My eyes had adjusted, and I could see now. Well, I could see enough. The bars continued on every side of the cell, and I could make out the frost mottled along the jagged metalwork. Barbarian Mike was stretched out on a cot in the direct middle of the cell, as far away from any metal as he could get. No wonder; the cold and the damp together must have really stunk. His hair was matted, and he was wearing loose prison clothing—long sleeves and actual pants that covered up his muscles and made him seem smaller. He looked … It wasn’t that he was cut up or beaten or anything like that. It was just that he looked like how I felt that one night.
One of the Kingsmen materialized enough to bang on Mike’s cell and tell him to get up, he had a visitor. Barbarian Mike rolled his head to the side to look at us, sneered when he saw the king. It dropped away when he saw me. “Zo?” And he rushed over, bare feet on cold iron, to the front of the cell, crouching down to look me in the eye. “You’re here, you came!”
“I came,” I said.
“Trix—” Barbarian Mike gripped the bars, though that had to hurt. “Do you know what happened to Trixie? Nobody will tell me,” he said, his voice ragged.
“I don’t know.”
“Where is she? No, don’t, never mind,” he said quickly, glancing at King Steve. “Don’t tell me that.” The frost had started to eat its way up his fingers, freezing the fists clenched around the bars. “Last time I saw her, she was running—trying, anyway. Her knee looked like it hurt pretty bad. She’s probably seeing red over that. You tell her—when you see her again, you tell her from me—not to break anything, okay?” His grin was a white flash in the dim light. “Not that she ever listens to me anyway. “Do you at least know if she’s okay?” Barbarian Mike continued.
“No one does. She disappeared,” I told him, because it seemed like he should be told.
He rested his head against his hands, and it took a second to realize he was chuckling. “She always was one for running and hiding. No, you won’t see her again, not for a long time, not if you looked for a hundred years.”
“I came to tell the king what you did to me,” I said.
He nodded. His sleeves had gone stiff as ice, and his skin was starting to look off. Gray. “She’s the clever one. She’ll have found a way out of this place, got low, and she’ll stay there until you stop looking for her and she can get on with her life.”
“They’re going to Banish you,” I said.
Barbarian Mike went quiet, and his grin faded. “When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Soon enough,” King Steve supplied. “We have some minor details to take care of first.”
“Do it now,” Barbarian Mike said. “Get it over with.”
King Steve tsked. “Now, now, Michael. When you say things like that it makes us feel as though you do not appreciate our hospitality.”
Barbarian Mike looked up at the king through his matted hair and sighed, wheezing a little because his chest was going to ice. “She’s just … an ord. No … offense, Zo.”
When someone says no offense you’re supposed to say none taken or something like that, even when some is taken, just to be polite. But polite or not, the words weren’t there, and I didn’t want them anyway. “My name is Abby.”
“Sure, sure. I still say you look like a Zoe,” he said. Kindly. Teasing. And he winked at me. As if it were a private joke between us. I wondered, if I hit him, would he shatter into a thousand pieces? I felt Alexa’s arm go around my shoulders.
I wish I hadn’t gone down there. I wish he hadn’t kidnapped me. Except that wasn’t really true. If they hadn’t gotten me, they would have gotten someone else. I couldn’t wish away what happened; I wouldn’t, even if I wanted to. But looking at him, I felt sorry. I just wasn’t sure for who.
“Are you satisfied?” King Steve asked me, and I said yes, even though I wasn’t, and didn’t know if I ever could be. I wanted to go home.
CHAPTER
26
Sentencing criminals is a matter of public record, or so Alexa told me. I guess that’s how word got out. When people learned that the king was going to Banish a regular, magical, human person (with an attractive headshot) because he tried to kidnap one ord, they weren’t happy. I wasn’t sure how unhappy, since tucked inside the school, we only heard about it from Alexa. I tried to nose around, but my family wouldn’t tell me anything. Mr. O’Hara was willing to help out by casting up old newspapers, and I found a lot of angry letters to the editor. Some half-finished graffiti—words I was really glad hadn’t been finished—showed up on the wall outside the school. Becky and Cook Bella took turns going out with a bucket to scrub them off. And Mrs. Murphy admitted that there’d been a few “unpleasant” letters sent to the school. She wouldn’t tell me what was in them.
But as the days passed, the anger died down. King Steve is the law, and the law is absolute, so if you’re angry the only thing you can do is get over it.
Or you can do something about it. You can try, at least. That’s what Trixie decided to do.
It was a dark and stormy night, and Becky had headed out with one or two of her best students to Haven Park, up on Ninety-Sixth. Occasionally the older kids were hired out on a job, a win-win situation for everyone because sometimes there were problems a magic person couldn’t deal with, and it gave us a little real-world experience and a couple of bucks. This time someone had tossed a bunch of nasty charms around the park, probably as a joke. Because killing plants, driving birds crazy, and making every park sanitation worker retch violently is apparently hysterical.
We were still in the dining hall when the two students returned, dirty and wild eyed. It was only when Dimitrios lifted one of the kids in the air by his shirt and growled, “Where is she?” that we noticed Becky was not with them.
“Seventy-Second Street,” the boy choked out. “Red caps. Becky put us on a carpet and went after them.”
Mrs. Murphy put a hand on Dimitrios’s arm and helped him slowly lower the boy to the ground. “Thank you, Mr. Parris. Dimitrios, if you would go look for her.”
Dimitrios called to another minotaur, and the two of them charged out.
As soon as they were gone, Mrs. Murphy demanded to know what had happened. The two kids looked at each other, until one shrugged and started to explain. “The job went fine, right? A couple of hours picking up charms, no problem. We’re heading back, and all of the trolleys are full or else they’re not letting Greenies on, so Becky tells us we’re going to walk instead.”
“And?” Mrs. Murphy prompted when he paused.
“And we’re about halfway when Becky sees the red caps watching us.”
There was a sudden, icy silence, and then a frightened murmur passed through the room. The rain had been slacking off with the arrival of spring, but it wasn’t finished yet. It wasn’t dry. We were supposed to have some time.
“And there’s this taxi carpet coming by, and Becky shoves us on it and heads after the caps herself.”
Mrs. Murphy thanked the boy and let him leave to clean up. Mr. O’Hara and Ms. Macartney joined Mrs. Murphy, close enough for our table to overhear. Mr. O’Hara muttered, “Red caps. Already. I’ll contact Alexa.” Mrs. Murphy nodded, and he made his way toward the door.
“This is out of the ordinary,” Ms. Macartney remarked. She kept her voice low, but the dining hall was quiet enough that we could hear her. “They should still be hibernating. It’s far too early for them to be out and about.”
“Unfortunately we are well aware how difficult hibernation is for them if they haven’t eaten enough. Considering our king’s numerous restrictions, it wouldn’t be surprising if hunger woke them early,” Mrs. Murphy replied.
“Hungry enough to approach us openly?” Ms. Marcartney shook her head. “What if someone saw them? What—” She dropped her voice. “If there was a death. Their entire conclave would be threatened by retaliation. They cannot be that stupid, to risk that. There has to be something else going on.”
“
Maybe. Then again, starvation makes people, and creatures, do foolish things.”
“We had such a good fall,” Ms. Macartney said, her voice a low ache. “We didn’t lose anyone last year.”
“Cheer up, Caroline,” Mrs. Murphy said. “We still haven’t lost anyone.”
“You are such a comfort,” Ms. Macartney replied.
Becky wasn’t back by lights-out, so the Teaching Trio took over the final check-in, assuring us all that if there was anyone to not be worried about, it was Becky. She and Dimitrios were more than capable of handling a couple of goblins. Still, I kept waking up, hoping to hear Dimitrios’s hooves in the hallway, the jingle of Becky’s belt as she went into her room. But I never heard anything.
The third or fourth time I woke up, I was certain that I’d heard something. But what it was escaped me—until something scraped at the window. I pushed back the covers and the bed squeaked as I stood; the scratching paused. It was a clear night, and moonlight flooded through my window. The sound had definitely come from the right window. My window.
I took a step toward it—or I was about to—when I saw something near the latch.
The latch. There were scratches in the glass by the latch.
I was at the door when the window crashed inward. I ran out and slammed the door behind me, but it didn’t lock on the outside. There was a sound, high pitched and keening, and the scratch of something sharp; I grabbed for the handle, but the door jerked back, torn off its hinges, and I was yanked back inside the room. Something tackled me to the ground.
It was a goblin, a red cap. Smaller than me, but stronger than you’d think, seeing it. There were strange charms dripping off its wrists and ankles, and its hands were so cold they burned against my skin. It started dragging me toward the window and it was so strong, but I kicked and wriggled to get free until it had to stop and try to tie my hands together. What did Becky say to do with a red cap? WHAT DID BECKY SAY? And then I remembered and flung myself at it, snatched the cap from its head, and twisted it. I wrung it dry, tried to get out every drop and not think about what exactly those drops were made of. The goblin howled in pain and swatted me back, enough that I could kick myself away and scramble for the door.
The goblin was still braying on the floor when long spindly fingers curled over the broken windowsill and a second one climbed through. I saw it for just an instant and then there was a rush of air as it slammed into me, and we went rolling out into the hallway and smashed into the wall. I could hear screaming, through the doors, from other rooms. I could feel it through the floor. Except it wasn’t all screaming—some of it was roaring.
Then the world lurched, and the goblin was torn off me. It was Cesar—skinny little cheating Cesar—tearing into the red cap with a power so fierce it scared me almost as much as the goblins had.
The hallway was alive with the crack of breaking wood and shattering glass as I raced toward Becky’s room. An alarm sounded—shrill and piercing. The door to Eila and Naija’s room opened, and they stumbled out, confused, fear quickly erasing their tiredness. Naija shouted something and I ran back and grabbed their hands, dragging them with me.
We reached Fran’s room, two doors down from Becky’s. The door was broken and I had to drag it aside. Inside, two goblins were struggling to tie Fran’s hands and feet, but she was kicking, punching. I ran to her and tried to grab one of the goblins, but Fran kicked out desperately and caught me in the face. I reeled back, pain buzzing through my head. Eila and Naija screamed and, moving together, pounced on the other goblin. It tumbled back and they landed on it, pounding and screeching, until all it could do was try and fight them off. The first goblin, still focused on Fran, tossed her on its shoulders and carried her to the open window. It reached through, clung to the stone outside, and swung out with her. Fran grabbed for the window handle, but it broke off in her hands. I dived for her, grabbed for her wrists, her hands—she was calling Abby please, Abby please, please, Abby— but the goblin wrenched, and her fingers slipped through mine, and she disappeared.
Jumping after her wouldn’t have done any good, but I was halfway through the window when I froze. What stopped me was the sight of the red caps, dozens of them, skittering their way up the sides of the building. Climbing in and out of windows, handing hollering bundles to other goblins.
I slid off the desk mechanically and grabbed Eila. We had to pry Naija’s hands off the goblin and drag her back into the hall. It felt like we’d been in Fran’s room forever, but I realized later it couldn’t have been more than a minute. The minotaurs were there when we came out. One charged over to us and I couldn’t hear what he was shouting above the alarm, but he was pointing to the doors at the end of the hallway. Naija pulled me toward the stairway. Eila was yelling “Out! Out now!” and I went with them, one sluggish foot in front of the other. But my mind wasn’t there with them. It was back in Fran’s room, staring out the window.
The minotaur was already running down the hallway, throwing open doors. We ducked out of the way as Mr. O’Hara, magic crackling around him, clambered up the stairs with two other minotaurs. They shouted something to us about the vault, gathering in the vault. “It should be clear by now!” Mr. O’Hara shouted over his shoulder.
He was about to rush down our hallway, but one of the minotaurs stopped him—“Upstairs, they need you upstairs!”—and Mr. O’Hara leaped up, passing through the ceiling with a soft zuzz. Naija tugged on my arm, tried to pull me back into the stairway. “Abby, please, please, we must get out of this place.”
I shook my head, watching as the minotaurs yelled and went after something in Cesar’s room.
“Abby,” Eila said. Her voice was hard and hot, like a parent’s voice when you did something wrong. “We need to go down the stairs right now.” But I started running down the hall. No … Past the rows of open doors and empty rooms. No no no no no no. To Fred and Peter’s room.
Inside, the room was torn apart—furniture broken, books everywhere, the window busted open. In the same moment I spotted a wrinkled red-capped little monster starting to climb out the window, and a stick. A big, heavy stick, like a mage’s staff. I think it was a broken part of the bed. I picked it up and ran over, swinging as I ran, and crack! The goblin toppled back, and I flung myself on it, not thinking, clawing at its cap. It came free with a little sucking pop. The goblin screeched in pain.
“Not right! Not fair!” it howled. “Give us back our cap! Give it back!” I didn’t, and I was afraid of myself in that moment. “We are sorry! We didn’t mean any harm! We are just so hungry! She said—she said she would help us, and then she doesn’t let us eat anything!”
“She?” It took me a second to realize that was my voice.
“She, she!” the goblin agreed. “She take half, we take half. It’s not fair, she doesn’t need half. She need one, she said she need one for dungeon! I’m so hungry!” It started scratching at its head, writhing, desperate.
It’s funny how you can know something even before your brain completely catches up. Sometimes you don’t need the whole puzzle. The she and dungeon were enough.
Then there was a minotaur, holding the goblin at spear point, and O’Hara’s voice, so gentle it didn’t seem real, saying, “All right there, Abby. It’s all right now. I’ll take this, here we go,” and he eased my fingers open to take the cap away. “That was very clever of you. You’re all right?”
“I’m all right,” I echoed.
“Wonderful. Your parents would be very angry with us if we let anything happen to you. Since you’re quite all right, I think you should go down to the vault now. Everyone’s in the vault, it’s nice and safe down there. Do you think you can go on your own? The route is safe, but do you want someone to come with you?”
“I can go on my own,” I said, and it sounded and felt like my voice. It’d be harder to get away if someone was with me.
Mr. O’Hara nodded, patting my shoulder, and I headed out.
The stairway was quiet, but there wa
s more crashing and yelling on the first floor. I didn’t stop to check it out, but I did see a minotaur run at a goblin on all fours, face shining with determination.
Then I was out the front door. The courtyard was lit up, and Mrs. Murphy and Ms. Macartney were herding students to the vault. There was shouting and noise and above it all Mrs. Murphy’s voice telling everyone to remain calm, so it really wasn’t that hard to slip into the dark shadows of the alcove. The vault would have weapons, but I’d never get back out. Cook Bella had a glittery set of knives in a locked drawer in the kitchen, but even if I could smash it open and get one I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I glanced back at the dorm; I could see flashes of light through the windows and dark shapes skittering down the walls.
The main gate opened with a creak that I hoped no one heard. I started running.
CHAPTER
27
It had stopped raining at some point. The air was heavy, and warm with the first hint of spring, and the cobblestones were slick with rain under my bare feet—I really should have grabbed some shoes before running out. I heard sirens tearing through the night, caught the flashing lights of police carpets behind me, heading toward the school, but the rest of the streets were dead quiet. It was eerie; Rothermere is supposed to be the city that never sleeps, but at four in the morning, the streets were empty.
Good thing Becky had us run so much. I wasn’t even winded when I reached the castle. The plaza circling the castle is wide and open and, at that time of the night, completely abandoned. I didn’t see any guards—visible or invisible—but that didn’t mean no one was watching, so I kept to the alleys. And I waited.
That was the hardest part. Looking back it felt like one endless moment, eyes and ears open, willing her to show up. She had to show up.
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