“You can’t go alone. The band was just attacked,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I have a friend who’s going to meet me downstairs. It’ll be fine. There are so many guards around, nothing is going to happen,” she said.
She was already gathering her things. “You should come downstairs, though. You shouldn’t stay on this floor by yourself,” she told me.
“You have a lot of nerve telling me to be careful,” I muttered.
“Also, don’t walk back to the dorm by yourself. Go with a group,” she ordered.
The two of us made our way downstairs. I would have gone back to the dorm with her, but since she wasn’t going there I found a seat at one of the large communal tables and spread my stuff out again. We said our goodbyes and she hurried away. Her hair swung gently from side to side as I watched her go.
But I had a weird sensation that said I was missing something. Vayvin had been acting strangely since the attack on the band, and tonight was no different.
After she left I tried to focus on work. I had a lot of studying to do. Given how long it took me to read a paragraph, and how I still didn’t understand half of what I read, doing my homework took a lot of effort. But I was in fact starting to understand some of the subject matter better than I had before, and that made me even more eager to keep trying.
At the end of the night I gathered my things. There were a few other girls going back to the dorm, so we all went together. Surely such a big group wouldn’t be attacked; at least, that was the theory behind the rule about not moving around the castle alone. But the band was a big group, and that hadn’t stopped the Shadow. I sighed and told myself to stay alert. What other option was there?
When we got back, I found Londa reading on her bed as usual. We nodded a good-night, but as I climbed into bed I glanced at Vayvin’s bunk. It was still empty. Later I remembered thinking that was odd, but as I drifted off to sleep I told myself she’d be fine.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Wake up,” said a woman in a voice of command.
I woke up with a gasp awake. Standing by the door was Wayllin, looking around sternly at all of us. My eyes followed hers as they scanned the bunks. I had no idea what time it was, but it was still late at night. Or maybe early in the morning. Either way, Vayvin’s bed was still empty. A chill ran down my spine.
“Is everyone who belongs here accounted for?” Wayllin asked. As we all looked around, several others noticed that Vayvin’s bed was empty, and a series of murmurs went up.
Esmeralda and I made eye contact from opposite sides of the room, her mouth hanging open as she tried to mouth something to me that I couldn’t understand. I just shook my head.
“Something has happened. We need to talk to anyone who knows anything,” Wayllin announced.
Girls continued to exchange mystified looks as Wayllin came down the rows. I knew she’d ask Vayvin’s friends where she was, so Esmeralda, Londa, and I would be interviewed.
What had happened to Vayvin?
I jumped out of bed, grabbed a sweater and threw it over my shoulders, and stuffed my feet into sandals. Rushing to the end of my bed I asked desperately, “What happened? Where’s Vayvin?”
“You’re going to have to come with us,” said Wayllin.
“What happened to Vayvin?” Londa asked in her turn.
“I’ll tell you in due time. Until then we request that you remain calm,” said Wayllin. Then she turned to me and said, “This way.”
As she turned and started to walk away, several girls gave me dirty looks, a few of them members of the band. I wondered how I was the one getting dirty looks, but I had no answers. Shrugging off my feelings of unease, I hurried to keep up with Wayllin.
Right before I went out the door I glanced back at Esmeralda.
She was crying.
I followed Wayllin through dark corridors, with guards escorting us. Instead of taking me to the principal’s office, which was what I expected, she took me down an unfamiliar set of hallways, where the tapestries were richer than in the corridors I knew, and the decorations were gold-plated. I tried to count the corners, doors, and windows, and eventually I had the impression that she was doubling back.
She didn’t want me to know where we were going.
When we finally reached a locked iron door, she pulled out a large key and unlocked it.
Before she went through it she turned to me and said, “No student has gone through this door in years. I expect you to forget everything you have just seen. Under no circumstances are you to look for this key ring. Understood?” she demanded.
“Understood,” I said.
She led me through. I wasn’t sure where I was, but I soon developed a theory, which was that we were in the teachers’ quarters.
At the end of the hall was another locked door. Wayllin knocked twice and the door opened to reveal the principal, wearing comfortable clothes and spectacles instead of his usual finery. The small crown that had sat in his hair every time I’d ever seen him wasn’t there.
“Come in,” he said, stepping back to let us pass.
“I brought her,” said Wayllin. It felt redundant, since the principal could clearly see me, but what did I know.
No one but Paddy was in the room with the principal. Steaming mugs of liquid sat on a table in front of comfortable sofas.
The space surprised me. The principal had always seemed like a hard-driving man, yet his living quarters were warm and inviting, quite unlike the man himself.
“Have a seat.” He indicated a chair and I sat down.
Paddy leaned forward. There was a pungent odor around him that nearly made me gag, and his eyes were wild. He was in no mood to be polite, not that that was anything new.
“You were seen with Vayvin this past evening. Then she left the Library without you. You stayed. Why did you stay?” the director of security demanded.
“I had work to do,” I told him.
He snarled. “Yes. You appeared to be doing work. Why didn’t Vayvin stay with you? Didn’t she also have work to do?” he barked.
“I don’t really know the state of Vayvin’s homework. We did some together. And she said she had to go,” I told him.
“Go where?” he demanded.
“She didn’t say,” I said. “She said she was going to meet a friend,” I added quickly.
The principal and Wayllin both looked at me sharply.
“What friend did she say she was meeting?” Wayllin demanded.
The principal murmured something to Paddy, who shook his head. “No other students were found,” he said.
I sat forward. “Vayvin’s dead, isn’t she? She was found in the middle of the night, dead. Right?” I whispered. My heart was shifting in my chest. I couldn’t quite process what I thought I already knew.
Paddy lowered his head, and for a moment no one said anything.
Then the principal cleared his throat. “Unfortunately that’s the case, yes. No other students or faculty were found with her. We do suspect that it was the Shadow, “ he said.
“Any information you could provide would be most helpful,” said Wayllin.
“I don’t know anything more than I’ve told you. She was murdered?” I asked.
“When we said the Shadow was involved, yes, that’s what we meant. No other students are missing. Whatever friend she was meeting escaped unscathed,” Paddy said.
For a moment my throat felt too tight to speak. Wayllin put a warm mug into my cold hands.
“Where was she found?” I asked.
“That’s none of your business,” snapped Paddy.
“She’s going to find out by morning. It’s going to be all over the school. We might as well tell her now,” said Wayllin.
“We can’t have these students doing their own investigations. It’s only going to lead to more danger and death. And now we have to inform the king yet again of what’s happened. Maybe once and for all he’ll decide to close the school, “ said Paddy.
“The king has made his stance clear. Your continued arguing to close the school is only getting closer and closer to treason. I suggest you stop bringing it up,” said the principal in a tone of implacable warning.
Paddy set his jaw, but it was clear he wasn’t happy about it.
“She was found outside, at the gate to the main courtyard,” said Wayllin.
My stomach rolled, and for a moment I thought I might puke.
“How did she get outside?” I demanded. Wandering around the school when you weren’t supposed to was one thing, and doing it alone was an even worse idea. But even I would have trouble getting outside at night. The school was far too locked down for that.
“I’m afraid that’s all we’re going to tell you,” said the principal. He turned to Wayllin and said, “You can take her back to her room now. The other students will be informed in the morning, although I suspect they’ll have their own suspicions.”
I knew he was right. We were all becoming jaded by the too-familiar presence of gruesome death.
I had been dismissed, but my knees were so weak that I had trouble standing up. Vayvin had been my friend. Just a few short hours ago she’d been fine, heading off to meet her friend.
But who could that friend have been? Maybe someone in the band? It certainly wasn’t any of our mutual friends; they had all been in the dorm with me. And anyhow, if it had really been a friend, why had she been unwilling to tell me who it was?
Following Wayllin, I retraced the path that we had walked earlier. There was tension in her shoulders, as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t bring herself to do it.
I stayed silent, lost in sadness. Esmeralda would be devastated, as would Vayvin’s family.
The year was almost ending, but the cost had been high. I hoped the king thought it was worth it. Fighting a war on our borders was one thing. Fighting it at the academy was another.
Casualties were mounting.
Groggily, I came awake. No one else was stirring, so they had yet to hear the gruesome details of what had happened the night before. They had all been asleep when I got back to the dorm with Wayllin, so there had at least been no questions to answer in the middle of the night. Wayllin hadn’t even bothered turning the light on.
But now I had a grim realization. At the beginning of the year, when Vayvin, Esmeralda, and I had escaped the atrium during the attack, something had happened. We had been forced outside. The three of us had been running on open ground. The Shadow had fired at us and narrowly missed me. I had given chase, running up the mountain by myself and without permission.
What if the Shadow hadn’t been aiming at me to begin with? What if he had narrowly missed someone else, someone who had been standing near me? For the entire year, while the Shadow terrorized the school, it had never occurred to me that he had been aiming for Vayvin and not me.
When he had missed, he had bided his time.
All year. Until somehow last night he had lured her away.
An idea started to take solid shape in my mind. What if Vayvin had been a target all year? After the killer missed her the first time, he waited to strike again only when he thought he had a sure chance. He had attacked the band to get at her, but had underestimated the power of the big group to resist him. Then he had apparently found a way to get Vayvin alone.
And now Vayvin was gone.
The big question, still unanswered, was: Who were her other friends?
Lying in bed that morning, I stared at the ceiling and pondered the question. Other than band members, the only one outside our dorm that she was actually friends with was Lewis. But I refused to believe that Lewis was a killer. The fact that he was talented in both swimming and fighting did not make him one. Anyhow, almost everyone at the academy was talented in those two disciplines.
Still, Vayvin had, in fact, been friends with Lewis. Then again, if it had been Lewis she’d been going to meet, wouldn’t she have just said so? He and I had been friends first, that was how those two had become close in the first place. Surely she would have just said she was going to meet up with him later and been on her merry way.
Instead, she had been totally secretive about where she was going and with whom. So secretive it had gotten her killed.
I threw off my covers and was about to slide out of bed when I saw Esmeralda. She wasn’t crying, but she was pale and drawn and her whole body was trembling.
“What happened?” she whispered.
Londa must have been waiting under the covers, pretending to be asleep, because at the sound of Esmeralda’s voice she too sat up.
“I’d like to know as well,” she said.
I told them in as quiet a voice as I could. There really wasn’t much to say.
No one spoke at first as we made our way to the dining hall for breakfast. Finally Londa said, “This is the first killing that hasn’t been a spectacle.”
“You mean this year? There were a few surprises last year,” said Esmeralda.
But Londa was trying to make a point. I wasn’t certain what it was, but maybe it had to do with the fact that there would be an announcement at breakfast. As far as we knew, no one had seen Vayvin die.
By the time we reached the atrium, the entire school had been informed that something had gone terribly wrong.
I had been waiting all year to see if the beast would awaken, and now it had. Despite the fact that the eight provinces made up one kingdom, Vayvin’s death had made students fear each other. As they looked around the big room, they had started to see enemies.
Every student at the academy was now crammed into the atrium. I expected to see the principal, but instead I saw the swimming teacher, Curlo. He came striding in looking paler than usual, and he didn’t wait to speak.
“Morning, everyone,” he said, his voice carrying throughout the vast space. “I assume that over the past few hours the rumors have been flooding this place. As we’ve come to expect, sadly, there has been another killing. One of our own. Vayvin was a beloved member of the community and she will be missed. Please, if anyone has any information as to who could be behind this heinous act, it really is time to come forward.” The last bit he said almost as a whine. If no one had come forward by now, they weren’t likely to this time, either.
Curlo gave one sharp nod, then turned on his heel and walked away. Murmurs scattered throughout the room like the flames of tiny fires rising up. Some students talked quietly, others were silent and afraid. I glanced around looking for Prince Reidar and found him with his two usual bodyguards and Lewis.
I scrutinized Lewis. Really, could it have been him?
When he saw me looking his way, he lifted his hand in a muted greeting. I waved back, but my heart wasn’t in it.
Vayvin was dead. That was all I could really take in.
After that, the last few weeks of the school year hewed to a kind of pattern. Mostly, students spent their time studying. A rule was put in place that if you wanted to study after dark you had to do it in your own dorm. Effectively, the library was closed in the evenings.
Classes were shortened to accommodate the new safety protocol. Students were only allowed to go to the library when it was light outside. A teacher escorted us to and from our rooms to attend classes. Several guards were always on hand as well.
Two guards escorted me to the kitchen in the morning.
“They could have cancelled our work assignment,” Batham said.
“Did you have guards escort you as well?” I asked on the first morning. “Even though there’s more than one of you?”
The prince and his guards and Lewis had arrived together, but Batham gave me a dark look, as if to emphasize how naïve I was being.
“Of course they did. We are mere students. They don’t expect us to fight off the Shadow,” he said.
“That’s what you’re here to do. Save the prince from the Shadow,” I pointed out.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it? Then again, adults don’t have faith in young people. Ev
en strong and powerful students like Colly,” he said.
At the end of the hour Lewis said, “I can’t wait for this year to be over.”
I looked for any sign that he was lying, then immediately felt bad. Lewis was my friend. He had joked around all year, and he couldn’t even crack an egg. How could he kill a girl he thought was cute if he couldn’t even crack an egg?
But I had a nagging feeling that I was still missing something.
The last week of the academic year arrived. The sharp change of seasons in the high mountains heralded the end of the year at Noble Fae Academy. Most students were so busy studying, they had already forgotten about Vayvin. But our small friend group had not.
In the meetings of the Historical War Group, the organization I was head of, I talked about her often. The band had been suspended. With no one wanting to take over as bandleader, there wasn’t anyone else to run it. The musical group would be no more for the rest of the year.
Vayvin would be buried in her home province, so there wasn't even an opportunity for us to say our farewells.
I wondered if the members of the band would even come back next year.
“How are you holding up?” I asked Esmeralda one day while we were sitting on our bunks. After Vayvin’s murder she had been spending more time reading than usual, and that’s what she was doing now.
Danger had boiled around us for the past few days. Students had started fighting openly with each other. If someone walked too close to someone else, a fight would break out with shoving and swears. At one point Clouda had come pelting out of her classroom to break up a fight among a few older students. She had thrown one of them several feet down the hall without even appearing to try.
Meanwhile, Esmeralda had been quiet all year, but now it was worse. She had worked her fingers to the bone all week, to the point where she had several cuts she’d had to bandage. Her emotions were literally tearing her apart.
Noble Fae Academy: Year One Page 22