by Callie Rose
“But why are we here? Did we all fail our finals?” The girl who asked pressed her fists to her mouth, watching for Toland’s reaction with big, gray eyes.
“No. This was not a punitive measure,” the headmaster said gently. “Just as with the sprites and damage to the castle, this was deliberate sabotage. We don’t know who is responsible or how they did it—yet. But we will find out. And we will find a way home.”
“I know who did it.” Sonja tossed her red hair over her shoulder and rose from her seat, turning in place to scan the massive room. After a dramatic pause, she pointed a finger in my direction.
“It was her!” she declared loudly. “Piper and her fuckboy minions. They weren’t at their finals. None of them were! They had to have done it.”
Toland sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose as he glanced at me. I was on my feet already, marching toward her. After everything I went through to try to stop this from happening, she was going to accuse me of causing it?
Yeah, fuck that.
“You know what Sonja?” I gritted my teeth. “I’ve had it! I’m sick of your shit. You’ve had a problem with me since the day you, Dru, and Kyle picked me up and brought me here, and we’re going to settle it right fucking now.”
“Oh, you want to go, bitch? Let’s go!”
In the next heartbeat, she shifted into her demonic form with an ear-splitting roar, growing a foot taller and wider as twisted black horns sprouted from her fiery hair and the whites of her eyes turned black.
I just bared my teeth, still advancing on her with my hands clenched into fists. Whatever. She’s scarier when she’s playing Queen Bitch of the Mean Girls.
Demons were easy to handle. Especially since I was one too.
I started to shift into the biggest, meanest form I could conjure up, but before I could complete the shift, four sets of hands grabbed my arms and pulled me back.
“Let me go!” I shouted. “I’m gonna end her!”
“Yeah, and how’s that bloodthirst going to look when Toland finds out about Owen?” Kingston’s hiss in my ear brought me up short. I melted back into my usual form and glared at Sonja.
“That is enough!” Toland’s furious boom made Sonja jerk. In a blink, she snapped back into human shape, glancing at him guiltily.
“It’s true though,” she said with a sniff. “None of them were at their finals. Oh, except the blonde chick.” She jerked her chin toward Hannah, and I bristled at the fact that she didn’t even address her by name. “She was at the finals, but none of the others were. Case closed. There are your culprits.”
Toland’s gaze cut between Sonja and me quickly, his expression hard to read.
“Everyone sit down.” He made a commanding gesture and waited until all of us had resumed our seats before giving a satisfied nod. “Excuse me for a moment.”
Turning away from the podium, he took two of the professors aside, and the three of them spoke in hushed voices for several minutes. While they were talking, a buzz of whispers started up around the room.
“Here we go again, guys,” I groaned, scrubbing a hand down my face. “Ready to be social pariahs again?”
“When were we not?” Kai asked gloomily. He’d joined the others in holding me back from beating Sonja to a pulp, and when we had all taken our seats again, he’d settled himself in the row behind us.
I shrugged. He was right. Even before we’d become monsters, none of us had been particularly good at climbing social ladders. Well, except for Kingston.
When Toland took the podium again, he looked as though he’d aged five years. His gray hair looked a little grayer, and I swore his bushy mustache sagged a little.
“I have heard your accusations and have considered them,” he told Sonja heavily. “But before I address them, I have a few more things to say. First, the school is still enchanted as it was on earth. That means all our internal systems are still functioning as usual. The water still runs, and the electricity still works.”
A collective sigh of relief answered him.
“Second. The staff and I will be making every effort to return the school to its rightful place on Mönkh Saridag before the school year begins in four weeks. In the meantime, no one is to leave the school grounds for any reason.”
“Who would want to?”
The crowd seemed to adamantly agree with the anonymous mutterer, but I didn’t. As terrifying as the alien world outside was, I was fascinated by it too. I would have loved an excuse to go explore it. With my guys, of course. And definitely some weapons.
“Third. Our protective wards are holding for now, but we don’t know how long they will keep. This is why we need the advanced students to help us maintain them. You will be put on a rotation with a team. Ms. Aires will assign your teams and schedules to you.”
“Define ‘advanced’,” one of the third-year students, Marshall, called from the back of the auditorium.
I craned my head to look back at the guy as mutters erupted from the gathered audience again. Shit. All the third-years who’d been taking their exams when Owen attacked should’ve graduated FU and moved on to the task of helping the Custodians guard earth.
Except none of them could go anywhere now. Just like the rest of us.
“You,” Toland replied flatly, and Marshall pursed his lips, settling back in his seat. The headmaster swept his gaze over the rest of the crowd again. “Lastly, and most importantly: the kitchen is fully functional and breakfast is served. Sausage rolls and pancakes await you. Dismissed!”
He locked gazes with me as the students stampeded for the door. My guys moved to leave, and I put out a hand to stop them.
“Hold on a second. I think the headmaster wants a word with us.”
“I’m hungry.” Kai pushed past me.
“Kai,” Toland said with a hint of his sonic boom. “A word.”
The vampire froze, then turned around reluctantly, grinding his teeth. Jayce and Kingston stood on either side of me while Xero towered over my head from his position behind me. Hannah lingered on one side. Toland looked at her and smiled gently.
“Go on to breakfast, Hannah. I need a word with your friends in private.”
“Oh—um, okay. Uh—good luck, guys.” She gave me a worried smile and left quickly, if reluctantly.
As soon as the auditorium had cleared out, Toland turned to us. His stiff, imposing bearing cracked a little, his shoulders collapsing forward for a second before he straightened his spine again, and for a moment, I saw behind the mask. He hid it well, but it wasn’t hard to guess just how much stress and pressure he was under.
“I spoke to the professors,” he said quietly. “Sonja was telling the truth. She didn’t mention Owen, however, who still seems to be missing. Is there anything you want to tell me?”
There was the barest hint of a threat in his tone, and I exchanged a look with my guys. They each nodded, apart from Kai, who pressed his lips together and looked away.
“Ah—it might be easier to show you,” I said. “And you should probably bring Cassandra.”
The headmaster raised his eyebrows, and Kingston furrowed his brow at me in a what-the-fuck expression. Cassandra was the school nurse and a siren. More than that, she was Toland’s most formidable tool during investigations.
“And Charles.” I sighed. “And Devra.”
Toland’s eyes widened as I listed the other two members of his interrogation team. Charles was a mage who specialized in spell detection and looked like an awkward TA, complete with elbow patches. Devra was an empath and the school’s psychic advisor, who looked more like somebody’s stern grandmother.
It took a few moments for him to gather the three staff members, as well as his assistant, Vesper. They all seemed to understand what was about to happen, but I caught a few surprised looks when I suddenly took the lead.
“We have to go downstairs,” I said. Then I shuddered. “Down a lot of stairs.”
“You say you followed Owen down here?” Toland
sounded nervous, his voice bouncing off the stone walls as we descended the steps. “All of you?”
“No.” I shook my head, keeping my gaze trained forward—Owen was dead, but that didn’t stop an irrational part of my brain from fearing he’d jump out of the shadows any moment. “I followed him on my own. The guys came down later.”
“And how did you know where to go?”
The question seemed to be directed at the group in general, so I kept my mouth shut, letting someone else take that one.
“I heard her screaming,” Jayce said grimly.
“You couldn’t have.” Toland glanced at him sharply. “If you were in the classroom as you say—”
“In our heads,” Xero chimed in, his voice low and serious. “Like the feeling of a scream. She drew us down here.”
“She’s a strong succubus,” Cassandra put in dreamily, shooting me an almost impressed look. “It isn’t impossible.”
“All right,” Toland said begrudgingly. “Then what?”
“It was right here at this corner.” I pointed, my mouth going a little dry. “I followed him around it, but he hid somewhere—probably in that corner there—and hit me over the head. I lost consciousness.”
I paused, unsure of where to take everyone next. I hadn’t exactly been looking around for landmarks when I was slung over Owen’s shoulder, and I didn’t know how long I’d been out.
“This way.” Kai registered my confusion and stepped forward, taking the lead.
We followed him through the dark halls, which felt more like tunnels down here, until we found the hallway filled with scorched rubble and charred lumps. I grimaced, suddenly glad we hadn’t eaten breakfast before the assembly.
Some of that rubble was once Owen.
“He took me into that room there.” I gestured with my chin to the gaping hole in the wall. “Then he tied me up and started messing with stuff on the shelves.”
We snaked through the rubble single-file until we made it to the room. Toland’s face went pale as he stepped inside, and he scrubbed a hand down his face. Whatever had been on the shelves was long gone, leaving nothing but blackened circles and gemstone-colored dust.
“How?”
Toland’s question seemed to encompass everything, but I didn’t have any answers for him.
“This room—it was guarded securely,” Devra muttered as she ran her fingers over the wall. “The wards. They would have had to disable—”
“He would have had to disable,” Kai corrected curtly, baring his teeth a little. “We had nothing to do with it.”
“You believe he worked alone?” She shot him a piercing look.
“If he wasn’t, then whoever was working with him did a terrible job.” Kingston sniffed, arching a brow. “He had us pinned down. Had he called for backup, we would’ve been slaughtered.”
“He hurt you?” Toland asked.
“Yeah. It wasn’t an easy fight.” My stomach turned at the memory. “He slammed Kai up against the wall. I thought he was dead, but then—”
“I wasn’t,” Kai interrupted. His ebony eyes glinted in the dim light, and his features were completely impassive. “Vampires heal quick. Anyway, all we could see when we walked in was him moving stuff around on the shelves. Little statues, I think.”
“They looked more like raw gemstones to me,” Kingston said, shaking his head. “Dragons have an eye for treasure, you know.”
“Then you wouldn’t have cared whether they were carved or not,” Kai argued. “You wouldn’t remember.”
“I think some of them were carved and some weren’t,” Jayce put in thoughtfully. He wrinkled his nose. “But I don’t think they were gemstones. And he wasn’t really moving them, just sort of picking them up and putting them back down.”
“Which is the literal definition of ‘moving’.” Kai arched a brow.
“Enough.” Toland lifted a hand, interrupting any stupid argument before it could really get started.. “What happened when the three of you arrived?”
“We saw that he had Piper tied up, and we attacked him. Sneak attack. He had cotton in his ears.”
“Why would he do that?” Toland asked.
“Because I almost convinced him to let me go.” I sighed, glancing at the spot where Owen had deposited me on the floor. “I was trying to figure out what he was doing, but he just kept ranting about how he was a better match for me than my guys, blah blah blah, so I tried to persuade him to release me.” I looked up again, meeting Toland’s gaze. “It didn’t work.”
“So we fought him off,” Jayce said quietly. “We didn’t want to kill him—”
Kai snorted.
“I didn’t want to kill him anyway,” the blond man amended. “But he didn’t leave us much of a choice.”
Toland’s heavy gray brows furrowed. “Huh.”
With that vague pronouncement, he led us back out into the hallway where Owen’s stony remains lay like a heap of coal bricks. Toland nodded at the empath, who touched what had once been a forehead. She closed her eyes and hummed tunelessly under her breath for several minutes. After a while she sighed and stood up, her aged knees creaking beneath her.
“It’s been too long,” she said. “If I’d gotten to him yesterday, maybe there would have been something left to glean. He’s nothing but stone now. Memories degrade quickly after death.”
Toland nodded and sighed before turning to me and my guys.
“Well, I hate to do this to you again.” He actually sounded like he meant it. “But this is a serious business. A student is dead. Not to mention that we’re trapped in the underworld. I’m afraid we are going to have to interrogate each of you individually.”
“Interrogate? Why? We told you everything that happened,” Kingston said with an indignant shake of his dark hair.
Toland gave him a flat look. “Because you can’t even agree on what objects used to be on those shelves. We need to have the whole picture before we can hope to piece together exactly how Owen managed this.”
“So you believe we’re innocent?” Kingston pressed. He’d been heir to a business empire back on earth, before he’d been turned into a dragon, and I supposed his old negotiating skills died hard.
Toland pressed his lips together. “I do believe that Owen is behind our sudden relocation. But I would not be worthy of my post as headmaster if I didn’t investigate every aspect of this incident as thoroughly as possible. Follow me. The interrogation room is two levels up.”
We followed him up two flights of stairs and into the basement, where the labyrinthine corridors took us in dizzying spirals until we arrived at the steel door guarded by magic.
“You will be questioned individually,” Toland repeated, turning to us. “Piper, we’ll start with you.”
Super.
Chapter Three
The interrogation room was less intimidating than it had been the first time. That time, they had been trying to scare a student into confessing to what they’d thought was a harmless prank, and they’d set the stage accordingly. The lights had been dimmed, giving the entire room a creepy, eerie atmosphere. This time, all of the lights were on and the crescent-shaped table looked more like the centerpiece in a serious boardroom than the last stop before a guillotine.
I sat where I had before, in the inner curve of the crescent. Cassandra and Vesper sat on one side, Devra and Charles sat on the other. Toland sat directly in front of me.
“You’re going to take us through it all step by step,” he intoned. “Begin with the very first time you ever suspected Owen of foul play.”
The siren began her song. Toland’s request wove through her music like a backbeat, an interrogation remix. I was going to tell them that I never suspected him at all until I saw him going downstairs instead of toward a classroom, but I stopped. That didn’t sound right.
The siren’s song intensified, her sweet, addictive musical embrace softening and opening my mind until I could follow the hesitation back to the source.
“The day the power went out.” My mouth formed the words before my brain fully registered the moment. The siren had that effect on me. I didn’t much like it, but I wasn’t going to fight it. This was too important.
“He was punching the wall,” I went on. “He was screaming. Panicking, I thought. But it wasn’t right, something wasn’t right. He just kept punching and punching and punching, even when Toland brought light downstairs.”
“Devra—her feelings?”
“Open,” the old empath said, her voice creaky. “Nothing blocked.”
“Good. Piper, take us through every step from the time you decided to follow Owen to the time you came back upstairs.”
I did, telling them every detail from the way things smelled to the way his footsteps sounded, all the way down the stairs.
“Then I went around the corner, and I couldn’t see him. I was angry that he disappeared. Then he hit me over the head.”
“What happened next?”
“I woke up—”
“No,” Cassandra sang. “Before you woke up. What happened?”
I frowned. I truly wanted nothing more in the world than to please her and give her everything she wanted—that was the siren song’s magic—but the unrealistic demand forced me to surface slightly from the depths of my hypnotic state.
“How would I know? I wasn’t awake.”
“But your ears heard,” she whispered. “What did they hear?”
Her song intensified once more, pushing me under. And she was right. Even in my unconscious state, some part of my mind had picked up little things.
Noises.
Sensations.
I could feel the jostle of moving, living stone under my rib cage. I could hear a sound like boulders grinding together. I knew it was Owen’s voice, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“His feet are heavy,” I said, speaking slowly. “They echo off the walls. His voice—his voice is—I can’t hear what he’s saying. It’s just noise.”