It propelled me forward until we reached a dead end of sorts, a stone wall with a small, heavy metal door in the middle. It looked almost like a fireplace or a blast furnace—a place to burn things.
“Here,” I said as I bent down to examine the inscription on the metal. The looping scrollwork was stunning and familiar. My fingers reached to trace it, but Aidan’s hand caught my arm before I could touch it.
“Don’t,” he said, hauling me back against his body.
“Aidan, this is where it’s coming from—”
“I don’t care.” The irritation in his voice was plain. “We need to go.”
He stood and tried to haul me up, but I scurried away as the malevolent energy swirled around me like a cloak.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I snarled at him. “I’m supposed to be here—to do this. I know it.”
“No, you don’t,” he shouted back as he reached down to drag me away.
My fist shot out and caught him in the face. Then my voice boomed through the darkened space. “She is not yours to command.”
I reached for the door, my fingertips about to graze the weathered iron. Then I saw the gold marking on my hand flare just before Aidan’s enveloped it.
“No, she isn’t,” Aidan whispered in my ear. Though his voice had been soft, the word ‘no’ ripped through my body like a hurricane, stopping me short. “Look at me, Cece.” My eyes drifted to his and found them wide and filled with worry. “Something is wrong here—we have to go.”
He stood slowly, his hand still wrapped around mine. And as he held it firmly, that cloak of hostility slipped away into the shadows, back to whatever was behind that metal door. Fear shot through me as I realized how consumed I’d been by its draw—by the feeling that I had contained its anger. How outside of myself I had been.
I thought I was the solution.
Instead, I’d become the problem.
“Come on,” he said, tugging me lightly. I followed, my shame mounting with every step. “Still think your power is simple?”
“No,” I said as I looked back at the door being swallowed by the darkness. “I just—”
I let go of him and shoved my hands in my pockets as I shrunk in on myself.
My fingers brushed up against a smooth glass surface, and I stopped cold.
“What is it?” Aidan asked as he stopped, too.
Unable to speak, I pulled the marble from my pocket and placed it in his palm. It appeared as its larger self, and the fey boy jumped at the sight.
“I told you it follows me,” I whispered, “and you told me it would amplify my power.” I forced my eyes to meet his. “Looks like we were both right.”
He held it out for me to take back like it pained him. “We need to destroy it.”
I took it and waited for it to shrink so I could tuck it away. “But we need it—that’s what the dragon said—”
“The dragon in the painting we can’t find?” Though his tone wasn’t unkind, I could hear his insinuation loud and clear. “We need to destroy it, Cece.”
I took a deep breath. “All right.”
But as I stared at the innocuous orb, I wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was a necessary evil; the dragon had said we would need it to escape. Or maybe it was the ticket to understanding all the weird things going on at Wadsworth—the answers behind the source and the headmaster. And if Aidan destroyed it, we’d never know.
As we walked down the hall, a niggling voice in the back of my mind made me wonder if that was exactly what he wanted.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Maddy
A soft sound flitted through the air and I frowned, pushing off of the wall we’d been sitting against after coming in from the yard.
Wolfy? I called out in my mind. Where are you? I’ve been worried.
When he didn’t reply, I got to my feet and offered Rhys a hand to pull him up. “Can you help me? I’d like to—” My gaze was caught by a teacher standing on the opposite side of the room outside the cafeteria. Arms crossed on her chest, she tapped her foot and stared our way.
“What’s up?” Rhys’s fists tightened at his sides as he scanned the room, but a hint of humor came through in his voice. “Who do you want me to punch first?”
“No one yet, but hold that thought. We might need it.” I linked my arm through his and kept my face neutral. If we weren’t careful, we’d find ourselves sent back out to the yard or recruited for a project like cataloguing the ancient fey texts in the library, something the librarian had tried to talk me into helping with a few days after I’d arrived at Wadsworth.
When a keeper strode past us, nodding curtly before continuing down the hall to our right, I urged Rhys in that direction.
“Madeline?” the teacher called. “Could I speak to you for a moment, dear?”
“I, um…” I nudged my head to where the keeper had disappeared. “Fred…” please let his name be Fred... “Fred just told us we were supposed to follow him to…”
“The headmaster’s office,” Rhys neatly finished for me. “Headmaster Warren has a few suggestions for the upcoming dance. Madeline’s sister is organizing the event, as you may know.”
“Ah, I see.” The teacher’s lips thinned, but who would argue with the headmaster’s command? She flicked her hands toward us. “Hurry up, then. Don’t keep him waiting.”
“We won’t!”
We strode across the open room and into the hallway, where my heart rate slowed to a more even clip.
“What was that all about?” Rhys asked.
“I think I heard Wolfy. I need to find him. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Can you pinpoint where he might be from the sound?”
“No,” I sighed. “Cece probably could, but I have no idea where she is, and I’m worried about her, too.” Everything inside me suggested that I should track her down, but I also needed to find Wolfy. Not knowing where he was or what might be going on was going to nag at me for the rest of the day. “Ideas?”
“While I didn’t see him in the headmaster’s office, I wonder if it would be worth snooping around inside?”
“It’s probably locked, though I can try to magic our way in.”
“I was joking.”
“I wasn’t. No harm in trying, right?”
“True. I’ve actually wanted to get back in there. There’s no way that guy wouldn’t have something that could give us more information about your and Wolfy’s bond. Maybe about Janie, too.”
“And since we know he’s not in his office…”
“No reason we can’t use this opportunity to look around.”
We strode through the halls, weaving our way to the office, where we hovered outside with our ears pressed against the door, just in case.
“You hear anything?” Rhys mouthed.
Dead silence, which could be good or bad, depending on whether the headmaster had remained Dr. Jekyll or reverted back to Mr. Hyde.
I tested the knob.
“Unlocked,” I whispered, my eyes bulging. Would we get caught? Pushing the door open a crack, I waited for Headmaster Warren to demand we tell him why we were there. Just in case, I tried to dream up a reasonable explanation. Something about grades. Not that we’d received any yet. Which, in itself, would be a great thing to ask about.
I creaked the door open a few more inches and peeked around the panel.
Empty.
Okay. Cool.
Rhys followed me inside and shut the door. “Should I put a chair under the knob?” he asked, his tight voice making it clear he was only half-teasing. He raked the back of his neck. “Or lean against it?”
“Help me look.”
“For what?”
“Anything suspicious.”
“Everything in this place is suspicious.” He joined me beside the desk. “Let’s be quick, okay?”
Gnawing on my lower lip, I nodded.
While Rhys approached the bookcase, I rounded the desk and sat in the squishy leather chair. It rocked ba
ck, but I jutted it forward and reached for the bank of drawers on the right. The bottom one contained folders with first names on the tabs. Hmm. Information about students?
“Now I’m doubting that we’ll find any evidence about Wolfy here,” Rhys said softly. “Since you’re now bonded to the sentinel, anything tying him to the headmaster might’ve disappeared.”
“Literally? Is that how it works?” I asked, looking up from the files. None were labeled ‘Janie’, but for all I knew, that may have been a nickname. She’d spent more time snarling at me than offering personal information.
I also didn’t find a folder with Cece’s, Rhys’s, or my name. But there was one labeled ‘Aidan’. Interesting… I pulled it out and dropped it on the desk.
“There may be an imprint on the shelf.” Rhys ran his fingers along the spines of books stuffed tightly into the bookcase. He pulled one out and flipped through the pages before returning it with the others. “If you place your hand in the exact location where you first made contact with him, you might be able to establish a brief connection.”
Leaving Aidan’s file for the moment, I went around the desk and joined Rhys at the bookcase. I lowered my hand to the spot on the shelf and closed my eyes.
Little wolfling? I whispered in my mind. I let my thoughts fly, hoping they’d home in on my friend, but I found nothing but an echo of my pleading voice. Pulling my hand back, I raked my nails down my arms.
“Nothing,” I growled. “Where is he?”
Rhys shrugged. “He has to be hearing you.”
“Then why isn’t he responding?”
“Maybe he’s busy.”
“Too busy to answer? I don’t think he’d do that. We’re friends.” I returned to the desk and stared down at the folder. Did I dare pry into what could be secrets about Aidan? My fingers twitched when I ran them across the tan cover. “Tell me more about this bond I formed with Wolfy.”
“For starters, it is breakable.”
My hand jerked, and the folder went soaring off the desk. It landed on the floor, open to the papers underneath.
“I thought the bond would remain until one of us died,” I said. “That’s what Wolfy said.” When I’d been tied to a chair in the basement, the headmaster had pressed Wolfy, eager to do whatever he could to reestablish his own bond with the wolfling sentinel. “Actually, Wolfy implied that I’d need to die to break the bond, but now we know that he was just looking for a way out of the room so he could find you three.”
Rising, I walked over to the folder and stooped down to pick it up. I closed it over the papers and scooped them up, keeping them hidden as I straightened them. I wasn’t sure why I was doing all I could not to see the contents of the file.
“It’s not easy,” Rhys said. “It takes the combined power of a group of sorcerers to sever the bond.”
“Not you?”
“I’m just one sorcerer.” He glanced back at me over his shoulder. “Do you want to break the bond?”
“If Wolfy wants to be free, then sure. Otherwise, I kind of like having him around.”
“The headmaster wants him back.”
“He seems to have forgotten he had a sentinel.” I tossed the folder back onto the desk.
“Yup.” Rhys pulled out another book and flipped open the cover. His finger traced down the table of contents. “Now, this is exciting.”
“What?” I joined him at the bookshelf again, turning my back on Aidan’s folder.
Rhys huffed. “It’s a book about sentinels. See?” He closed the cover to show me, though it looked like an ordinary leather book to me. No lettering, no embossing, and no easy giveaway like Sentinel Handbook on the surface. “Told you the headmaster would have something here that could give us clues about your bond.”
“Your family were guardians. They raised and placed sentinels in host bonds like the one between Wolfy and the headmaster.” Until I’d offered Wolfy my blood and not only broken the bond with the headmaster, but established a new one with me.
“Yeah, we were, but that was ages ago. The Council stripped the ability from our minds, and the knowledge was lost to my family forever.”
“Yet here you hold a book containing those secrets.”
“Maybe?” He closed the book and tucked it into the back of his waistband underneath his shirt.
“Just take it, why don’t you?” I said with a sly smile.
“I can’t leave it here.”
“Of course not. It looks like three of us have new reading material.” That only left Aidan… My gaze was drawn back to the folder. Leaving Rhys, who’d returned to exploring the bookshelf, I sat in the headmaster’s chair. But when I lifted my hand to finally peek at the folder’s contents, pain exploded in my shoulder and shot down my arm. I rubbed my burning fingertips on my thigh, scowling at the folder.
Turning to the desk itself, I slid open the middle drawer, but found nothing but pens, loose staples, and a thumb drive labeled with an illegible word. Without a computer, it would be useless. Our phones had been taken when we’d arrived, and I hadn’t found any evidence of modern technology at Wadsworth. Even the headmaster hadn’t joined this century. An antique-appearing rotary phone sat on the desk, and a typewriter waited on the blotter beside it, a half-finished letter jutting up from the top.
I leaned forward and scanned the contents of the letter, but I didn’t see anything helpful in the note addressed to the head of the Council. Something about them delivering a certain brand of food to the cafeteria. Boring stuff.
A bang outside in the hallway made my heart leap up into my throat. Gulping, I grabbed the folder off the desk, and it slipped from my hand—again—and dropped onto the floor.
The cover had flipped open, printed pages up.
I released a soft growl. No time!
Grabbing it, I skimmed the first few lines. “Oh fuck.”
“What?” Rhys nearly shouted.
How was this possible? With goosebumps peppering my skin, I closed and stuffed the folder back into the drawer. Had the folders been sorted in any particular way? Crap. I couldn’t remember. ‘A’ for Aidan. I placed it where it would fit alphabetically.
A sound drew my eye to the door. Shit. The doorknob was turning. I bolted from the chair and rushed over to Rhys. “What do we do?”
“Act casual?”
My jittery laugh jumped out.
“It worked the last time,” he said.
As the door opened, we rushed toward the desk.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a man stepping through the opening. He stopped and tilted his head when he found us sitting in the chairs facing the headmaster’s empty desk.
Rhys looked back over his shoulder. “Oh, hi. Is Headmaster Warren with you? He asked us to meet him here. Said he wanted to talk about…the dance.”
“Yes, the dance,” I said cheerfully, to reinforce the farce. I started to turn fully in my seat. “We’re here to sign up for…”
My head spun and the world closed in, crushing into me.
“Ah, Madeline,” a redheaded man said, advancing further into the room with a slick smile blooming on his face. “Nice to see you looking so…well.”
It was the guy who’d arrived in the alley after I thought I’d killed my sister. He and another man had brought me to Wadsworth.
My mouth opened and closed, but I couldn’t force out a peep.
Another man I hadn’t seen before joined the redhead, crowding into the tiny office space. No pretend friendliness from him. He growled. His arms lifted and he reached for my throat, his fingers curling into claws.
Rhys jerked from his chair and pivoted. His hands remained by his sides, but electricity traveled across his fingertips.
The redhead nudged the other guy with his elbow. “Chill. This is just little Madeline. You remember. We talked about her. Darren’s kid.”
“Darren’s half-witch,” the other guy snarled.
While my lungs struggled to suck in air and the world tilted on its
axis, the guy stomped closer.
Rhys thrust himself between us. “We, um...should leave. Seems like the headmaster forgot about our meeting.” He offered me a hand, which I gratefully took, fearing I wouldn’t be able to get to my feet on my own.
Pain shot through my head, and I moaned and staggered against him.
His arm tucked behind my waist, and he guided me around them. I expected the men to shout or try to stop us, but they just watched as Rhys led me from the office. The door slammed closed behind us.
My legs gave way, and I sagged against a wall.
“I’ve got to find Cece,” I bleated. “We’ve got to…” My mind wouldn’t stop racing, and my pulse thudded in my throat. “The redheaded guy is one of the two who brought me here. After I used magic. When I thought I’d killed Cece.”
Rhys stared at the door, a tic in his temple thumping furiously. “Why the hell are they here now?”
“Maybe they brought...someone else?”
He paced back and forth. “There’s a reason. We’ve just got to figure it out.” He smacked his head. “This isn’t the norm for them.”
“What do you mean by them?”
His solemn gaze met mine. “It doesn’t make sense that they’d bring you here. They’re too lofty for a simple task like that.”
“Who are they?” I ground out. “You know, don’t you?”
His expression turned grim. “They’re two of the five-member Council.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cece
To say our return trip to the main hall was full of tension would be an understatement. The quieter I became, the closer Aidan edged toward me. Occasionally, his hand would brush against mine, and that gold marking would flare for a moment, the light cutting through the darkened hallway. But as quickly as it came, it faded the second contact was lost.
The hall was empty when Aidan and I arrived, and he stopped abruptly not far from my room. His expression was as guarded as his energy when he turned to face me.
“Give me the ball,” he said, his hand outstretched in expectation.
Rogue Reformatory: Broken (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 2) Page 11