Wrenching his gaze away, he slunk to a seat at the back of the room as far away from Allie as he could get.
As Allie watched him with increasing dismay, he sat stiffly, staring straight ahead.
He was thinner than she remembered – his cheekbones were too sharp, and his uniform seemed too big on him. His dark hair had grown long; a lock fell into his large, brown eyes and he left it there.
When it was clear he wasn’t going to look at her again, she slowly turned back to the front, a worried frown creasing her forehead.
Something was terribly wrong.
It was a strange meeting, and soon Allie was too busy trying to figure out what was going on at the school to worry about Carter. Isabelle was right: much had changed at Cimmeria while she’d been gone.
Nathaniel was only mentioned once or twice and the events in France weren’t discussed at all. Even the school’s strictly-enforced Rules were no longer the same. The old Rules on electronics and communications equipment had been dropped and new Rules seemed to have been brought in helter-skelter. The guards were in charge. Students were tightly controlled and constantly watched.
The situation felt dangerous and futile. Everyone seemed afraid. Or, worse, resigned.
It was as if the fight was already over.
Why did they bring me back? Allie wondered with a rising sense of panic. If all we’re going to do is give up?
She’d so longed to come back to Cimmeria – to see everyone again. She’d missed them all so much. But now that she was here nothing was as she’d left it. It didn’t feel like the same place.
When the meeting ended, the other students gathered around her.
‘Let’s go outside,’ Nicole said. ‘It’s nice out.’
‘We could play football?’ Zoe suggested.
Nicole wrinkled her nose. ‘Sports are so boring.’
They settled down to bickering in a way that seemed so comfortable Allie got the feeling they must do it all the time. As they headed to the door, she hung back.
Carter was still in his seat. Isabelle stood over him, speaking in a low voice. He listened without apparent emotion. Neither of them seemed to notice Allie as she stood in the doorway watching them.
Feeling out of place, she hurried into the hall to where the others waited.
Warm summer sunshine streamed through the windows on the landing and they walked together down the stairs just like they used to – Nicole and Zoe chatting in animated tones about the patrol schedule, Sylvain laughing softly at something Zoe said – but it wasn’t the same.
Nothing is the same.
Allie blew out her breath.
Nicole shot her a curious look and fell into step beside her.
‘It must feel strange being back here again.’
Her voice echoed in the hollow stairwell.
‘It’s weird,’ Allie admitted. ‘So much has changed.’
Nicole nodded. ‘It’s very different now. Ever since the attack.’
‘The security is mental,’ Allie said. ‘Is everyone cool with that? It’s all very police statey. Which seems, like … not great.’
Nicole considered this. ‘I suppose we didn’t think we had much choice. Things got very dangerous. When things are dangerous you protect yourself.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s natural.’
They were walking slowly, and Zoe and Sylvain disappeared around a corner ahead. Normally she’d hurry after them but today Allie wanted to take in the familiar beauty of the old school building. Its chandeliers and tall ceilings had always seemed so permanent. Solid.
Now, it all felt fragile.
The sweeping expanse of hallway was lined with old oil paintings in heavy frames showing Cimmeria at various phases in its history. The building grew and shrank, advanced and retreated, brightened and dimmed as they moved.
The school had always been here, she reminded herself. It would always survive.
It had to.
Just ahead of them, Zoe reappeared from around a corner and beckoned with short, impatient motions. ‘What’s taking you so long?’
Nicole and Allie hurried to where Zoe waited in the stone-floored entrance hall. Sylvain stood near the door talking to a guard. A stained glass window set high in the wall sent shards of gold and red flying across the room.
Nicole and Zoe headed for the front door and Allie began to follow them but Sylvain reached for her arm, pulling her back.
With an apologetic grimace, he said, ‘I have to go. Zelazny wants me to meet with the guards for a full debrief.’
‘Oh.’ Allie tried to hide her disappointment. She felt so lost right now. She needed him or Rachel around to feel normal, and Rachel was nowhere to be seen. But she couldn’t say that.
‘No worries.’ She gave a shrug to show how little she minded.
‘I’ll come find you later,’ he promised.
As he turned back down the hallway, Zoe knocked on the dark wood of the front door. A guard in black opened it from outside. Through the doorway, Cimmeria’s lush, green lawns beckoned.
‘We’ll stay in sight,’ Zoe told the guard, then she dashed out into the sun.
Allie’s eyebrows winged up.
Since when do we have to ask permission to go outside?
The guard stepped back to let them pass. His expression was pure icy professionalism but his gaze lingered on Allie’s face a little too long and she realised he knew who she was. He’d probably talk about her later.
‘I saw her. The one Nathaniel wants …’
Forcing herself to pretend she hadn’t noticed, she walked down the front steps with her head held high.
Outside, the smooth lawns sprawled in all directions before fading into dark forests. It was sunny but cool – nothing like the brutal heat in southern France – and Allie pulled her blazer tighter around her.
A few other students sat elsewhere on the lawn. At the far edge, some were kicking a ball around.
Nicole and Zoe chose a spot in full sunlight near a flower bed and stretched out on the soft grass. Allie sat down next to them feeling oddly foreign as they chattered about classes she hadn’t been to and people whose names she didn’t recognise.
‘Has either of you seen Rachel?’ she asked, when their conversation lulled. ‘I haven’t seen her since we got back.’
‘She went home with her dad.’ Nicole gave her a look that said she was surprised she didn’t know this already. ‘She’ll be back tomorrow.’
Rachel hadn’t seen her family in months – it made perfect sense. But Allie felt lonelier knowing she was gone.
The others didn’t seem to notice her darkening mood. Nicole leaned back on her elbows. Zoe pulled up a blade of glass and blew on it, trying to make it whistle. It just sounded like loud air.
‘I’m so happy to feel the sun.’ Nicole tilted her head so the light fell on the delicate curves of her face, turning her fair skin to gold. ‘All it’s done for weeks is rain, rain, rain.’
‘Did it?’ Allie was surprised. ‘It’s been sunny every day in France.’
‘Don’t.’ Laughing, Nicole held up her hand. ‘I don’t want to hear how glorious French summers are, I already know. English summers are so horrible. They shouldn’t call them summers at all. It’s a lie.’
Remembering something she’d meant to ask, Allie turned to Zoe, who was searching the lawn for more likely grass whistles. ‘Hey. Why did you tell the guard we’d stay within sight?’
‘New rules.’ Zoe’s tone was matter-of-fact. ‘Guards have to know where students are at all times. Can’t go into the forest without permission.’
Allie was stunned. Most of the grounds were forested. The students had always had freedom to roam wherever they wished.
‘How’s everyone taking that?’ Looking around, for the first time she noticed all the students were staying on the grass. No one was wandering off down the many forest paths.
‘It’s OK.’ Nicole shrugged and her dark hair shimmered in the light. ‘You get used to it.’ Openi
ng her eyes, she glanced over at Allie. ‘Now that we have some privacy, could you tell us where you’ve been?’
Allie was surprised. ‘You don’t know?’
The girls shook their heads.
‘We know you ended up in France at Sylvain’s place and that’s where Nathaniel found you, but that’s it,’ Nicole said.
‘No one would tell us anything,’ Zoe’s tone was accusing. ‘You just disappeared. We came down to breakfast that day and you were just gone. Isabelle wouldn’t say where you were. It was all top secret. Were you in France the whole time?’
‘No,’ Allie said. ‘We kept moving.’
‘Really?’ Nicole’s eyes reflected a mix of curiosity and envy. ‘That must have been so exciting.’
Allie didn’t really know how to explain what it had been like never to know where you were going. To be constantly taken places you hadn’t chosen for yourself and knew nothing about. To be held in grand houses you couldn’t leave. So she just told them the basics.
When Nathaniel kidnapped Rachel and attacked the school, a number of students were injured. It was clear the stakes had been raised. Nathaniel would stop at nothing in his effort to take control of the Orion Society – the secret organisation that effectively controlled much of the British government – from Allie’s grandmother, Lucinda Meldrum, who had overseen it for years.
She wouldn’t let go of her grip on power and he would use any weapon he could to hurt her. Cimmeria was one such weapon – Lucinda loved the school and was personally connected to it. Her family was another. He’d already convinced Allie’s brother, Christopher, to join him. Now he wanted Allie, too. And he would do whatever it took to get her. Lucinda and Isabelle had decided she wasn’t safe at Cimmeria any more – and that her presence endangered everyone there. So early one morning, she and Rachel climbed on to Lucinda’s private jet and left, without a clue where they were going.
It turned out their first stop was Switzerland, where they were driven to the mountain estate of a Swiss billionaire who was an old family friend of Lucinda’s. They’d been given separate, palatial suites but stayed in each other’s rooms every night. Neither of them wanted to be alone. A nurse had come to see them every few days to change the dressings on their wounds; check their stitches.
After a few weeks, they’d been told to pack and they’d boarded the jet again. This time they’d ended up at a vast mansion in Croatia. There, they were greeted by stacks of homework and a letter from Isabelle telling them it was time to get to work.
Croatia had lasted only a couple of weeks.
When they’d been told to pack again, they hadn’t actually minded. The big Croatian house had been oddly empty – no one lived there but them, the housekeepers and guards. It had echoed when they talked.
After that they’d spent a few weeks in Germany in a hyper-modern house as big as a hotel where the blinds shut by remote control and they’d never figured out how to make it work. The place after that was Sylvain’s house.
‘And then Nathaniel found us.’ The memory of that hot afternoon – how close they’d come – made her stomach flip. ‘If it wasn’t for Sylvain—’
Zoe jumped to her feet, cutting Allie off. ‘There’s Lucas. I have to go.’
And just like that she was gone, darting across the lawn to where a group of students were warming up for a game of football.
Wounded, Allie stared after her.
‘Am I that boring?’ She kept her tone light but it did hurt a little.
‘She’s missed you,’ Nicole said gently. ‘And you know how she is with emotion. She doesn’t know how to tell you what she feels.’ She looked over to where Zoe was kicking a ball with unnecessary force. ‘I think she’s upset about what happened to you. It’s … hard to tell.’
‘I know.’ Allie shrugged. ‘I don’t mind.’
But that wasn’t true at all.
‘So …’ Nicole plucked a wild daisy with a long stem from the edge of the lawn. Then another. ‘You and Sylvain …?’
She raised her eyebrows.
Heat flooded Allie’s face and she hurried to find more daisies to add to Nicole’s collection.
She thought about that moment in the sea just before the gunshots. She’d been certain he was about to kiss her. But he hadn’t.
She handed Nicole a flower. ‘Sylvain and I are friends.’
She emphasised the last word.
‘Hmmm.’ Nicole began braiding the daisy stems together, forming a fragile chain. ‘It’s good to be friends.’
Her tone was non-committal but Allie could tell she was disappointed.
Allie decided to switch the topic back to safer ground.
‘So Nathaniel really hasn’t tried anything here since I left?’
Nicole shook her head. ‘Lucinda is fighting with him in London in meetings rather than here with knives but …’ She looked at Allie, her dark eyes serious. ‘I think she is not winning.’
Her words sent a chill through Allie.
If her grandmother lost, Nathaniel would take over the school and the entire organisation. Isabelle would go. Everyone who really cared about Allie would be gone. She’d have to leave the school. Or stay. And be part of Nathaniel’s sickening plans.
‘Enough sad talk.’ Nicole said decisively. ‘This is too depressing for your first day back. We will not lose today.’
Kneeling, she draped her daisy chain atop Allie’s hair, a crown of flowers.
‘There.’ A satisfied smile brightened her perfect oval face. ‘Now you look like a fairy princess. Queen Allie of Cimmeria Academy.’
She pretended to bow.
Allie was genuinely touched by this gesture.
‘Thank you, French peasant.’ She gave a regal wave. ‘You may rise.’
Laughing, Nicole leaned back on her heels to study her. ‘You look good in a crown.’
Someone called to her from the front steps and she climbed to her feet, shading her eyes with one hand as she peered towards the front door.
‘It’s Isabelle,’ she said, glancing down to where Allie sat straightening her flower crown. ‘I’ll go see what she wants.’
‘You have my permission,’ Allie said, still playing queen. ‘Sally forth and report back.’
As Nicole hurried off, though, she called after her: ‘Tell Isabelle I need to talk to her.’
But neither Nicole nor Isabelle seemed to hear her.
The two disappeared inside the school building. The door closed, and the guard resumed his place outside it, staring out over the grounds intently.
Why didn’t Isabelle want to see me? Is she too busy to talk about guns? And Nathaniel?
She leaned back on the grass, considering her options. She could run after them and insist that Isabelle explain what the hell was going on. She really could.
But she didn’t move. There had to be a reason why Isabelle was making her wait.
Something must be going on.
The exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours caught up with her and, in the warm sun, her eyelids felt heavy. The soft grass tickled her bare legs. In the distance she could hear Lucas and Zoe shouting and kicking the ball. The faint buzzing of bees in the nearby flower beds formed a soothing backdrop.
Maybe she fell asleep for a while or perhaps no time passed but, suddenly, something blocked the sun. Allie blinked her eyes open to find Carter towering over her.
6
Six
‘Carter …? What?’ She was instantly wide awake.
‘I can’t believe you,’ he said. ‘You bloody idiot. How could you be so stupid? Why the hell did you come back?’
‘Hey!’ Allie protested. ‘I mean … what?’ She scrambled to her feet.
‘You got away,’ he said. ‘You were free. And you came back? Why would you do that?’
He sounded both angry and genuinely baffled, as if she’d done something unbelievably stupid.
Allie bristled. ‘You don’t know what happened out there, Carter. I didn’t have
any choice. And whatever happened to hello and welcome back, anyway?’
He ignored that. ‘Oh really?’ His tone turned sardonic. ‘Couldn’t you have run away? I mean, that’s your thing, right? Running away. Why don’t you do it when it matters?’
That one stung.
Blood rose to Allie’s cheeks. ‘I came back because it wasn’t safe out there,’ she said. ‘That’s all. Not because I wanted …’ to see you ‘… to be here.’
This didn’t placate him.
‘Look around you, Allie.’ He flung out his arm and the sweeping gesture took in the quiet grounds, the mostly empty school building, the muscular guards prowling the edges of the lawns. ‘Do you feel safe now? Because you’re not. Out there, at least you could run. Here, you’re in a cage.’
Allie wanted to argue with him – to tell him how wrong he was. But hadn’t she felt it all morning? And in that meeting? The insecurity. The futility of their resistance against Nathaniel. The guards watching their every move.
The fight went out of her.
‘Look, Carter, all I’ve done for months is run.’ She ran her fingers across her forehead, which was beginning to throb. ‘And it wasn’t any safer out there. Nathaniel found me. It was … bad.’
A flicker of surprise and concern lightened his eyes. So he didn’t know what had happened.
And he cared.
‘I don’t know if I’m safe here or not,’ she continued. ‘I doubt it. I’m not safe anywhere. But neither are you. So maybe you should worry less about me and more about yourself. Seriously, Carter …’ Her glance slid across his sharp cheekbones, and the tired circles under his eyes. ‘What’s the matter with you? You look like crap.’
Instantly, his expression hardened. He took a step back. ‘What’s the matter with me? Nothing. I’m just the only honest person you know. You’ve got grass in your hair.’
And with that baffling combination of statements he turned and walked away at a rapid pace, kicking at the ground.
As she watched him go, Allie reached up cautiously to touch her hair. Her fingers found the wilted daisy chain Nicole made for her earlier.