylvain was only partially true. Yes, she wanted to protect Christopher, but she also wanted to decide for herself whether or not he was telling the truth. Whether or not she could trust him.
They were nearly to the end of the hallway when Sylvain stopped with such abruptness Allie slammed into him, full force. He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling.
Even in the dark, the look he gave her scorched. ‘Careful.’
She took a hurried step back.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.
But he’d already turned away. He opened an unmarked door to reveal a staircase going down into complete darkness.
‘This way.’ His voice was devoid of emotion.
The old stone spiral staircase had a musty smell. Unable to see even an inch ahead, Allie clung to the metal banister. She couldn’t see Sylvain anymore – she could hear his feet scuffing on the steps as they descended.
‘What do you think he wants?’ His voice echoed, disembodied.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe he really has given up on Nathaniel. Maybe he’s really on our side.’
‘If not?’
‘Then it’s a trick.’ Her own voice rang back at her mockingly. ‘And Nathaniel sent him to sabotage us. Or to spy.’
The stairs ended abruptly, and Allie suddenly found herself standing in a small, dark room, with corridors branching off in several directions.
The cellars were a tangle of old tunnels and rooms that had been added to over the years. Some were centuries older than the building that stood there now.
They headed into a long, narrow corridor. The ceilings were low, and the only light came from ancient wall sconces. The sconces emitted a flickering, ghostly glow, making shadows that jumped and ducked in an almost human way, setting Allie’s nerves on edge.
After a long, straight stretch, the corridor turned sharply to the right.
Just as they reached the bend, two guards appeared out of the darkness, blocking their path.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ one said.
Next to her, Sylvain stiffened but, before he could speak, Allie stepped forward to confront the two guards.
‘My name is Allie Sheridan,’ she announced. ‘I need to speak with Isabelle. Now please. Get out of the way.’
The two guards exchanged a look. Then they stepped back and let them pass.
Allie couldn’t believe it worked. The rules of Cimmeria’s game really had changed now that Lucinda was gone. She wasn’t just a normal student anymore.
If she ever had been.
‘Interesting,’ Sylvain murmured. ‘Would you care to explain what just happened?’
‘Long story.’ Allie pointed to the end of the hallway. ‘I think we found them.’
Raj and Isabelle stood with a group of guards outside a battered door.
It was the same room where they’d kept Jerry Cole.
Allie knew what was inside. Bare, stone walls. And chains.
‘Isabelle.’ The word came out sharper than she’d intended, and the headmistress spun around to face her.
‘Allie? What are you doing here?’ Isabelle frowned. ‘Sylvain? What’s going on?’
‘You have Christopher in there?’ Allie pointed at the door. ‘The same room where you kept Jerry? Why would you do that? What are you doing to him?’
The headmistress held up her hands. ‘Now, just one second, Allie…’
‘He’s not chained.’ Raj stepped up to join them. His expression was serious. ‘We just needed a safe place to keep him while we evaluate the situation.’
When he put it like that it didn’t sound unreasonable, but Allie still didn’t like the symbolism of it.
‘I was planning to come and get you as soon as we knew what we were dealing with,’ Isabelle said.
‘Well it’s good to know that I’m involved in major decisions as long as I can find you.’
‘Your brother is not in any danger,’ the headmistress said evenly. ‘We didn’t even know who he was when the guards first brought him in. He was treated like any other intruder until he told us his name. Now things are different. Obviously.’
Everyone was being so rational, Allie had no choice but to calm down.
‘Fine,’ she said grudgingly. ‘What has he told you so far?’
She was vaguely aware that Sylvain stood at her shoulder, listening to everything but not joining in.
‘Not much,’ Raj said. ‘We were planning to start the real questioning now.’ Seeing the stubborn look on her face he added, ‘Since you’re here you can help. In fact, you can start by telling us what you know about what he’s doing here.’
‘The last time I saw Chris was the night of the parley. He hit Gabe in the face with a club to get him to let me go. He told me…’ Allie tried to remember the conversation that happened amid deadly chaos. ‘He said he was on our side.’
‘Allie.’ Isabelle’s voice was gentle. ‘You mustn’t put too much faith in that. Nathaniel is very good at brainwashing people. And his people are very good at lying.’
Allie thought of Nine, and his disgruntled tone. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I think it doesn’t work on everyone.’
She could see they weren’t convinced.
‘Look, I know this might be a trap, OK?’ she said. ‘All I’m saying is, let’s hear him out. In case it isn’t.’
‘This gives me an idea.’ Sylvain looked at Raj. ‘You should use this in your interview. Let Allie take Christopher’s side. You and Isabelle act just like this – like you don’t believe her.’
Raj’s expression grew thoughtful.
‘That could work,’ he said slowly. ‘If Christopher thinks there’s someone on his side…’
‘He could make a mistake.’ Sylvain finished the thought for him.
‘Or,’ Allie said, ‘if he’s not trying to trick us he won’t.’
She looked around the circle of faces, knowing no one except her believed for one second that Christopher might not be trying to trick them.
Even she wasn’t at all certain.
‘Let’s get started,’ Raj said, turning for the door. Isabelle went with him.
Allie started to follow. She was almost to the door when she realised Sylvain hadn’t moved.
She turned back. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
He shook his head. She saw a hint of the old Sylvain in his expression.
‘This isn’t my fight,’ he said. ‘It’s yours. Go save your brother.’
21
The wine cellar was a long, narrow vaulted room, with grey stone walls and floor. It was cooler in here than it had been in the corridor.
When Jerry Cole had been held here, all furniture had been removed save for a chair, and he’d been shackled and chained. By contrast, Christopher sat at a small table, unbound. Someone had given him a mug of tea, which steamed in front of him, untouched.
He looked tense but not afraid. When Allie walked in, he looked up at her eagerly, relief in his eyes.
Allie joined Isabelle and Raj across the table from
him.
‘Christopher, I am Isabelle le Fanult, the headmistress at Cimmeria Academy.’ Isabelle’s tone was distant but not unfriendly. ‘This is Raj Patel, my chief of security. We need to ask you a few questions.’
‘Of course,’ Christopher said politely. ‘I understand.’
‘Tell us first how you got into the grounds.’
‘It’s something Nathaniel showed me a long time ago. There’s an old entrance on the north side. A gatehouse.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s, uh… Well. It’s how Nathaniel gets in.’
Raj looked stunned. ‘It’s my understanding that gatehouse has been sealed for decades.’
‘That gatehouse used to be sealed,’ Christopher corrected him. ‘If you look closely, you’ll see the locks have been removed. I used it the last time I came. Tonight I gambled that you hadn’t noticed it yet.’ He held up his hands apologetically. ‘You hadn’t.’
Isabelle turned to Raj, her expression disbelieving. He leaped to his feet and stalked out of the room.
When he returned a few seconds later Allie could tell he was seething, even as he kept his expression blank. His jaw was tight and set.
‘I’m having that information checked. Let’s continue.’ He turned his gaze to Chris. ‘Is that the only access to the grounds you’re aware of?’
Christopher gave a non-committal shrug. ‘It’s the only one Nathaniel ever mentioned to me. He considers it hugely valuable. You’ll see how well he’s disguised it. It’s not your fault you didn’t notice before. He’s very, very good at what he does.’
Raj didn’t seem mollified by his sympathy. If anything it seemed to make him angry.
‘Is that why you joined him?’ he asked. ‘Because he’s so “good”?’ He said the last word with contempt.
Christopher didn’t immediately respond; he templed his fingers on the table.
‘I know you’re being sarcastic but in a way, it’s true,’ he said at last. ‘He was very good at befriending me when I was young. Very good at convincing me my family couldn’t be trusted. Very good at undermining everything I believed, leaving me confused and vulnerable. I trusted him.’ He let out a long breath. ‘And he’s the last person I should have trusted.’
Allie watched him closely, looking for signs of duplicity. But he seemed entirely candid. He looked like Christopher, the way he used to be.
‘You’re saying he lured you to his side, and you later regretted it?’ Isabelle didn’t sound convinced. ‘Forgive me but, you’ve been with him since you were seventeen. You’re nearly twenty years old now. It took you a long time to decide you made a mistake, didn’t it?’
Colour rose to Christopher’s cheeks. But he met her gaze without flinching. ‘If you’re asking was I stupid? I guess the answer is yes. I wanted Nathaniel to be right. I wanted to believe I was this great, rich guy, who should have the world at his feet. I wanted to believe you were my enemy and Nathaniel was my friend. Instead I learned he was just some messed-up guy who wanted to use me to get back at his family. Just like I was using him to get back at mine.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Ain’t life grand?’
‘Christopher,’ Isabelle leaned towards him. ‘You’re asking us to take a huge leap of faith for no reason other than your word, and Allie’s belief in you.’
His gaze flickered to Allie. ‘I wouldn’t lie to her. Or to you.’ He turned back to Isabelle. ‘I’m truly here because I know how dangerous Nathaniel is now. I’ve seen what he’s willing to do. And the only people in the world I know of who are fighting him are in this room.’
There was a pause. Then Allie cleared her throat.
‘Chris, Nathaniel is holding one of my friends. The one you met in the fight in London, the one who helped me.’
‘I remember him,’ Chris said. ‘Dark hair, lots of muscles?’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I thought for a second he was going to kill me.’ He paused. ‘I’d hoped you guys got away.’
‘We did,’ she said. ‘Nathaniel followed us.’
‘Shit,’ he said, not without sympathy. ‘And now he has him?’
She nodded, unable to hide how miserable this fact made her. ‘He says he’s going to kill him. We’ve got to do something, but we don’t know where he is. And we’re running out of time.’
Christopher held her gaze for a long moment. Then he turned back to Isabelle and Raj. ‘You’ve checked the London townhouse?’
They nodded.
‘It’s been monitored ever since the parley,’ Raj said. ‘He hasn’t been back there.’
Christopher rubbed his hand across his jaw thoughtfully.
‘That leaves two distinct possibilities. The Gilmore’s country place in Surrey or the old St John estate in Hampshire.’
Allie blinked. The Gilmore place – Katie’s parents.
‘We’ve checked the Gilmore place. He’s not there.’ A file folder had lain untouched in front of Raj throughout this meeting. Now he opened it and flipped through the papers. After a second he looked up.
‘We don’t know of the St John place. It’s not on our lists.’
‘That’s strange.’ Christopher’s brow creased. ‘It was the only thing his father left him in his will. Or at least, that’s the way Nathaniel tells it. He says his father left almost everything else to you.’
He addressed the last line to Isabelle.
She frowned. ‘I thought that old place was sold off after my father died. Are you saying it wasn’t?’
Christopher shook his head. ‘I’ve been there many times. Nathaniel goes there a lot.’
Raj and Isabelle exchanged a look – Allie could sense their growing excitement although they were both trying not to give anything away.
‘Where is the St John place, precisely?’ Raj’s expression was studiedly neutral.
‘Farm country. Near some tiny nothing village called Diffenhall,’ Christopher said. ‘It’s just a crossroads, really. If you bring me a map I can show you.’
Raj crossed the room to the door with long quick strides, and yanked open the door. He had a quick, whispered conversation with a guard.
While he was gone, Allie studied her brother surreptitiously. He looked the same as she remembered, and yet… different somehow. More grown up. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was – but the last few years had changed him. He wasn’t a boy anymore. His cheeks bore a fine, golden dusting of whiskers.
When Raj returned, he studied Christopher with new interest.
‘You were right about the old gatehouse. The guards say all the locks had been removed and replaced with imitations, seamlessly.’
‘I really won’t lie to you about anything,’ Christopher said with apparent earnestness. ‘I am here exactly for the reasons I gave.’ He paused. ‘You shouldn’t leave the gate like that. If Nathaniel finds out I’m here, he’ll use it.’
‘The door’s been barricaded.’ Raj’s reply was gruff. ‘It’ll be bricked over tomorrow.’ He didn’t take his seat, standing with his fingertips light on the battered table top. ‘We’ll get you that map. I want you to show me where that house is.’
He motioned for Isabelle and Allie to rise. ‘Could you come with me, please? I’d like a word.’
They headed out together. At the door, Allie looked back. Christopher was watching them go.
She’d never seen him look more lonely.
‘What do you think?’ Isabelle asked Raj.
His ran a hand across his jaw. ‘I don’t know. If it’s an act, he’s very good.’
‘Well,’ Isabelle reminded him, ‘he’s had a good teacher.’
They’d gathered in the shadowy cellar corridor. A short distance behind them, four of Raj’s men guarded the cell holding Christopher.
Isabelle turned to Allie, who was standing quietly beside them. ‘What do you think? You know him better than us.’
Allie hesitated. ‘I wish I could be certain,’ she said. ‘That seemed like the real Christopher but…’
‘But he could be a good liar.’ Raj finished th
e sentence for her. ‘So we are in agreement.’
Allie didn’t argue with him but inside, she was torn. She was betraying Christopher by not believing him. But he’d done so little recently to merit her trust.
Even if he really had changed his mind, her loyalties had to lie with Cimmeria. With the people upstairs. Not with the brother who, not all that long ago, tried to burn this building down.
‘We’ll know more when we have a chance to check on that house.’ Isabelle called over her shoulder impatiently, ‘Where is that map?’
A guard spoke into his radio, then looked up at her. ‘On the way now.’
Isabelle turned to Raj, her gaze sharpening. ‘We will have to talk about that gatehouse, by the way. How was that allowed to happen?’
His lips tightened. ‘I wish I knew. Apparently the work was extremely professional, but I will take personal responsibility for that security lapse. It was unacceptable.’
It was very unusual for the headmistress to allow a student to observe her criticising her staff. Allie felt uncomfortably like an eavesdropper. She tried to find other things to look at.
‘Hmph.’ Isabelle seemed about to launch into a more heated complaint when Dom appeared out of the gloom, a laptop tucked under one arm, papers clutched in her hand.
She’d clearly run all the way down from her top floor office, and she was breathless by the time she reached them.
‘It’s real,’ she said before Isabelle could ask the question. ‘The house is real.’
Setting the laptop down roughly on a dusty ledge, she flipped it open. The screen lit up and a map appeared.
A location had been marked with a red dot. Dom tapped it with a fingertip.
‘There’s a farm here called St John’s Fields. It’s been in the St John family for generations.’
The computer screen was the brightest light in the dim hallway. Its glow gave everyone’s faces a ghostly hue.
‘And it’s the right St John?’ Isabelle’s voice sounded tight. ‘My father?’
Dom nodded. ‘It was in your father’s property portfolio until shortly before he died. At some point it was signed over to Nathaniel St John.’ She handed Isabelle a piece of paper. ‘The reason it didn’t come up in our property searches is because Nathaniel transferred ownership to a property portfolio trust, Ptolemy Properties Limited, more than a decade ago.’ Her glasses glinted in the light. ‘Basically, he sold it to himself.’