I take a deep breath and fix her in my gaze. “I can’t change the past. But if there’s one thing I’m going to do before I leave this school, it’s stop the Lions and anyone who’s colluding with them from blotting out the good parts of Strategia. Because a world without my mom, with no Laylas or Ineses and all Brendans, is a terrifying place to live. So I, for one, am going to fight back.” I can’t believe the words that are coming out of my mouth, but the moment I say them, I know I mean them.
Aarya stares at me for so long that I think she might be frozen.
“Aarya?”
“Shut up, November. Just shut up.”
I swallow, wondering if she’s planning to punch me in the throat after all. But after a few more seconds of deadpanning, she sighs and her shoulders drop.
“I broke into Conner’s office not that long ago, okay? I’ve never trusted that bastard. Blackwood caught me, but as far as I know, she never told Conner I broke in. I’ve always wondered why.” She pauses. “He keeps a knife hidden under his desk and he has poison in one of his drawers. Not the amateur assessment poison that will give you a stomachache, the real deal.” She looks at me and I get the sense that she’s expecting a big reaction. When it doesn’t come, she rolls her eyes like I’m an idiot. “Obviously, students aren’t allowed to keep weapons, but it’s not unusual for us to try. But faculty really shouldn’t have weapons. It makes them a threat and undermines the entire point of keeping this Academy hidden. And he’s the head of assessment. No. My creepy tolerance is high, and this soared right past it.”
I shift my gaze from Aarya to the tangled tree branches, trying to process what she’s saying. This has all been so foreign to me that the difference between students and faculty having weapons didn’t occur to me as a particularly huge deal. However, anything that freaks Aarya out is enough to send your average person into a faint.
Aarya snaps her fingers in front of my face and I look up at her. “Conner’s bedroom is attached to his office through a door behind his desk, so if he thinks you’re after him, chances are he’ll wait for you in his office, where his weapons are stashed, and then you’re as good as dead.”
I stare at her, stunned. I don’t doubt that she’ll find a way to hurt me with the information I just revealed about my family, but she actually told me something she didn’t have to. Somewhere under all her meanness, she actually has a conscience.
“And if I ever hear that you’ve repeated what I told you, Ember, I’ll make you suffer,” Aarya says, and turns around.
I gulp and she climbs to a higher branch and disappears into the blackness of the trees.
ASH DROPS DOWN onto the sky bench. There’s so much I need to tell him about Conner and my growing suspicions about what’s been going on in this school, but instead I just frown.
“I need to ask you something,” I say.
“We should get out of here first,” Ash says.
I ignore him. “Do you know where the dungeon is?”
“What?” he says like he’s not sure what I’m asking, but his eyes search me the way they do when he’s looking for something specific.
“I’m serious. You told me no one knows where it is. But do you know? Did you lie to me?” But he doesn’t need to answer, because I can see the recognition on his face.
He exhales quietly. “I didn’t want you to think that the way to solve this was to get Layla out of the dungeon. It would have put you at risk.”
“Because you were the one who made the deal to put her in there in the first place?” I say, and give him a demanding look.
“It’s not that simple. Let—”
“You let me worry about her like that when you knew all along what was going on?” My tone is getting more indignant by the second.
He rubs his forehead. “If you’ll let me explain—”
“How am I supposed to trust you now, Ash? How do I know you didn’t lie about everything else?” I expect that he’s going to argue with me, try to convince me there was a good reason for him to lie and that everything else he said was true. But he just stands there.
“November, there’s something I need to tell you,” he says slowly when he finally does speak. “I just…I need you to know first that I have a plan. That I’m going to fix this.”
“What do you need to tell me? And what are you going to fix?” My words come out too fast.
“I’ll tell you everything, but please hear me out before—”
I know Ash wants me to listen, but his expression is so serious that my mind is frantically trying to sort out what’s going on and I just start talking again. “Tell me this: Did you know Conner has been helping the Lions kill students?” Until the sentence was out of my mouth, I wasn’t even sure I believed it could be true. But someone on the staff has been helping the Lions. And after what Aarya told me about Conner’s secret weapon stash, and from my various encounters with him, it’s the only thing that makes sense.
“Let’s go back inside,” Ash says, attempting to keep his voice measured, but I can see the distress in his eyes. “I can’t explain this quickly.”
I pull back from him. “Oh my god. You did know about Conner. And you said nothing?” My pulse quickens. “Next you’re going to tell me you’ve been helping him.” I give a nervous huff because obviously that’s out of the question, but Ash just fixes me with a solemn expression.
“This is not…” Ash rubs a hand over his face.
“You’re not denying it. Ash, why aren’t you denying it?” There’s panic in my voice.
“If you’ll slow down and come with me, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” His tone is apologetic.
“There isn’t a chance in hell I’m going anywhere with you until you answer me. Were you helping Conner?”
He exhales and there’s pain in his eyes. “Again, it’s not that simple.”
My heart pounds so hard that it hurts, and all of a sudden it feels like there’s no air to breathe. I grab a branch to steady myself. Everything I thought about Ash, everything I felt—it’s all based on a lie.
“The day you arrived here,” Ash says quietly, “Conner came to me, told me that since our Family didn’t form an alliance with the Lions he had received word that my sister was on their kill list.” I can hear the fear in his voice, but I fight back the urge to let it affect me. “Layla’s brilliant, the smartest person in this school. She was always a possible target, and at first I thought he was just manipulating me with the idea of a threat. But I read him, November. He meant every word he said. He told me he was in a position to see that she was removed from the kill list, but that there would be a price, that I would have to do something in kind. And that something turned out to be…maneuvering you.”
“So you what? You cozied up to me, got me to trust you, all so you could hand me over to them?” My throat tightens and I attempt to swallow the hurt that’s trying to strangle me. “The night that Stefano died, the hallway—”
“Yes, I told you to take that hallway, but I didn’t know what you were going to find there. I swear,” he says, and his eyes are pleading for me to understand. “Dr. Conner never told me.”
I feel sick. “You were part of the plan to kill Stefano? The guy your sister had feelings for?”
“No! Of course I didn’t know that Stefano would be murdered. And I didn’t know that the intended target was Matteo. I never would have agreed to help Dr. Conner if I’d known any of that,” he says.
I stare at Ash in horror, replaying everything that’s happened these last two weeks in my head. “If that guard had been on his normal route instead of trying to protect me, would he have been in that hallway? Would I have been caught with Stefano’s body?”
“Yes,” Ash says, and it comes out in a whisper.
I put my hands over my face. I don’t even know how to process what he’s telling m
e.
“November—” he says, and reaches toward me.
“Don’t you dare come near me,” I say, so angry that I’m practically shaking. “When you sent me down that hallway, you had no idea what was waiting for me. There could have been someone with a knife waiting to kill me! You know that, right?”
“Yes,” he says. He doesn’t even try to deny it.
I walk back and forth. I open my mouth once but close it again. All this time, the missing information, the things that didn’t add up—those things were Ash. And deep down, I knew it. I felt that I shouldn’t trust him from the start, and yet I let myself. “So you came to me and offered to partner up to find the murderer when you already knew who it was. Why? Because you were trying to get information out of me to report back to Conner and the Lions? You…betrayed me.”
“I didn’t know it was Charles. Dr. Conner didn’t tell me anything of the plan other than that I was to lure you out after curfew and send you down that hallway,” Ash says, and his voice is getting more pained.
“All those questions Conner asked me about you…He knew you were playing me.” My voice shakes and I press my lips together, trying to get myself under control.
I glance at Ash. He looks like he wants to reach out to me, which only makes me feel worse.
“And in that assembly, when Charles threw the knife at me? Did you take the hit to get me to trust you so that you could ask me about my father?” My voice cracks and I try desperately to shake away my emotion.
“No, no way,” he says, and his voice is so genuine that I want to believe him. But how can I? “I blocked that knife because I wanted to. And that information was for me. I was trying to figure out why Dr. Conner was going through so much trouble to kill you. Trying to set you up for Stefano was one thing. But between Charles and the stunt that Nyx pulled with the sword…Dr. Conner is clearly fixated on you, or the Lions are, or both.”
“So now what?” I ask, exasperated. “Am I supposed to believe that you aren’t working with Conner anymore?” There’s disgust in my voice. “What about this deal to put Layla in the dungeon to keep her out of harm’s way? Was that a deal you made with Conner, too?”
“No, it’s a deal I made with Blackwood,” Ash says flatly. “If I had to guess, you’re right that Blackwood’s trying to stop Dr. Conner. But think about it: She can’t just eliminate him from the school, not with the hold the Lions have over it. And if she killed him, it would set off a much bigger war. So I made a deal that I would protect you if she would protect my sister.”
“And she agreed?”
“Not at first. Initially, she laughed. She said you didn’t need protection, that you were deadlier than I was. So instead I promised her that I would do what I could to stop the Lions. While Dr. Conner’s alive, they’ll never give up trying to hurt you.”
My head is whirling. “Blackwood said I was deadlier than you? That’s not even possible. And don’t you dare try to say that this is to help me.” I almost choke on the word.
“This is why I didn’t tell you,” he says, and looks like he needs for me to understand. “You see things as good and bad, right and wrong. And being a Strategia means living in a world made entirely of shades of gray, where everything is a trade-off.”
I shake my head, my anger high in my throat.
“And of course this is to help you,” he says, and his voice is insistent. “I wish I didn’t care. I wish I could hand you over to the Lions and be done with it all. But I can’t. I won’t. When I told you how I felt about you, I was minimizing it. I’m not good at caring about other people. I wasn’t encouraged to have best friends like you were—none of us were. Mine was burned alive in her bed. So, yes, I’m bad at this. Yes, I made a mess of things. But I’ve also been doing everything in my power to keep you and Layla safe. And I don’t know how to make sense of it, or how to explain it all to you, or how to tell you that after I’ve only known you for a short time I’m completely—” He stops himself.
He takes a breath. “If I could take back what I did, I would. I’ve made a mess of things. But I swear I will make it up to you, November. Just give me a chance.”
I stare at him for a long time, trying to hold back the flood of tangled emotion that threatens to let loose.
“Okay,” I say, my voice as restrained as I can manage. “You’ve said your piece. I’m leaving.”
His eyes are so sad that I can barely look at him. He bends down and pulls a dagger out of his boot. He offers it to me hilt-first.
I stubbornly shake my head, but he grabs my palm and places the dagger in it. I yank my hand away from him and shove the dagger into my boot, not because I want to take it but because I can’t stay here with him a second longer and argue about it.
“Please just—” he says, but I raise my hand and stop him.
“Don’t,” I say, and grab a vine. I begin to lower myself with shaky hands. It takes everything in my power not to cry.
I move through the trees slowly, and the farther I get from him, the more it feels like someone is strangling my heart. I also can’t help but wonder how much of this Layla knew.
I’m nearing the ground when a twig snaps above me. I look up and can’t see Ash, but I know with certainty that he wouldn’t snap a twig. He’s as silent as I am in trees.
A branch creaks to my right, jolting me with fear. With the dim light and the thick canopy of branches, everything is lost in shadows. I could scream in frustration. All I want to do is walk away so I can process this horror of a night. But if someone else is up there, Ash is alone to confront them. And as angry as I am, I can’t let him fight while I run off.
I pound my fist onto a branch and squeeze my eyes shut. Damn it all. I really hate you, Ash. When I open my eyes again, I scour the trees in the direction the creak came from, searching for any sign of movement.
There isn’t enough of a moon to see well, but there also isn’t wind to mask sounds. I take a breath and focus, listening. For a couple of seconds, there’s nothing but the occasional buzzing of insects in the forest. Then suddenly there’s a thump nearby and the sound of boots hitting bark.
I whip around to my right, and sure enough, I catch a glimpse of a dark figure moving through the trees above me.
I’m creeping silently along the branch when I hear another dull thud, not like boots this time, but the unmistakable sound of a fist connecting with flesh. It’s followed by another thud and a grunt.
I stop abruptly. On a smaller branch above me, I can just make out Ash struggling with the cloaked figure. My stomach bottoms out as I realize he doesn’t have his dagger. I see Ash throw a punch and his opponent jumps out of the way and down two branches. Ash pursues, and once again my view is blocked.
I hustle from branch to branch until I’m near the center of the courtyard, then grab a vine and climb up it so fast that I burn my hands. I catch sight of Ash again just as he lands a kick. I want to yell to him, to tell him that I’m coming, but breaking his concentration in the trees would be the worst thing I could do.
Ash’s opponent recovers his balance and tackles Ash. They collide and slam into the branch below them.
I scurry across the branches faster than I should and stop about ten feet above where they’re wrestling. I crouch down, finally close enough to make out the other person’s face in the gloom—Felix. He gets to his feet, but Ash doesn’t stand with him. Get up, Ash! My heart pounds one deafening thud.
Felix steps back and kicks Ash so hard that I can hear the impact of his boot on Ash’s ribs. The blow sends Ash tumbling off the branch. He quickly grabs at a vine, getting what looks like a loose hold, only to smack into another branch and fall through the darkness below.
“No!” I shout, and Felix whips around at the sound of my voice, his eyes locking with mine. But I don’t care that he saw me. I’ve been hunted and chased the whole time I’ve b
een at this school and I’m done.
I jump down two branches and land in front of Felix.
He wipes blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and studies me smugly. “Well, you just saved me the trouble of dragging you from your room.”
His right shoulder twitches, but by the time he swings, I’m already blocking. He follows with a left hook to my face but I manage to dodge it, too.
“Let’s hope you’re better against me than your father was against my parents,” I say as I yank Ash’s dagger from my boot, slicing it diagonally toward him as I stand.
He jumps out of the way, cursing. “And let’s hope you’re better than your dead mother,” he says, and swings at me again. I deflect with my left and slash him across his shoulder with the knife.
But he doesn’t look angry or in pain. In fact, he grins at me. For a split second he goes blurry. What the hell? He’s staring at my leg and I follow his eyes only to discover a needle sticking out of my thigh. Oh, shit.
The branches dance in front of my eyes and I drop the knife just as he sends a hard kick to my stomach. But instead of trying to move out of the way, I take the impact with a grunt and manage to wrap my arms around his leg and hold on. Only, my coordination is failing me and I stumble, knocking him off balance and both of us off the branch.
“I’m taking you with me,” I mumble incoherently as I cling to his leg.
He grabs on to a vine to slow us, but we’re falling fast, hitting branches on the way down. I try desperately to keep my eyes open, to maintain a hold on his leg, but my eyelids are impossibly heavy. They flutter one last time and the world goes dark.
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