“But—” Brett said.
“We didn’t see anything,” Brenda repeated meaningfully. “We don’t know what happened.”
“Where are Bella and Erika?” Kennedy asked. Her voice was hoarse and shaking.
“We don’t know,” Brenda said. “We hope they got out.”
Spirit bit her lip and saw Brenda shake her head fractionally. They both knew the other two hadn’t escaped.
She knew Brenda was going to want a real explanation.
And soon.
She wished she knew what she was going to say.
* * *
It was almost dark by the time Spirit, Chris, Kylee, and Maddie finally got back to Oakhurst. Breakthrough had gotten to the library even before the fire truck and Sheriff Copeland arrived. They’d sent for an ambulance—Breakthrough had its own, of course—and took Zoey and Dylan away immediately. The rest of them weren’t as lucky. The pizza parlor was turned into an impromptu command center while Sheriff Copeland tried to find out what had happened. Nobody was sure how many people had died in the explosion. It might be as many as six.
To Spirit’s relief, Brenda, Brett, Juliette, Veronica, and Kennedy stuck to their story. They didn’t know what had happened. There was an explosion. They ran outside.
No one else in town had seen anything. (They certainly hadn’t seen three characters from a video game trash the town library with magic.) After an hour or so the theory Spirit heard most was of there having been a freak tornado dropping a couple of tons of ice on the town and then ripping the library to shreds. It was as good an explanation as any, especially if they couldn’t tell the truth. The hardest part was hearing Sheriff Copeland praise them for keeping cool heads in the emergency. Spirit had never felt so much like a hypocrite. They were being trained for this at Oakhurst—trained to be soldiers. And when a real attack came, they’d choked. And people had died. At least we don’t have to worry about what to tell them up at the school, Spirit thought bleakly. They’ll probably just pretend it never happened. Just like usual.
And the worst part was, none of them knew why it had happened. Why had the Shadow Knights attacked in broad daylight—in Radial—with witnesses?
Finally Sheriff Copeland let them leave. Ms. Corby and Mark Rider had come for them personally in one of the Breakthrough SUVs. But in all the confusion of the attack, Spirit had forgotten that while she and her friends all knew Breakthrough and the Shadow Knights were one and the same, Chris and Kylee and Maddie didn’t.
“Are Zoey and Dylan okay? Are those the same guys that attacked us a couple of weeks ago?” Chris said as soon as the three of them were in the car.
Spirit winced mentally. She hoped the Townies did a better job of keeping their mouths shut, or they were all going to be in hot water.
“What happened down there?” Mark asked. He and Ms. Corby were in the front seat; the four of them were in the back. “Are you sure it was an attack?”
“I guess we just assumed it was magic,” Kylee said smoothly, glancing sideways at Spirit as she did. “It was so freaky. There was this big explosion, and—wham!”
“So none of you saw anything more than you told Sheriff Copeland about?” Ms. Corby asked.
“I saw Dylan Jaunt Zoey out from under a bookcase,” Maddie said. “Are they okay?”
“They’re going to be just fine,” Mark said. “Thanks to your quick thinking, nobody was hurt.”
“Aside from the people who died,” Spirit said.
“It’s certainly a tragedy, Spirit,” Mark said gravely. “And one we’ll be able to prevent a recurrence of, fortunately. At least, once The Fortress is up and running. Naturally I’ll have my people look into it to discover what really happened. But whether it was a freak storm—or not—I promise you, it won’t happen again. We’ll keep you safe.”
Even Chris had nothing to say to that.
* * *
They’d all been checked out by the EMTs in Radial, so once they reached Oakhurst, they were sent directly to their rooms. Ms. Corby phrased it as a suggestion—I know you’ll be happy to get back to your rooms and rest—but Spirit (at least) knew it was less concern for their well-being and more in the nature of damage control. If they were in their rooms, they wouldn’t be telling their version of the afternoon’s events to the other kids (Spirit had never quite figured out why the Oakhurst staff so consistently overlooked the gossip-spreading powers of the intraweb chat rooms). They’d missed dinner, but Ms. Corby said they’d be given trays in their rooms. Clearly that had been arranged beforehand, because when Spirit reached her room, there was a tray already waiting for her. She changed into fresh clothes before investigating it—the stuff she’d worn down to Radial was damp, muddy, torn, and reeked of smoke.
Now let’s see what’s on the menu for good little cannon-fodder.…
She lifted the cover off the meal tray and regarded its contents in disbelief. No way did La Corby authorize this. Instead of the usual “healthy menu,” the tray held a sandwich, chips, a slice of chocolate cake, a can of soda, and an apple. She tucked the apple and the soda into the back of her chest of drawers for later, grabbed a bottle of water out of her fridge, and took her sandwich over to the computer. To her relief, the intraweb was up again. She didn’t bother looking in to any of the chatrooms—the school might take the system down again at any moment—but scrabbled for her Ironkey and plugged it in.
The familiar window opened, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Hello, Spirit. How are you this evening? QUERCUS typed.
I have a lot to tell you, and I don’t know when the intraweb will go out again. Typing as quickly as she could, she told QUERCUS everything that had happened in the last few days: talking to Stephen Wolferman, identifying Kenny as Doctor Ambrosius, the fatal fire a few hours later, the attack at the library today.
—and it was Shadow Knights, right out in front of everyone, and if nobody saw it but us that would be one thing, but the Radial kids saw them too. And now Bella and Erika are dead, and I don’t know how long the other five are going to keep their mouths shut about what they saw, and if they talk, what’s going to happen to them? Now that we’ve found Merlin, we have to talk to him and tell him what’s—
She didn’t even get to the end of the sentence before QUERCUS began to respond.
Do not approach Dr. Ambrosius under any circumstances. Do not tell him what you know. Do you understand?
Spirit stared at the line of text and the blinking cursor at the end of it for a long time before she responded.
Yes. But—
She didn’t get to finish that sentence either. The special chatroom window vanished. She checked, and it wasn’t because the intraweb was down again—when she checked, she could get out onto the Internet just fine. (The Radial Chamber of Commerce home page had a brief story about the “freak storm.” It mentioned the dead and missing, but there were no names listed. Probably because their families hadn’t been notified yet.)
She unplugged the Ironkey from her laptop and sat staring at the Oakhurst home page.
“I don’t understand,” Spirit whispered to herself. Why didn’t QUERCUS want her to talk to Merlin? Why had QUERCUS signed off without letting her ask any questions?
And why had they been attacked in the first place?
Since she couldn’t talk to QUERCUS, she logged into the main school chatroom and watched the conversations scroll by. She groaned. Can’t any of you morons remember for five minutes at a time the Staff and the Proctors read every word of this? Chris and Maddie were both giving a full account of the attack at the library, including detailed descriptions of their attackers. At least Dylan and Kylee weren’t in-channel, and Zoey was probably still in the infirmary. Spirit could only be grateful her own name didn’t come up. She closed the window before somebody could PM her to demand her version of events—because as of now, her choices were to agree with the story the others were telling, or call them liars, and neither option seemed that good. She got to her
feet with a growl of frustration. I’m going to go crazy sitting in here talking to the walls.
She looked around the room and frowned, then checked her watch to be positive. Nope. Nowhere near lights out. There was no reason she actually had to stay in her room if she didn’t want to.
She wasn’t going anywhere in particular—she just wanted to be somewhere there were people—but when she passed one of the lounges and saw Loch, Burke, and Addie inside talking, she was confused and curious enough to investigate. I thought we all agreed to stay away from each other in public.…
“—so I really think that’s best. It will take a couple of weeks to make the arrangements,” Addie was saying.
“Arrangements for what?” Spirit asked.
Addie’s face lit up with relief at the sight of her. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” she said in a rush. “I heard about … what happened today in Radial. I was outside when it happened—you could see the explosion all the way up here—so I went and found Muirin. She’d been listening to the Radial police band up in the Security office, and told me what was going on and, well … I went to see Doctor Ambrosius. I’ve asked him to contact my trustees. He says he’ll have me moved to a different school. Somewhere I can actually—help. He says that’s where he’s sent all the kids that have been going missing—he says they weren’t safe here, so he’s sent them away.”
Spirit tried not to look as shocked and betrayed as she felt. Never mind that Addie was suddenly buying into this story of the missing kids being “sent away somewhere safer”—Addie wanted to join them.
“You can’t just leave!” Spirit said incredulously. Was that the real reason she’d cautioned the other members of the Dance Committee not to say anything about the attack, she wondered? Fat lot of good it had done!
“I am not Wonder Woman,” Addie snapped. “I did not sign up to save the world!” She got to her feet and stalked out of the lounge.
Spirit looked at the two boys helplessly. Burke was already getting to his feet. Oh good, she thought in relief. He’s going after Addie. He’ll talk her out of this stupid idea.
“Hate to run out on you,” Burke said, “but I’ve got an extra practice session scheduled with Mr. Green. At least we got one good teacher out of this whole mess, right? Maybe he can help us with … the thing.”
“Sensible—in Burke’s tiny mind—means he isn’t actually getting hit,” Loch snarled as soon as Burke was out of earshot. “Do you know Green’s changing all the PE classes around again? One of the new buildings going up is a shooting range. It won’t be ready until Spring, but hey, that’s okay, because we can do trapshooting outdoors, right?”
“That’s always been an elective,” Spirit said slowly. She knew how much Loch hated guns of any kind.
“Not anymore,” Loch answered grimly.
Before she could think of anything to say, Loch was on his feet and moving, too. “No, wait!” she called after him. “Loch!”
Loch kept on walking as if he hadn’t heard.
Spirit stood looking after him forlornly. After what had happened this afternoon, this was the final straw. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go! Don’t all of you see—they’re trying to break us up again! Only this time they’re doing it by making us think breaking up is the way to fix things. They’re scaring Addie—and being nice to Burke—and making you think anything’s better than staying here.…
And she couldn’t figure out how to convince the others their plans simply wouldn’t work.
* * *
“What are you doing in here, Nancy Drew? Looking for clues?” Muirin asked, walking in and closing her door. She was dressed for outside, though not (of course) in anything like the school uniform.
Spirit got to her feet. She didn’t need to look at her watch to know it was well after lights out now. She shouldn’t have been in Muirin’s room at all.
“I was just waiting for you. I didn’t touch anything.”
“Good,” Muirin said. She walked into her closet to hang up her coat.
Spirit wondered what Muirin had been doing out so late after curfew, and—worse—who she’d been doing it with. They all knew Ovcharenko was a murderer now. Breakthrough’s pet hitman. Was Muirin so desperate for safety that she didn’t care?
Or was she one of them now?
“I wanted to talk to you,” Spirit blurted out as Muirin came out of the closet again with her arms full. Not one thing in that pile of silk and lace would have passed the Oakhurst dress code.
“Hold that thought,” Muirin said, vanishing into the bathroom.
She came out again a few moments later. Her face was scrubbed clean—thinking back, Spirit wondered if she’d ever seen Muirin without makeup before—and she was wearing a black velvet floor-length robe that looked as if it ought to belong to Elizabeth the First—or maybe Vlad the Impaler. The lapels and cuffs were red satin stitched in gold thread, and there was a double row of gold frogs down the front.
“Don’t gawk,” Muirin said, smirking. “Secretly I’ve got on Hello Kitty jammies under this.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Spirit said, smiling back hopefully.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got an image to protect,” Muirin said. “Hey. We heard about what happened down in town today. That had to suck.”
“Six people dead—and oh god, Murr, two of them were on the Dance Committee, and that shouldn’t make it worse, but … I knew them. And now Addie’s asked Doctor Ambrosius to move her to another school, and Burke thinks Mr. Green—he’s Breakthrough, Muirin, a Shadow Knight—is the greatest thing in the history of ever, and Loch … Loch’s just giving up.”
Muirin sat down beside Spirit on the bed. “Well, you know, that’s probably for the best,” she said consideringly.
Spirit glanced toward her in surprise. This wasn’t the reaction she’d expected.
“Look, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything. You’ve been a good friend. You trusted me when nobody else would. That means a lot to me. But it’s only in bad movies where a bunch of kids can destroy a giant international conspiracy of Eeeevil. Addie was right. We can’t do it, we’re only kids, and it isn’t our fight in the first place. Who cares what they want? They’re after Merlin and Arthur. Big whoop. So Evil wins: it’ll all be a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff and people like you and me will never see any difference. There’s no way we can beat the Shadow Knights, or stop what they’re planning, and … I don’t want to die, Spirit. I really don’t. I’m going to go along with whatever they want until I can get the hell out of Dodge. You and Loch were supposed to be the Midwinter Tithe to the Wild Hunt. Remember? You two were the only ones who heard the hunting horns. He’s on borrowed time. Both of you are. And that was before the Gatekeeper Army of Darkness got here.”
“Don’t you care about all the people they’ve killed?” Spirit asked desperately. And you’re a Reincarnate, Muirin. They aren’t going to just let you walk away. They’ll make you choose. One side or the other.
“Always with the high horse!” Muirin mocked. “I bet you they haven’t killed as many people in the last forty years as die in car crashes on one holiday weekend. Read my lips: I want to live. And…” For a moment Muirin hesitated. “Like I said. You’ve been a good friend. You want to stop your preaching and stick with me, I’ll see what I can do for you.”
I’m not going to cry, Spirit told herself wildly. She wasn’t going to call Muirin a sellout or a coward. “What about Burke?” she asked. What about Burke and Loch and Addie and anyone you’ve ever thought of as a friend? They killed Seth—doesn’t that matter to you anymore?
Muirin didn’t answer, her jaw set in a stubborn line. “You let me know when you’ve made up your mind,” she said finally. “Just don’t wait too long.”
* * *
Could I do it? In the Library, Spirit stared blindly at the row of books on the shelf in front of her. Everyone else is giving up. It’s not like I’d be letting them down. Should I tell Muirin I’ll do it?
>
She’d gotten through the day in a daze, too stunned by Addie’s defection and Muirin’s offer to do more than go through the motions. She couldn’t stop thinking about them. This was the end. The end of everything. Loch had given up, Addie was willing to hand herself over to Oakhurst and let them do whatever they wanted, and Muirin had as good as told her she was going to throw in with the Shadow Knights to stay alive.
And Burke … What about Burke? Muirin hadn’t been willing to make any promises about Burke’s safety.
He’ll be safe. Mr. Green will protect him. And Burke … he already thinks Mr. Green is a friend. If I say we should trust him and go along with whatever he says, Burke will be happy to. We’d be safe …
She shook her head, even though there wasn’t anyone there to see it. Even though she didn’t know what it would involve, she couldn’t take the easy way out.
Easy? When has anything at Oakhurst been easy?
It was late afternoon. The kids with magic were doing their magic practice. She … was doing her homework. She stared down at the pile of books and papers on the table, remembering when the most horrible thing in her life had been homework. Now homework was practically a vacation.
Was it just three months ago the five of them had been huddled around this exact table trying to figure out a way to destroy the Wild Hunt? She remembered how scared she’d been. How hopeless it had seemed. She’d never imagined she’d look back on those days with longing, but even as scared as she’d been then, she’d still believed it was possible to win.…
And now she knew they couldn’t. Muirin was right. Addie was right. They had two choices: die, or give in to what the Shadow Knights wanted—and live.
Despite herself, Spirit began to cry. She would have gone back to her room, but she’d have to go through the halls and the Entry Hall to get there, and everyone would see her. She buried her face in her hands and did her best not to make any noise.
“You’re far too young to be weeping in corners, Miss White.”
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