An image of my dad’s favorite whittling knife flashes through my thoughts; the hilt looks like a silver wolf. He said his childhood best friend gave it to him when he was growing up in Maine. But now I’m pretty sure the Maine part was total bunk.
“And when you asked me if I was ‘for, against, or neutral’?” I say without fully explaining what I want to know.
Ash exhales audibly. “It’s complicated.”
“But it’s also important and something I need to know,” I say.
He’s quiet for a second. “I won’t tell you the nuances of Family politics because we would be here all night if I did. But I can tell you that there are Families and individuals who support curbing the Lions’ activities, which essentially means curbing their power, through force if necessary. And you can probably guess what neutral and against are. Strategia Families don’t regulate one another—it’s just not who we are. But historically we’ve also never experienced this type of power imbalance.”
I open my mouth to ask another question, but Ash starts speaking again.
“The fact that you were admitted is shocking,” he says. “How did someone who doesn’t know anything about Strategia pull that off?”
I shake my head. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out since I got here.” I pause, feeling exposed, but also closer to him somehow. “So now that you know the whole truth, can I trust you?”
Ash looks at me, and he’s more relaxed than he was before, but he’s also still hesitant. “I don’t think you have a choice at this point except to assume that you can.”
“Really? That’s all I get after telling you my secrets?” I shake my head. “You’re such an ass.”
“I’m such an ass because you don’t like the truth?” He grins, and his eyes twinkle with mischief.
“No, because you are, like, at your core,” I say.
He clutches his heart like I wounded him. “I almost thought you meant that. But then I didn’t, because I can read you and it’s obvious that you secretly love me.”
I laugh and realize it’s the first time I’ve laughed in days; the weight of Stefano’s murder and the fear of being a suspect have darkened everything. “Well, you’re not boring, I’ll give you that.”
He leans slightly toward me. “Never boring.”
For a moment we are both quiet.
Ash sighs, and his look is gentler. There’s none of his usual analysis or distance. It almost seems like he’s seeing me for the first time, and for just a moment, I get lost in his gaze. My stomach flips in a good way, and for once he’s the one to break eye contact.
I clear my throat. “I asked you in the vine courtyard what I needed to know to survive here,” I say, and readjust my position on the couch. “Well, now you know what I meant. So I’m asking you again.”
He pauses. “If I agree to tell you what you want to know, I need you to also do something for me.”
“It’s always a trade with you.”
“I’m completely serious about this.”
“Okay, fine. What do you need me to do?”
His eyes get intense again. “Not tell my sister what you just told me.”
“What?” I lean back slightly. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He presses his lips together for a brief second. “Because it’s dangerous.”
“For me, sure,” I say. “But how would it be dangerous for Layla?”
“The fact that you don’t know who you are tells me that there’s something to hide, something important. And once that gets uncovered, I don’t want Layla to be at the center of it.”
I look at the fireplace for answers. It feels wrong not telling Layla. And it puts me in a place where I have to potentially lie to her. Plus, I trust her way more than I trust him—don’t I? If she had been here instead of Ash tonight, I’d probably be having this conversation with her.
“The choice is yours, November. If I help you figure out who you are, Layla can’t know the truth. Or tell her, and I promise you neither of us will help you. You need us way more than we need you, and you know that, otherwise you wouldn’t have told me any of this.”
“Don’t bother saying the choice is mine, if there isn’t a choice,” I say.
I can’t help but think about the talk Layla gave me in the library, when she said our new trust arrangement was completely breakable. I feel like I’m already destroying it.
Just then the door latch struggles against the lock. “November?” Layla says, her voice muffled by the thick door.
“I still need an answer,” Ash says.
I huff. “Yes. Okay? Yes.”
“Then we have a deal,” he says, and there’s nothing playful in his tone.
I get up and open the door.
Layla comes in carrying a huge stack of books. “Oh, good. You’re both here.”
Ash takes them from her and puts them down as Layla removes her cloak and hangs it in the armoire. “I got a book on knives for you to go through, November, to see if you can recognize the one that Stefano…well, the one used in the murder. And a medical book that should help us pinpoint how long he’d been dead by the time you found him. And some just for you on deception and body language. No offense, but I think you could use a refresher.”
“Great,” I say. “Sounds like a plan.”
She looks between me and Ash. “Did something happen? You both look uncomfortable.”
Ash looks at me, daring me to break our agreement.
“Well, Aarya knows I was in her room—at least she thinks she does. She found a piece of my hair,” I tell her.
Layla frowns. “That’s not good news. We’ll need to be on guard. Aarya’s the kind who believes in retaliation for fun as much as anything else.”
“And I met with Conner again,” I say.
“Dr. Conner?” Layla repeats, and her tone is more worried.
“He claims that the guard who saw me used the same staircase I did, so it was impossible for us to both be in it at the same time. That I must have gone a different way,” I say.
“What did you tell him?” Layla asks.
“Nothing. I said I didn’t know.”
“Good,” Layla says. “That was the right response.”
“He also said that the guard used a different route than normal. I thought that was weird, considering how precise everyone is around here,” I say, and Ash and Layla look at each other.
Layla’s eyebrows draw together. “It’s not entirely impossible, but it’s not typical, either. Although I’m not sure you could prove that the guard did or didn’t do anything unusual that night, especially since they don’t talk to students.”
I exhale. “That’s what I figured.” I hesitate. “Tell me honestly, how bad a spot do you think I’m in right now?”
Even before I hear her answer, I can see the worry on her face. “Bad,” she says quietly.
LAYLA AND I sit at the breakfast table in our room, which is covered with open books and food. I’m looking through pictures of knives and she’s reading about rigor mortis. It’s like a twisted version of the old couple you see in movies flipping through the newspaper and drinking coffee.
“So far, the closest thing to what I remember seeing is this,” I say, pointing at a picture of a plain metal-handled knife in my book.
“A common kitchen knife?” Layla says, and frowns.
“Well, I can’t say positively. It was dark. But I do remember it being silver,” I say.
Layla’s frown lingers.
“What?”
She swallows a bite of her toast. “It’s just…I don’t know how someone could have gotten hold of a kitchen knife. Those are locked up and guarded at all times, and not even in the kitchen, in a different room altogether.”
I smear butter and jam on my bread. “The night I
went up against Nyx in that challenge, Blackwood said they were doing a search. Could that be what they were looking for?”
“That’s what I was just wondering,” she says, and we fall silent again, reading and eating.
Layla runs her finger under a few lines in her book. “You said his body was cold.”
I nod. “Not icy cold, but like when you touch someone’s cold hand. Lukewarm might be more accurate. All I know is that it was noticeable.”
“You had just been outside,” Layla says, half to me and half to her book. “You were wearing your cloak—it gets pretty cold here at night, even with a cloak and even with the activity of climbing trees….” She looks up at me. “Can you remember if you were feeling hot or cold when you found his body?”
It’s amazing to watch her consider all the factors. She’d make an excellent detective. “I tend to run warm,” I say. “And by the time I had gotten to him, I was running and my adrenaline was pumping. I was definitely sweating.”
“So he was cold compared to you, but would you say he was warmer than the air temperature?” she asks.
I nod.
“And you touched his neck, right? Did he feel stiff at all?”
“Well…,” I say, trying my best to recall that terrible moment and not get queasy. “I knew right away that he had no pulse, but he wasn’t rock hard. Maybe a little stiff.”
“What about the blood? Where was it?” Layla asks, and as relaxed as her expression is, I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t like picturing Stefano dead any more than I do.
“He was in the shadows, so it was really just varying degrees of darkness, but I remember clearly that his chest was covered in blood, or rather his white shirt was. He was wearing his cloak, too. But I didn’t see any blood on the floor. If there had been, I would have gotten it on myself when I knelt down.”
She stares out the window.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“A dead body loses heat at about zero point eighty-three degrees Celsius an hour—that’s one point five degrees Fahrenheit, if it’s easier for you. That’s not quickly at all. Although if a body is kept in a cold place, it will lose heat faster. But regardless, he couldn’t have been newly killed when you found him or you wouldn’t have noticed a temperature difference. Also, for you to feel signs of rigor mortis, even just a little, he would likely have been dead for three to eight hours,” she says, and my mind spins at the implications.
“But obviously he wasn’t in that hallway for hours or someone would have found him before I did,” I say, following her train of thought. “Are you saying you think he was moved there sometime after he’d been killed?”
Her forehead tenses with concentration. “That’s the thing, you said you didn’t see blood on the floor, but there was blood on his shirt. Even if your temperature readings were off because of adrenaline and exercise, and even if you aren’t a good judge of stiffness, it’s strange that there wasn’t any blood on the floor. So yes, I think we can assume that he was placed there.”
“You mean he was killed somewhere else and then put in that hallway specifically for me to find?” I’m trying to wrap my mind around the lengths someone went to in order to set me up.
“That’s what it looks like from where I’m sitting.”
“Ash knows the guards’ schedules to the second, right?” I say, considering her words. “So are there specific windows of time where we would be more likely to go to the vine courtyard and then to leave it? I guess what I’m asking is, would someone be able to make an educated guess about the time we would be coming back from those trees?”
Layla nods. “Definitely. The easiest time to go anywhere is right after curfew, because the guards always make rounds then. And then again about forty-five minutes later—which would be your most likely time to return. If you miss that window, you have to wait for another hour and fifteen minutes, when the guards go again.”
No wonder Ash was insistent that someone set me up. “We need to find out who saw Stefano after his classes. It will give us a timeline to work with.”
“Ash is already working on that,” Layla says. “We also need to think about where Stefano was killed and where his body was kept before it was placed in that hallway.”
There’s a brief knock and the latch lifts on our door. Pippa comes in, looking at us in an almost sad way that sets me on edge.
“Your presence has been requested in the dining hall,” Pippa says. “Immediately.”
“Thank you,” Layla says, and Pippa, who is usually chatty, leaves without another word.
I look at Layla for answers.
“I don’t know,” she says, “but we don’t have enough information yet to prove it wasn’t you.”
* * *
The dining hall has once again been transformed into an auditorium and is nearly full by the time Layla and I take our seats. The teachers stand against the walls as before, watching us, and Blackwood is sitting behind the teachers’ table. However, there is one noticeable difference—two guards stand next to her holding crossbows. And there are two more guards by the exit.
My stomach twists so violently that I have to stop myself from running to the bathroom.
“Stop fidgeting,” Ash says under his breath as he takes the seat next to me.
I drop my hands into my lap. I look from Ash to Layla. They both stare forward with matching blank expressions, but the tension between us is so thick that it’s hard not to panic. The two armed guards next to Blackwood loom over us all like angels of death.
Blackwood stands up and does a slow sweep of the room with her eyes. “Good morning,” she says, and the room echoes a “Good morning” in response.
“It is a good morning indeed,” she says with a small smile, so contrary to the general feeling of the room that my shoulders tighten. “We have concluded the investigation into Stefano’s death, and the guilty party is now known. There will not be a trial. There will be no fanfare.”
I look immediately to the exit. An eye for an eye. There’s no mercy here, no negotiating.
When I shift my gaze back to the front of the room, Blackwood is staring directly at me. Every muscle in my body tenses, and out of the corner of my eye I notice a few of the students turning to look at me. Aarya smiles like she’s about to see a magic show, but Matteo seems strangely uncomfortable. Dread inches up my body, making it hard to breathe. I want to scream that I didn’t do it, that she has to know I didn’t, but I can’t seem to move a muscle. Instead the words lodge in my throat, unsaid, tightening my chest. Even Conner looks at me like this was all disappointingly inevitable.
Blackwood holds my gaze for so long that my eyes start to water from not blinking. Then suddenly she shifts her line of sight away from me. “Charles, you are hereby charged with Stefano’s murder.”
Gasps roll through the rows of students. I look at Charles and he looks right back at me, like he would kill me this instant if he could.
Nyx abruptly stands, and everyone turns to her. Charles, on the other hand, continues to watch me like he’s trying to solve a math problem.
“Stefano and Charles attended this school for two and a half years without a single fight between them,” Nyx says, her chin held high. “He’s exactly the same as he’s always been. And Stefano hasn’t changed, either. What is not the same in this school, the only thing that is different, is November.”
The students look from Nyx to me. I’ve never wanted to disappear so badly in my life. Ash leans slightly forward.
Blackwood sighs, like this is tedious for her.
“We all know there’s something wrong with her!” Nyx exclaims, thrusting a finger in my direction. Her voice has taken on a wild tone.
Charles stands now, too, and touches her arm, but Nyx doesn’t calm.
“Even her own Family members attack her,” Nyx says,
and I can hear the ragged emotion in her voice. “Mark my words, if Charles is taking the fall for her this time, any of you could be next.”
“Guards,” Blackwood says, seemingly unbothered by the scene that’s erupting. She gestures for them to take Charles.
The two guards by the door step forward. Charles looks across the room at them and takes a step in the opposite direction. He glances at Blackwood and then at Conner, his body tensed, like a caged animal. I wonder if he’s contemplating running, and my heart beats wildly—only seconds ago I was thinking the same thing.
Suddenly Charles stops moving and looks over at me. The moment our eyes meet I can feel all his fear and anger. His chin juts out and his jaw is set in a hard line. He reaches under his cloak to his back and yanks out a knife. The steel blade shimmers in the candlelight. Gasps ripple through the room, and the students nearest him pull back. Behind him, Aarya’s eyes widen, and it occurs to me that perhaps this is the knife she lost.
The next seconds blur as Charles pulls back his arm and Blackwood yells “Stop!” But her command has no effect because the knife is already whizzing through the air, and I find myself frozen in the moment, waiting for it to strike. My heart gives one deafening thud and I close my eyes as the blade slices through skin with a tearing sound. Only it’s not my skin. My eyes fly open to find that Ash’s arm is in front of me, the knife protruding through his forearm, sticking an inch out the back.
I look down at the blood that drips into my lap—Ash’s blood—and when I look back up, Charles’s face has twisted into something primal, something filled with hatred. For a second, I can’t make sense of any of it—the chaos among the other students. Ash’s arm with the knife in it. Charles. I touch my leg and my fingers come up bright red. Then all at once it seems like everyone is moving again. The guards run for Charles, Brendan blocks their path, and Nyx topples chairs into the aisle.
Ash stands and pulls the knife out of his arm, spraying the ground in front of us with droplets of red. Charles’s glare is still fixed on me and I can feel his determination in my bones. He wants to kill me. Ash holds the knife in front of him, but Charles doesn’t slow. Just when he’s about to collide with us both, I hear a low whistle and a thud. Charles’s chest arches forward unnaturally and his eyes widen before he slumps to the floor.
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