But I did know that we needed answers.
“I’ll meet you both in the pleasure garden after lights out,” I said. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“You owe me big time,” I muttered, pulling my collar up around my neck as I jogged toward the three figures emerging from the rotunda. “I’d rather be tucked up in bed with my rats for company.”
“If I can destroy the demon before you’re due to give him your eternal soul, will that fulfill my debt?” The corner of Ayaz’s mouth tugged up ever so slightly, and my heart pattered against my chest. One day I’d get a full smile from that guy, and it would probably heal the world.
“Add a giant stack of tacos to that, and I think we could call it even.” I bit into a salmon tart I’d nicked from the dining hall. We’d been kicked off the monarchs’ table, and I didn’t feel safe eating there anymore, so Greg and I just ran in, stuffed food in our bags, and ran back out again. “All this rich-people food is giving me indigestion. I’m desperate for some orange cheese and processed meat.”
“I’m with Hazy on that,” Quinn bent over my shoulder and gobbled my last bite. “This food is awful.”
I swatted his hand. “That was mine!”
Quinn grinned, which wasn’t a rare occurrence, but it made my heart skip every time. He leaned over and pressed his lips to mine, giving me a taste of my lost salmon tart along with the distinctive sugary sweetness of his kiss.
Why wasn’t this guy my boyfriend again?
Oh, that’s right. He’s dead.
“Can we stay focused on the task at hand?” Trey snapped. “We need to get back to school as soon as possible. We’re being watched.”
“Right now?” Quinn swept his eyes along the treeline. “Because we could give them a show—”
“Not right now, obviously. But if they notice all of us out of our rooms, they’ll swarm this area looking for us. My dad will probably call in a SWAT team. Hazel, you sure you weren’t followed?”
I shook my head. “Not even Greg and Andre know. Andre was carrying his sheets up to the laundry chute when I left, and I could hear Greg snoring from behind their door.”
“Why would they follow us?” Ayaz said. “They’ve never cared about students roaming the grounds after dark before. They know we can’t leave the school, and Hazel made it clear she wouldn’t run and leave Greg and Andre behind.”
I’d noticed the guys were finally called my friends by their first names. They’d acknowledged that Greg and Andre were people, worthy of fighting for. That was one of the things I’d sworn to do this year, and it had happened. They’d shown that they could change.
But what about the other things I’d sworn to do? Tonight, we might be one step closer to lifting the god’s hold on the school, but if all that meant was people like Courtney would be free to exercise their cruelty in the wider world, then that wasn’t a win at all. I knew that I still had to make her understand, make them all understand what they could and couldn’t do. But the guys… what I was planning would hurt them, maybe even break them, and I didn’t think I could do that anymore.
But then, just because they called Greg by his first name and their touch make my heart flare with fire, didn’t mean they’d actually learned anything about being kind. Could twenty years of unchecked cruelty be undone in a few short weeks? If they were finally free, would they be the boys I’d come to know, to care about? Or would they be monsters?
“If you’re so worried about our little field trip,” I said to Trey, “you don’t have to come.”
“I know that.” Trey kicked a loose rock over the edge of the cliff. It was a long time before he spoke again. “Yet, here I am.”
Yes, here they all are trying to help me break this spell, even though they think it’s hopeless, even though success may mean they pass over and I never see them again.
And I was still plotting to punish them. It felt wrong. I hated it. But not doing it felt wrong, too. Everyone in this school needed to learn a lesson. I shouldn’t spare them just because I… because I…
I bit my tongue, not ready to finish that sentence.
Ayaz spun around, the compass held against his chest. “This way.” He pointed off into the trees. We started walking. A cold shiver ran down my back as I remembered the last time I walked this same path with a blindfold over my eyes.
Trey and Quinn strolled with insouciant ease, like they knew the fun never started until they arrived somewhere. Ayaz hopped ahead, consulting his map and compass and searching the treeline for landmarks. I kept a pace or so behind him, lost in my own thoughts.
“Are your parents part of the Eldritch Club, too?” I asked Ayaz as he helped me down a stone ledge.
Ayaz snorted. “Unlikely. I don’t think ‘our’ kind are welcome. Vincent Bloomberg and his circle still think Turkish people live in caravans in the desert.”
“You were allowed,” I pointed out.
“Only because Trey spent a year building my reputation at Miskatonic. I had to wait for permission – for one of them to anoint me. The Eldritch Club members never wait for permission. They believe the whole world belongs to them, ripe for the picking.”
“Why do you think I have some kind of power?” I blurted out.
“Huh?”
“In the library, you were trying to imply that I had magical abilities.”
“From everything that’s happened, I can’t see any other explanation. Unless you’re a pyromaniac.”
“Don’t say that,” I growled, my throat stinging. I tore away from him, leaping down the stones. The burn on my leg tugged as the healing skin stretched over the muscle.
“Hazel, wait up.”
Yeah right. Because I always do what other people want. Especially when they try—
“Argh!”
Ayaz leapt off a stone ledge and landed in front of me, cutting off my path. I swatted him on the shoulder. That got one of his rare, earth-shattering smiles.
“You’re going the wrong way.” Ayaz pointed further along the ledge. “It’s over there. Also, I’d like to point out you were the one who asked about your power.”
“I don’t have any power,” I grumbled. I wish they’d just drop it. “I’m just a poor gutter whore with a heart of gold. I’ve never summoned a deity from a cosmic dimension.”
Ayaz shrugged. “Fine. You’re completely normal. Guess we’re walking in silence.”
“Guess so.”
He was as good as his word, staying beside or behind me as we clambered over rocks and jogged between towering trees. Every now and then, his arm would brush against mine, his heat licking my skin.
I hated to admit it, but I’d missed him. We’d been spending so much time together this quarter, studying Parris’ book and working on our witchcraft project. I loved watching Ayaz work – he had a singular focus and a vast intellect that could pick out seemingly insignificant details and put them together into a fully-fledged story. He saw patterns in everything, from the shapes of letters on a page to the configuration of panels on the stained glass windows. And just when he set my mind spinning with facts and details, he’d unleash his wicked dry humor and leave me laughing so hard I’d gasp for air.
“While we’re asking difficult questions,” I blurted out. “Why were you angry at me?”
“I thought we weren’t talking.”
“Was it really about Zehra? Because I’m sorry I didn’t think to ask her more, I was just so desperate to get back in time and I honestly thought I’d hallucinated her—”
Ayaz looked away. “It wasn’t about Zehra.”
“Then why?”
“Because of the movie night,” he whispered. “Because I saw what Quinn and Trey did with you.”
My cheeks flushed with heat. “I don’t know what you thought you saw, but nothing happened.”
“Really? Because it looked to me like they were fingering you until you came, and I have it on very good authority from half the girls in this school that’s not nothing.”
<
br /> “I am so not talking about this.”
“All I want to know is who you’ve chosen.” Ayaz whirled around to face me, a storm raging in his eyes.
“Who I’ve…?” I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t chosen anyone. I’m not choosing. I’m trying to survive this fucking school. So for a tiny fraction of a moment, I got to pretend I was someone else. I wasn’t the gutter whore trailer trash defined by what I didn’t have, but one of those perfect girls who guys like you fall over to make happy. So yeah, it happened, but we haven’t talked about it. Quinn thinks it was all fun and games, and Trey has probably been scrubbing my smell out of his skin ever since. Why does it matter?”
“Because…” Ayaz screwed his face up. He caught sight of something, and quickened his pace, pulling away from me and shoving his way through a patch of brambles. “I see it just up ahead,” he called back.
Way to avoid the conversation. I hit the top of the ridge and saw it – the outcrop of rock on the slope of the hill, the crescent-shaped scar in the landscape that marked the place where I’d emerged from the cave.
The tremor started in my feet, shuddering up my legs so I staggered off-balance. I reached out to steady myself, but my fingers refused to grip the stone and I collapsed on my knees. I pressed my fingers into the scar on my wrist as a spark of fire licked behind my eyes.
“Hazel?” Ayaz spun around, his voice rising with concern.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
Ayaz knelt down beside me. “Then you’re going to die.”
“Maybe not,” I joked. “You didn’t.”
Ayaz narrowed his eyes, ignoring my comment. “Courtney and Ms. West and Trey’s dad are all going to win. You’re going to be swallowed by the god of the void, and be stuck at this stupid school until the world ends, and do you think they’ll let up on you once you’re one of us? No, they’ll devise grander tortures for you, kill you a hundred times and then bring you back just to kill you again. Is that what you want? Is that—”
Gritting my teeth, I shoved him aside and launched myself down the slope.
“Yay, Hazy!” Quinn yelled after me as I leapt over rocks and skittered around fallen branches. My feet kicked up dirt and rocks as they churned toward the entrance, even as my heart leaped into my throat and blood pumped in my ears.
I didn’t stop until the crescent of the cave swallowed me into its stygian gloom. Inside the entrance, sound bent in odd ways, bouncing off the rocks and making the space twist and contort. In the distance, water dripped. I pressed my fingernail into my scar in a vain attempt to stave off a flashback to the last time I was here.
The boys slipped down into the cave after me. Trey and Ayaz clicked on flashlights, the beams illuminating rows of stalactites like sharpened teeth guarding the mouth of the beast.
“It was this way.” I slapped my hand against the wall, leaving a handprint so we could find our way back. The guys fell into line behind me. No one spoke. I focused all my energy on not dissolving into a terrified heap.
Somewhere out there in the darkness lurked the slithering creature Courtney summoned to hurt me. Last time, it had tasted fire. If I were it, I’d be out for revenge.
After a time, we emerged into the sloping tunnel where the Eldritch Club had sprung their trap. In the wide beams of Quinn’s and Ayaz’s flashlights, it now appeared less sinister – an almost cozy space where the rocks formed small pools that trickled into the narrow ditch.
I shuffled along the slick rocks to reach the far wall. A large circle was drawn on the stone, with multiple lines and shapes inside it. It might not have been identical to that one Ayaz had shown me in Rebecca Nurse’s book, but it was definitely her style. Even though water channeled through the cave, the image was crisp and unbroken.
“See? It’s exactly where I remember it,” I called back to the guys. “You must’ve looked in the wrong place.”
Ayaz came up beside me. He frowned at the wall. “There’s nothing there.”
“Yeah, I don’t see anything,” Trey said.
“Whatever you’re smoking, Hazy, you should share.” Quinn’s arm snaked around my waist.
“You really can’t see it?” The sigil was almost the span of my outstretched hands, and very obvious.
Ayaz ran his hands over the wall. Where he touched the lines of the sigil, they rippled, the mark bending away from his fingers.
That’s impossible. Stone doesn’t move. I swiped my finger through the black line. It was like touching stone, because that was exactly what it was.
So then why did it move when Ayaz touched it?
Ayaz studied my face. “There’s nothing on this wall. I can’t even feel a trace of magic in the stone.”
“I’m telling you, there is an enormous sigil right here.” I traced the outline of the circle. “Did you bring the picture?”
Ayaz dug out the torn page from Rebecca Nurse’s book and smoothed it against the stone. I compared the details. “Yeah, it’s like ninety percent identical to the one in the picture.”
“You’re not bullshitting?” Quinn’s eyes widened. “You really can see something on that wall?”
I rolled my eyes. “Dude, I don’t kid about cosmic deities.”
“She’s telling the truth,” a woman’s voice said from behind us. “I can see it, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I whirled around. The woman who’d saved my life jumped down from a rock ledge, landing in a crouched position. She stood up to her full height, hands on hips, that waterfall of midnight hair rippling over her shoulders.
“I thought I told you not to come back here,” she shook her head at me. “Instead you bring my brother and his two annoying friends.”
Ayaz. I whirled around to check on him. He’d frozen in place, his mouth hanging open. The book page fluttered from his hand. “Zehra?”
“My brother!” They fell into each others’ arms. Tears rolled down Ayaz’s cheeks as he held his sister’s face in his hands.
I stepped back, feeling like I was imposing on something private and precious. Trey fished the page out of a puddle, but the ink had already run. I leaned against Quinn, averting my eyes and waiting until the waterworks were over.
“Why did you come back?” Ayaz choked.
“I told you I would, you silly goose.” She tweaked his nose, and the pair of them burst into laughter.
“How are you alive? We found the boat broken up on the rocks…”
Zehra swatted him around the ear. “It’s all your fault. You never taught me how to row! It was so hard – no matter how much I tried I couldn’t get away from the rocks. The tide pulled me in and I managed to climb out before the boat broke up on the rocks. I swam to shore, ran through the forest, and made it into Arkham. I used that money you gave me to take a bus down to New York City, where I got myself a new name, new ID, new life.” She grinned. “I went to veterinary school.”
Ayaz laughed. “Mom and Dad said you weren’t allowed to be a vet. Last we talked, you were going to study business at Harvard.”
“Well, what Mom and Dad don’t know won’t get them murdered.” Zehra tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Besides, I’m a much better vet than I am a businesswoman.”
Ayaz seemed to be struggling for words. “Did you… how did… You didn’t tell Mom and Dad about me and the school, did you?”
“What do you think?” Zehra slapped him around the head. “Of course I did. I called them from New York with the whole story. They thought I was just making things up, telling one of my stories. Of course they didn’t believe you were a resurrected spirit trapped in a creepy school where they sacrifice students to an ancient god who wanted to eat my soul. They thought I was acting out, and called Vincent Bloomberg to see if he could return me to the school. That alerted him to the fact I was Ayaz’s sister, and so instead of truancy officers, he sent assassins after me. So I’ve been in hiding ever since.”
“My dad has assassins?” Trey’s face looked pale.
> “Oh yeah. Real nasty ones, too.” A wicked grin spread across Zehra’s face, which quickly turned into a wince as she tried to wriggle out of Ayaz’s suffocating embrace. “They shot at me, once, from a black car. It was thrilling. I gave them the slip a few years ago, so I’ve just been traveling around, seeing a bit of the world, trying to find something that will bring you back from the not-so-dead.”
“How did you give trained assassins the slip?” Ayaz gazed at his sister with a mixture of awe and horror.
“Yeah. If my dad really was trying to kill you, he’d never give up without a body,” Trey added.
Zehra rolled her eyes. “Duh. I faked my own death.”
“What?” Ayaz looked so stricken, I burst out laughing. Zehra laughed too, and kissed his forehead.
“Don’t worry, dear brother. All I did was take a little vacation to the Philippines. I came back with a killer tan, a fake birth certificate, and a photo of my gravestone in a local cemetery. I feel bad about Mom and Dad finding out, but they did send me to this hellhole in the first place even after your death, so Allah can smite their asses for all I care. Plus, being dead has awesome benefits. I haven’t had to pay tax in ten years, and all my old friends back home posted super nice things on my Facebook wall.”
“Your sister is awesome,” I grinned, holding up my hand for Zehra to high five.
“She’s insane,” Ayaz growled, wrapping his sister in another protective hug. “Don’t you two go being friends now. You’re a bad influence on each other.”
“Too late.” Zehra wrenched out of his grasp and threw her arm around me. I leaned against her shoulder and grinned.
I’d never had a girlfriend before. I hung out with a couple of the strippers at Mom’s club, but they didn’t have enough between their ears to be worth the effort. In this crazy place, I needed as many friends as I could get, and I wasn’t about to turn down a crazy Turkish chick who could teach me how to fake my own death. I hugged Zehra back.
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