[Phoebe Pope 01.0] The Year of Four

by Nya Jade

  Phoebe entered slowly and stopped, hugging her arms around her. She took in the scene. Where there should be four walls, there were instead floor-to-ceiling screens flashing a stream of changing images. All around her, students and faculty could be seen going about their lives in the Campus Above, moving in and out of different frames.

  “Good morning, Phoebe,” said a voice on her right. Phoebe turned her head. A subdued-looking Professor Yori stared back at her from a corner. Phoebe’s eyes strayed past the headmaster to where Professor Koon sat heaped in a chair, her head in her hands, a box of tissues at her feet.

  “Forgive the hour,” Professor Yori said. “But we have a matter that we need you to help us with.” He walked up to her, folded his arms, and stared at the screens.

  “What is this place?” Phoebe asked, a tremor in her voice.

  “This is the Eye,” he said. “For security purposes we have cameras set up at every narthyx entrance to the Campus Below as well as inside the access passageways and the Below courtyard. This is where all of those video feeds are monitored, allowing the custodians to direct you students Below without exposure to humans.”

  Phoebe stared in stunned silence. She’d been wondering how Shaper movement between the two campuses operated so smoothly.

  “Can I ask . . .” Phoebe started tentatively. “Can I ask why I’m here?”

  Yelena spoke. “If you could bring up that screen for us again,” she said, speaking to someone over Phoebe’s shoulder. Phoebe turned. She had not noticed Gabe sitting demurely in a chair in the back of the room. A remote control was in his hands. Their eyes met briefly and then he looked away, pointing the remote at the screens.

  The images flashing on the four screens disappeared, replaced by a single picture that filled them all. Phoebe stared wide-eyed. In the Below courtyard students were all rushing forward, with the exception of one who stood looking in the opposite direction, a concentrated frown on her face. That student was Phoebe.

  Yelena fixed a watchful eye on Phoebe. “Can you tell us what made you stop here?”

  Panic filled Phoebe. She wanted to please her mentors and teachers, or at least assuage the deep concern they wore on their faces, but felt unsettled. “I don’t remember,” she said finally, and seeing the expression on Yelena’s face added, “I really don’t. There was so much going on and I—”

  The door opened and Afua entered looking even more serious than usual. She looked from Phoebe to the screens and back.

  “Did she remember anything?” she asked, keeping her gaze on Phoebe while addressing Yelena.

  “No, not yet,” Yelena said.

  Afua then tilted her head toward where Professor Koon still sat hunched over. “And this is the instructor who saw them last?”

  Saw them last? Phoebe found herself feeling that something was terribly wrong.

  “Yes. This is Kat Koon,” Professor Yori answered, frowning at Afua. Although he had spoken politely, Phoebe hadn’t missed the defensive fire in his voice. For some reason, the headmaster needed to be protective of Koon.

  Professor Koon straightened up and wiped at her eyes. She looked pale and haggard, her tawny hair flat.

  “Walk me through what happened with your class during the drill, Professor,” Afua said.

  Professor Koon spoke to the floor. She explained everything from when the alarms sounded to how she had evacuated the class according to protocol.

  “—and so when the last student climbed up to the boathouse and I hadn’t checked those two off my roster, I thought they were just being typical kids who took advantage of a chaotic situation and skipped out on things,” she finished in a choked voice. “I didn’t know they’d been kidnapped!” Professor Koon buried her face in her hands and sobbed some more.

  Phoebe felt as though someone had taken a bat to her knees. Quickly, she looked to Professor Yori. “Who’s been kidnapped?”

  Afua started to say something, but stopped at the expression on Professor Yori’s face. “This is still my school . . . at least it is for now and so I will tell her,” he said firmly. He turned to Phoebe. “We’ve been unable to find Cadets Higashi or Baker since the drill and we believe that they’ve been taken.”

  “Are you sure?” Phoebe said, her voice just above a whisper, wild fear pumping through her limbs. “Couldn’t they have just gone off somewhere like Professor Koon was saying? I know that Lewis has a crush on Mariko, so maybe—”

  Afua cut her off. “We’ve looked everywhere there is to look.”

  Phoebe’s mouth went dry. “And Scott? Where’s he?”

  “Thankfully, like you, he’s fine,” Professor Yori said. “Deborah-Anna is standing guard at his dorm as we speak. We spoke with him earlier and he hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary either.”

  Phoebe felt shivery. “So Vigos,” she said, “got into the school?”

  “No,” Afua said, confidently. “None of the sensors bordering the Above campus picked up on Vigo physical energy. It is our assessment that someone took advantage of the drill and—” Afua said with a matter-of-fact sort of tone, until Professor Yori interrupted, “With all respect, I cannot allow you to insinuate that one of my teachers would willfully cause harm to a student. Some of these men and women are respected former SIS agents who continue to serve the Royal Court by molding the minds of future agents.”

  “With equal respect,” Afua said, her expression remaining hard. “Given that only faculty members were aware of when the drill was happening, and that some of them, as you’ve pointed out, are former agents, it follows that they possess the expertise to pull something like this off. Does it not?”

  Sweat broke out on Professor Yori’s bald head. He glanced at Professor Koon who had reached down for another piece of tissue, then looked back at Afua. When he spoke, he did so slowly, “I suppose you raise a valid point.” Then, with painful resignation, “Is everyone else accounted for?”

  “Yes,” Afua said. “But we expected that. Whoever it is knows they still have two targets to go.” The headmaster’s frown deepened. “There will be a few more Blackcoats arriving by morning,” Afua continued. “I would like for you to call a meeting so that we can apprise your staff of who we really are.”

  “Why in Osiah and Gavya would you do that?” Professor Yori said fiercely. “I thought the whole point of your parading around as mentors was to avoid any form of panic.”

  “Panic is both an enemy and a friend, Professor,” Afua said firmly. “With the disclosure, I’m counting on it being the latter.” At the headmaster’s raised eyebrow Afua explained, “It’s a psychological play. The unexpected presence of the Royal Security Corp on campus will instill a sense of panic in your traitor. An agent of your accomplishments should know that guilty people behave differently when they believe their capture is possible or even imminent. Mistakes will be made. After our announcement we will start monitoring your staff more closely.”

  The headmaster’s eyes burned above his tightly set mouth. Phoebe watched as fatigue rushed in to overtake his look of frustration. She opened her mental gate to read his emotions. They were familiar to her since she’d read them once before. Of the strong ones she could feel—frustration, anger, despair—panic was the strongest.

  Professor Yori spoke blandly, seemingly resigned to the suggested course of action. “I’ll arrange a meeting for the lunch hour, but right now” —Professor Yori raised a hand to Phoebe, who had been forgotten in the exchange—“Cadet Pope should be escorted back to her dorm. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got the Shaper parent of both our missing Hyphas to call.”

  “I’d like to be on those calls,” Afua said in a tone that got no objections from the headmaster.

  “Kat,” he said, looking over at Professor Koon, “how about you come with me? You should get some rest.”

  Minutes later, Yelena returned with Phoebe to her dorm. It was still the early hours of dawn. All was quiet. The building was pearled with morning dew. After seeing to it that Phoebe
entered her room, Yelena went outside to keep guard. Phoebe slid under her covers, but didn’t sleep. She grabbed her tomato pillow and held it to her chest. Even thoughts of Colten couldn’t ease her troubled mind. What was it that she wasn’t remembering? Phoebe closed her eyes. For a fraction of a second she thought she’d remembered something important but dismissed it. The memory had been of a male teacher drinking from a flask. Hardly a security threat. As fatigue wove its way through Phoebe’s body, three things turned over in her head: someone had taken Mariko and Lewis; she and Scott were next; and, above all else, she needed to be at that faculty meeting. If anyone could figure out who was behind the kidnappings, she could, by reading everyone’s emotions. Now the only question was, how would she get in?

  FIFTEEN

  The minor notes of a violin melody floated up to Phoebe as she leaned over the boathouse balcony railing, her camera at eye level. Below her, on the lake, a silver-haired man sat in a boat, his wooden instrument tucked under his chin, drawing a bow back and forth across the strings with even, measured strokes. Mist rose around him in thin, layered sheets, cut into strips by the early morning sunlight piercing through, providing an almost mystical setting for Phoebe’s photo shoot.

  When a body leaned next to Phoebe, she didn’t need to cast a sideways glance to know who it was. She’d seen Scott standing at the shore, throwing rocks into the lake. Their eyes had met through her lens and they had stared at each other for a moment, the strain of the previous night apparent to both of them.

  “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long, Gorgeous,” Scott said, chuckling without humor as Phoebe slowly lowered her camera and looked at him. Up close she saw that his eyes were bloodshot, his demeanor weary. “For whatever reason, Pope, being near water helps to relieve my mind and right now—”

  “It’s all jammed up,” Phoebe finished.

  Scott nodded wearily and lit a cigarette. “Who’s the old man?”

  “First chair violinist for the Boston Symphony,” Phoebe said. “He rowed crew here and I thought pairing the ‘now’ and the ‘then’ would make an interesting photo.”

  “I don’t know how you do it, Pope,” Scott said, exhaling a stream of smoke and watching her closely as she changed lenses.

  “Do what?” she said airily, most of her attention focused on her subject and camera’s mechanisms.

  Scott didn’t answer at once; he’d turned to gaze out at the lake. “Function,” he said quietly. “How can you even do this assignment when . . .” Scott didn’t have to finish his thought.

  “Because I need to keep busy!” Phoebe said, her voice suddenly tremulous. Her hands shook so much her camera jostled. “I can’t just sit here wondering if they’re dead!”

  To Phoebe’s surprise, Scott pulled her into a one-armed hug that warmed her right down to her toes. “I’m scared too, Pope” he said. “I’m more spooked than I’ve ever been in my life. Stayed up all night thinking it could have been me. . . .”

  “I know,” Phoebe said in a muffled voice, closing her eyes, then opening them when she realized that the music from the lake had stopped. She stepped out from under Scott’s arm and waved down to the violinist who stared up at her, a mild frown on his face.

  “Are we all done, young lady?” he called out to her politely.

  “Yes. Sorry! I’ll be right down.”

  After thanking the violinist and seeing him off, Phoebe walked with Scott in the general direction of the dining hall.

  “So he was crazy enough to agree to play in the lake, but not quite crazy enough to use his own violin,” Scott said smirking and indicating the black GREEN LANE MUSIC case Phoebe had tucked under her arm.

  Phoebe gave a halfhearted laugh. “No. He wasn’t going to risk his Stradivarius.” After a minute or so of silence, Phoebe said slowly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Scott pressed a finger to his right temple. “I’m kinda spent for the moment. I got nothing left.” He stopped walking. “In fact, I think I’m going to skip breakfast and—” Scott broke off, his gaze having wandered behind them. “And, it looks like they called for reinforcements.”

  Phoebe glanced over her shoulder. Two guys, dressed in Green Lane uniforms were walking a measured distance behind them. Although they did look almost young enough to pass for students, their serious yet graceful demeanor was all Blackcoat.

  Scott gave a brief, hollow laugh. “I guess Mariko’s request for hot male mentors was heard after all.”

  “Ha. That’s right . . .” Phoebe trailed off, her mind going back in time.

  “Listen, Pope,” said Scott seriously, already walking away from her. “I’m tired now, but come find me later if you want to talk.”

  Phoebe nodded absently, watching as one of the new Blackcoats turned to follow Scott.

  Over the course of breakfast, a group of girls roved around the dining hall distributing green fliers. From where she sat, Phoebe could see that hers was the only table not to receive one. Before she could think twice about it, an aproned Hayley appeared at her side, her arms streaked in flour, her hair restrained by a hairnet.

  “Oh, thank Osiah and Gavya you’re okay,” Hayley said in an emotional whisper, looking tearful.

  “What’s the matter?” Phoebe said, suddenly alarmed.

  Hayley wiped her hands on her apron and sat down hard. “Which two were taken?” she said.

  “How do you—” Phoebe quickly fished out her Privaque. “How do you know?”

  “Liam,” Hayley said, breathlessly. Then, in a rush of words, “I checked the blog after grabbing my shoes from the floating gym, and it was all about The Four. I’ve been going nuts all morning. You weren’t picking up your phone. You weren’t in your room. And when Cyn said she hadn’t seen you in a while, I looked everywhere I could think to look for you. I practically begged the kitchen folks to let me help them bake so I wouldn’t lose it. . . .”

  When Hayley paused for a breath, Phoebe said, “Wait, what did the blog say?”

  “Why weren’t you answering your phone?” Hayley asked, as if she hadn’t heard Phoebe.

  “I didn’t take it with me to my photo shoot—”

  Hayley took a napkin from the table and blew her nose loudly into it.

  “So what did Liam say?” Phoebe pressed.

  “He said that he had it on good authority that two of the four prophecy targets had been kidnapped last night. And that the Blackcoats were no closer to solving how the kidnapping had happened right under their whiskers—so who was it?”

  Phoebe made Hayley take a few calming breaths, then quietly filled her in on everything that had happened the night before, finishing with the theory of a traitor.

  Hayley looked at Phoebe, unconvinced. “A traitor?” She shook her head fervently. “Loyalty is in our DNA.”

  Phoebe shrugged. “The Blackcoats are convinced of it.”

  “And you still don’t remember what you might have been looking at?”

  Phoebe shook her head morosely.

  Hayley pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, grabbed a glass of water from Phoebe’s tray, and glanced around the dining hall, thinking. Midway through a sip, she choked and shot to her feet. “Colten—coming this way,” she hissed.

  “What?” Phoebe said puzzled. “He’s out of town for the next few days for—” she broke off spotting him herself. Colten was not in uniform. He wore a leather coat zipped over a pair of dark jeans. His blazing eyes searched the room and found Phoebe. He gazed at her for a moment, and then moved quickly toward her.

  “There’s no way I’m letting him see me like this,” Hayley said, raising her flour-covered hands. “We’ll talk more in class.” And head down, she scurried off toward the kitchen as Colten, who didn’t seem to notice Hayley fleeing, arrived at the table.

  Colten pulled out a chair, spun it around, and straddled it in one seamless motion. “How are you?” he said. The seriousness of his voice startled Phoebe. His features held tension that she couldn’t interp
ret.

  “I’m good,” Phoebe said slowly. “How are you? Why are you here?” She saw his eyes begin to narrow and she brought a hand to her mouth. “You didn’t get the part?”

  Colten’s mood shifted then, all of the tension gone from his face. “Oh, I got it,” he said with a smirk. “I had a big incentive to get it, remember?”

  “Congrats.” Phoebe looked at him, confused; the humor in the set of Colten’s mouth did not extend to his eyes. Again she wanted to read his emotions, but she stopped herself. Whatever had him on edge was a private matter; she wouldn’t trespass.

  “Sorry . . . I just thought you’d be gone for the next few days.”

  Colten reached out a hand and tousled Phoebe’s hair. “Not happy to see me?” he asked playfully. On the contrary, Phoebe thought. Given what had just happened, she was more than happy to see Colten. She thought again how he had a way of repelling the madness of her other life even as it threatened to devour her. His company brought comfort, a gentleness that washed over her.

  Phoebe ran a hand through her hair, searching for any scar-concealing strands that Colten may have unknowingly moved out of place. She wondered if she would one day get to a point where she could wear her hair in a retro ponytail like she used to, before the accident.

  “I am happy to see you,” Phoebe said, smiling and poking him lightly in the chest. “I’m just surprised to see you.”

  “The audition ended up just being a formality, and afterward I decided all other business could wait.” Colten held her gaze and smiled, this one drifting to his eyes. “So we’re still on with the line coaching, right?”

  “Sure. When would you like to start?”

  “Lunch?” Colten looked hopeful.

  Phoebe shook her head. “Can’t. I have a meeting but—”