by Riley Archer
Mari yawned a pleasant meow and then disappeared into thin air.
A bloodlust I’d never known swirled inside my chest.
I counted my enemies, but if I was being honest, I had no idea who authored the damn note. It didn’t seem like Mari knew, either, but I doubted she’d tell me until I had something for her. If the threat hadn’t been so specific, I’d be half convinced she’d written the thing herself to get what she wanted.
Damn cat.
Damian wasn’t in his prisoner brother’s room when I stopped by, so I wandered through the castle looking for Maven’s office on my own.
Then, I realized I didn’t have to do it completely alone. I had been branded into a secret society the night before, and I happened to know at least one meeting place of my fellow cattle.
I wove through the halls for the first time since discovering the inner corridors. Rare glimpses through windows showed my peers outside playing in the snow like carefree schoolchildren. If schoolchildren battled it out with barely-tamed savagery and passed around bottles of liquor. But there were the select few taking part in more innocent activities, like building snowmen.
I waited for the area with the hidden brick door to clear out and then slipped inside. Today, the cavern was fully lit by torches and sprinkled with lounging students, some I recognized, and some I’d never seen before.
Aiden leaned against the wall and had a sketchbook propped on his knee.
“Hey, pal.” I peered down at the drawing. I recognized the supple shape he was crafting, all set with an Illusionist brand carved into the side below the hipbone.
“Hey,” he replied easily, as if he wasn’t shading in the crevices of my hiney.
I cleared my throat. “Care to explain what you’re doing?”
Aiden set his pencil down and looked at me. “Oh, right. We have a collection of the placement of various Illusionists’ symbols. Simple record keeping.”
“Risqué.” I couldn’t be mad; it was the closest I’d ever get to being drawn like a French girl.
He smiled. “You have no idea. So, what’s up?”
I expected some kind of question as to how I knew where this place was, but none came.
“I was wondering if there’s some kind of teacher’s aid position …” I trailed off as Sierra marched in from the other direction.
“Oh, Ellis!” Hyper energy buzzed around her. “I could use your help.”
My to-do list was mighty and didn’t involve running errands for cultists, but I smiled at her anyway. “With what?”
“The Academy gave the green light for the masquerade, but I could use a set of fresh eyes on the arrangements I’ve come up with. Can you help?”
Well, getting a blueprint for the masquerade sounded like a good idea, but so did breaking the fingers of the wordy asshole who left a death threat on my doorstep.
Sierra noticed my hesitation. “It’ll be fun? Miss Wyatt is helping out, too, and she’s pretty cool.”
“Sounds great.” If divine intervention was a thing, I’d just experienced it. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I tilted my head to the shadowed ceiling and said an internal prayer.
Lady luck, you are a goddess.
16
The Twig Wielder
I figured out why there were no footsteps in the snow on the way to my initiation. There were enough underground tunnels to build a subway system beneath Driftwood Academy.
But if they did that, then it couldn’t serve as a sneaky, elitist passageway between campuses. It wasn’t all luxury, though. Stormwater and muck filled the tread of my boots, and some areas were cold enough to turn my insides into a vampire’s popsicle. Sierra’s icy company sure didn’t offer much by way of warmth. Since I first met her, she was either talking my eardrum into nonexistence or she was mute as a monk. Nothing in between. This trip was all silence.
A maze of chambers and a rusty ladder later, we finally entered the General Advancement Grounds through a janitor’s closet.
I quickly learned that this campus held most of the Academy’s population. If any of the three castles had Hogwarts vibes, it was this one. But witches weren’t trained here. Laughs didn’t carry down the halls. There were no matching scarves, cute mascots, or scrumptious feasts. There wasn’t a single fun explosion.
The vast majority of reapers strode from class to class with the speed and posture of death’s right-hand man. Sierra was no exception. I thought my general pace was on the fast side, but I almost tied my feet together keeping stride with her to the third floor.
She finally slowed when we entered a vast, well-lit library. It was museum-like in its size and Victorian in its décor. Although, one feature stood out on its own—the ceiling. It was intermixed with shingles of stained glass. Depending on where you stood, you could stare at the sky or at hand-painted tiles, some of which clasped iron chandeliers.
Today’s weather was a boring kind of dreary, but this would’ve been a cool place to sit out a thunderstorm.
Sierra led me to a round table tucked in the far back. She broke open her book bag and spread a collection of lists across the table … and by lists, I meant some party-planning version of quantum physics. Just looking at them gave me a headache.
I decided right then that I could describe Sierra in a couple of words, and those words would be meticulous chaos.
She whipped out a hand-drawn blueprint, adding another layer of paper to the hefty stack.
Yeah, I didn’t want to touch this stuff. I propped my elbows on the table, taking care to avoid her precious sheets. “So, what happened with Ethan?”
Last night, once Ethan had revealed himself to be a faerie fly killer, he’d darted back into the woods. Sierra had said she’d handle it, but her horrified face told another story.
She chewed the inside of her lip. “We haven’t heard from him. It’s been reported, but honestly, after what he did …” She glanced up at me with her large, so-brown-they-were-almost-black eyes. They were both fierce and fearful. They fluttered back down to her plans. “Anyway, let’s get to work on this. Per Headmaster Harmon, these places need to be blocked off. I’m thinking the actual dancing will take place here, and we’ll rearrange this area for relaxing.”
I did my best to follow along, truly, but I was mostly memorizing the castle’s layout and trying to find well-placed cubbies for a mole to hide.
I was displeased to discover that there could be a hundred moles and they’d all be hard to find.
We had moved on to the topics of decorations and food when a woman approached us. She had a southern belle swing in her hips and her strawberry-blonde curls bounced with each step. When she opened her mouth, I knew I was looking at the contract holder.
“I see y’all are hard at work. It’s nice to see you, Sierra. And …” her gaze landed on me.
I gave a polite wave. “Ellis. Late arrival.”
“Howdy, Ellis.” She offered me her hand. It was warm and plump, not a hint of a callous anywhere. “I’m faculty here, but you can call me Maven. Are you also studyin’ Advanced Collections?”
“I am. What do you do here?”
Maven sat across from us and tucked a sunny curl behind her ear. “Oh, administrative things. Boring stuff. How are those plans coming?”
I couldn’t think of a natural way to ask her where she kept her files, so I stayed quiet while Sierra’s jittery excitement flooded the conversation. My eyes glazed over as the two of them dove into the dark, glittery deep of the details. I had a feeling someone had ruined Sierra’s prom, and this masquerade was going to make up for it tenfold.
“Well, I think it’s gonna be a hit.” Maven briefly rested her hands on our shoulders and stood. “Ellis, you mentioned you arrived late. If that’s the case, I have some forms for you to sign. Is now a good time?”
Lady luck is at it again. I shrugged in the most nonchalant way possible.
“Sure. You got this, Sierra?”
At first, I wasn’t sure if she’d hear
d me, but then a single syllable resounded from her throat. I took it as a yes.
I learned Maven had an unexpected, lethal skill.
Small talk. Usually when someone couldn’t shut their trap, there was information to be gleaned from the word vomit, even if it was the smallest nugget of something useful.
That was not the case with Maven Wyatt.
I acquired a bucket of pointless trivia, like how a barely-there scratch on a wall came from weapons falling out of a cart. Or how a former professor was obsessed with koalas. Nothing on current teachers, because their quirks could actually prove useful at some point.
It was an empty calorie kind of conversation without a trace of sugary flavor. The only things I learned were a cartload of southern idioms, most of which involved possums and blessing people’s hearts.
She dodged every personal question with Tanaka-level avoidance. I was impressed and irritated by the time she invited me into her cozy office, which was taller than it was wide. A neglected fern sat limply on her desk, its leaves tipped over the edge.
I scanned for a locked cabinet as she settled into her chair.
“You said you have papers for me to sign?”
She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on top. After giving me a mean-girl graze, she pulled a cigarette and Zippo lighter from a desk drawer and lit it. Suddenly, her pretty pink nails didn’t fit her sweet face anymore.
“Now, why don’t we cut the shit?”
I shouldn’t have been, but I was intrigued.
“Fine by me. You go first.” I folded my hands in my lap. I’d bet my magical cuffs she locked the door behind me.
“David’s been weird for years. Talks about finding his dead brother every other day.” She used air quotes around the word dead, and I knew I was in trouble.
She let out a stream of smoke and continued, “At first, I tracked him with no real love behind it. But then, your case arrived at the Academy. Too wild not to read, that one. Anyway, some witnesses described a reaper that reminded me of my old pal Damian. Suicide-by-Abyss Damian. But when I went to tell David about this new lead—who was right here in the Academy!—he couldn’t care less.”
She took a bigger puff and blew into the ceiling. The burn of second-hand smoke singed my throat. “Strange, right? What’s stranger is David sleeps like a proper old grandma, not a hair out of place. Been the same since we were kids. But Damian? Looks like he took a tumble with a troll when he wakes up.”
I shrugged and ignored her transition into talking about Damian in the present tense. It seemed she’d caught onto the parent trap scheme, but she didn’t have proof, or else she wouldn’t be talking to me. It also seemed like she was harboring some serious feels for David.
I fiddled with my nails. “Sounds like the Abyss got a nice catch. David seems like a stick in the mud, though.”
Maven’s breath slowed to a stop. I aimed for a nerve and struck gold.
She put her cigarette out in an old Hollywood ashtray, pushing so hard that it crumpled. “You’re here, and David’s gone. I’ve been trackin’ criminals more dangerous than you my whole life. Ones that don’t make up Glitch wieldin’ rumors for clout. Tell me where he is.” Her accent seemed to get heavier with anger.
“You know where my latest and greatest foster parent is, but not your own boyfriend?”
She squinted in confusion, effectively ruling her out as my note-leaving psychopath. Gary Hearthstone didn’t seem to be on her kill list, so I struck her from mine.
“Don’t mess with me. Tell me where he is.” A subtle note of desperation softened her demand; I called that leverage.
“I’ll tell you, but only if you let me sort through your contracts.” I pulled the finger bone necklace out of my pocket and frowned. I needed a weapon, not a fae creation that flashed green.
Maven sucked her teeth and leaned back. “Whose contract ya lookin’ for, hon?”
“I’m nosy. I’d like to see all of them.”
“Sorry, darlin’. That’s a no-go.”
“Fine by me,” I pushed my chair back. “I’ll tell David you said hi.”
She slammed a hand on the desk and leaned over it, one pink fingernail aimed at my heart. “Listen here, you little shit, I—”
When she lunged at me, four things happened fast.
I jumped from the chair.
The weird wood-bone necklace flashed green.
Red magic swirled from my fingers, flittering with lime green strands.
And the dead, potted plant twitched.
Maven stared at the crimson power like she couldn’t believe it. I stared at the moving fern behind her like I couldn’t believe it. When Maven snapped out of her mini trance, she pulled a matte-black pistol from her desk drawer.
Before the thought had even fully formed in my head, her abandoned plant slashed at her wrist like a whip, flinging the pistol from her grasp. Then, the animated stems bound her hands together.
“What the fuck,” she mouthed at her moving restraints. When she looked at me again, it was with new eyes. “It was true. You’re worse than they thought.”
“Thank you.” Honestly, she was handling it pretty well. I, for one, was entirely freaked out that I was currently necromancing a plant.
While another stem stretched, twisted around her feet, and locked her into her chair, I snatched up her weapon. There was something weird about it; I didn’t know much about guns, except that a trigger made them go boom, but I knew this one was too light. Like the magical cuffs were too light.
I tucked it into the small of my back to be dealt with later. That’s when I noticed the strange markings covering my invisible tattoo were tingling. Oy. Another thing to be dealt with later.
“So, about those contracts.”
Maven bared her teeth. “When Reaper Collective figures those rumors were true, you’re done as a steak.”
“I go for medium rare. So … contracts?”
Maven’s eyes pointed to the ceiling, giving absolutely nothing away. Clever opponents were the worst—I’d take a Travis any day over this southern spawn.
I tiptoed to the other side of the desk. Each of the bottom drawers was locked.
“I take it you won’t tell me where the key is.”
She didn’t say a word. Just in case she got the urge to spit at me or start screaming for help, I magicked the stems to cover her mouth. It was as good as duct tape.
During my search, it dawned on me that I kind of liked Maven. I even understood her a bit. When someone threatened my people, I also got a bit prickly. It was the reason I was here.
I looked at the neglected plant again. I was grateful for it since, for some insane reason, it was doing my beckoning, but I didn’t understand why Maven had left a rotten fern in her office. Unless keeping dead plants was simply a supernatural thing to do. I’d have to ask Erik the next time I saw him.
Hmm. But just in case, I walked over to the fern and tinkered with the pot, careful not to undo whatever voodoo was helping me out, and the bottom panel twisted off.
A tiny, golden, old-fashioned key rested in the center.
I smiled into Maven’s glare and proceeded to test the key on each and every drawer.
17
The Catsassin
Maven’s office looked like a tornado had swept through it. It was also closer to an apocalyptic ruin than an office space since the key hadn’t worked on any of the drawers. So, I’d used my new plant powers to break them open. I felt like the love child of Tarzan and Poison Ivy, but still, no contract.
Maven was currently faking a nap and I considered joining her.
I sat on the floor and stretched my legs. There wasn’t a single place I hadn’t scoured. Except for a set of shelves with some knick-knacks on it.
But was Maven really a knick-knack kind of person? I wasn’t sure.
As soon as I touched the shelf, the weight of Maven’s glare landed between my shoulders.
Yeah, napping my ass.
“
Since I’ve been doing some redecorating already …” I moved the snow globes around and pushed the many hand-painted glass unicorn figurines to the side. I stood to move the shelf away from the wall, but when I did, the middle section unlatched from the fixture completely, sending the ornaments down to the ground in a tizzy.
I pulled the makeshift door back. There was a safe with a keyhole instead of a number lock affixed to the front.
When the key slipped in, satisfaction washed into my bloodstream.
Stacks on stacks of color-coded tabbed folders rested inside; most of the tabs were labeled with names, others with descriptors or random words; after a thorough skim, I was pretty sure none of them said Mari.
I sighed. I supposed I’d have to work my way down the alphabet. It wasn’t long before I was reading the contracts filed under Assassin. I ruled out the first two quickly, and the third sheet down was titled, Rogue Member of the Order of Feles.
It went on to describe what I interpreted as a feline shifter who broke a pact with her pride, became a lethal assassin, was deemed wanted and dangerous, and was eventually captured by Reaper Collective. In return for not being turned over to her vengeful pride, aka The Order of Feles, the shifter agreed that upon her death, she would serve Reaper Collective for an unspecified amount of time. Part of that agreement included stipulations such as, “Cannot sustain human specter for more than thirty minutes each day.”
No freaking way. I recalled Mari’s ghostly form sprouting fur at random, and I knew in my gut that this was hers.
If I was right, it seemed dear Mari had killed a whole hell of a lot of people for enough money to please the devil. I didn’t get why she wanted out of this so bad; this castle was boring, but probably not as bad as whatever purgatory she’d been intercepted from.
But whatever floated her ghost—a deal was a deal.
I ran my mouth like an evil villain at the end of a movie. “I didn’t mean to take you hostage, you know. I made a deal with the devil for the same reasons you wanted to shoot me earlier.”