Betrayals

And what? What the fuck was that? I stared at the space on his cluttered desk where the file had rested. I knew it existed now. I’d seen where my mother died.

He hung her in the tree. Her sweet little voice, saying it like it was nothing when it wasn’t. It wasn’t nothing. It was my mother, and she—

“Have you seen Christophe, Dru?” His jacket creaked as he leaned away from the wall. “I don’t think I have to tell you he’s in deep shit. And it’s getting deeper.”

I was trying to think, but he was making it harder by talking to me. “I want to go to my room.” I sounded about five years old. “Please.”

“All right.” But he just couldn’t let it be. “Dru—”

“Who was supposed to be watching me?” The space where the file had been was a hole in the world, and I wasn’t sure I liked the way the wind was whistling over it. I hate that empty sound, like a storm rasping against the edges of an empty house while you’re waiting for your dad to come home and collect you. That low, impatient moaning. “Who was supposed to take me up to my room when the bell went off? it’s the only time someone hasn’t come to get me.”

“I don’t know, I didn’t get a chance to check the schedule. And now the duty roster’s disappeared.” He moved again, restlessly, leather creaking. I coughed once more, a deep hacking sound. “I was called to greet Anna’s transport. We never receive any warnings for her visits, so—”

“She doesn’t live here?” But I didn’t care. My legs felt like they would work now. Kind of.

Something else he said seemed important, but I couldn’t make my brain work.

“No, she doesn’t.” He stopped short again, and I was getting really tired of the feeling that he wasn’t telling me everything. Or even anything.

I braced myself on the chair, pushed. Failed the first time. Dylan stepped forward like he wanted to help.

I leapt up as if burned, put the chair between us, and stared at him.

“Dru—” He stopped dead. We watched each other over a couple yards of traitorous air. There didn’t seem to be enough of it to breathe, but there was sure enough to press down on me from all sides. Had anyone ever drowned on air?

I sidled toward the door. He kept very still, like he wasn’t sure which way I was going to jump.

The aspect folded over him, retreated, his fangs sliding under his lips.

“I’m on your side,” he said, when I was almost at the door. “I wish—”

“I don’t have a side,” I informed him, found the doorknob with one numb hand and fled. All the halls were empty, and I managed to make it to my room without anything else happening.

It was a completely unexpected gift. I half-expected there to be a fire, or another attack, or some other damn thing.

I locked the door, put my back against it, and held up my hand. It was shaking like a windblown leaf. The room was dead silent, the curtains askew just a little bit, and a square of white paper against the blue of the quilt cover.

Hot and cold swept over me in alternating waves. I set out across the acres of blue carpet. My socks whispered, and could anyone else see the faint marks where Christophe’s wet feet had rested?

Even though I was jolting from the fading adrenaline overload and seriously busted up, I am not stupid. It was too wrong. Two photos of the house I’d lived in before, before Mom died and the world changed, didn’t make a case against Christophe. If the information was so secret and classified, Anna shouldn’t have brought the file out at all. And ordering me around is exactly the wrong way to make me do what you want.

Yeah, I mean, I understand about obeying orders when you’re under fire. That’s totally different.

But Dad hadn’t raised a blindly obedient idiot. I don’t think he was capable of it.

The paper was crisp, heavy, and expensive. The writing was careful copperplate script.

Svetocha, Be careful. Nothing here is what it appears to be.

Meet me at the boathouse.

Your Friend

I collapsed on the bed. If it was a code, the message was lost on me. What the fuck?

And what was someone, maybe Christophe, doing leaving messages on my pillow when vampires were trying to kill me? While Ash, of all people (was people even the right word for a werwulf?) was rescuing me?

Had Ash been trying to rescue me?

My brain finally kicked in, far too late. And now the duty roster’s gone. Which meant whoever was supposed to be watching me had taken it, because they knew I’d be attacked.

Killed. Not just attacked, but killed. Call it what it is, Dru.

I let out a long, shuddering breath. Christophe. Sergej’s son. He was right, someone was trying to kill him. But he wasn’t telling the whole truth either. All these lies, crowding all around me, hemming me in. Dangerous lies.

Deadly lies. What happened tonight could have easily ended with me murdered out in the woods.

I could end up dead tomorrow. In my sleep, even. I shivered, hugging myself for warmth. The room was cold, and it wasn’t mine.

The one person I could have talked to, the one person who could have helped me make sense of this madness, was down in the dorms. I didn’t feel up to going down there. Not now.

I huddled on the bed. Outside, it was night, and the Schola was awake and alive. The not-noise of people living in a space, filling it up with their breathing and heartbeats, quivered in the air. I still felt completely, utterly alone. More alone than I’d ever felt in a house waiting for Dad to come back, and that’s saying something.

CHAPTER 12

The cold front coming down from Canada finally broke two days later. Ice melted, the river became a supple silver snake instead of a flat gray ribbon. Everything turned soggy instead of hard-frozen.

Thundering storms blew in, dumped a load of rain every night, and blew out. The daylight came through a filter of overcast and dry white fog. It was like being in a glass globe, because I only saw the weather through barred windows.

I couldn’t stay cooped up in the room. It was like sitting in a prison cell. So I would go to class.

Classes were a special kind of hell. I’d sit there and think, He lied to me. Or even better, Someone here wants to kill me. It would knock every other thought out of my head, stamp on it a few times, and I’d lose track of everything the teacher was saying. Dibs hung out with me at breakfast and lunch, but he didn’t say much. He had all he could handle just sitting still and sometimes forcing out a hello. The kid’s shyness was just short of terminal.

Nobody else talked to me except Graves. And he hardly talked at all. At least, not about anything important. It was all, We went running through the park this or Shanks took us shopping that or I heard about this guy in sparring, guess what he did? the other.

I made noises, nodded, and tried to look interested. Then the gong would go off inside my head.

He lied to me. Or Someone here wants to kill me. Maybe in this very room. And I would stare off into the distance, because I was afraid to start examining everyone around for signs of murderous intent. It wasn’t like I could even tell how old any of them were. They could have all been ancient and I wouldn’t know, would I?

I don’t know why I felt so betrayed, really. Christophe was part vampire, after all. Like everyone else here who might want me dead.

Like me.

The taint doesn’t wash out. I found out that much in the increasingly useful two-hour span that was history