My heart thudded so fiercely, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could hear it. It took me a moment to ask him. “How much not like them?”
When Jason looked up at me again, the color of his eyes had shifted to green and then to a silvered yellow, like those of a cat caught in the light. And there was something wolfish in his expression.
“Enough,” he said, and I’d swear his voice was thicker, deeper. “Different enough.”
He turned to go.
My heart didn’t stop pounding until the door closed behind him.
The room was quiet after the triplets left, at least for a few minutes. The doctor finally visited and looked me over, and reached the same conclusion that had been passed along earlier—I was fine. Notably, he didn’t ask me what threat sent me from an all-girls’ private school to a hospital.
Whatever he knew, I had hours yet to kill in the hospital. For the first ten minutes, I flipped my cell phone over and over in my hand, trying to gather up the nerve to call Ashley. But she was probably still in class and, besides, what was I going to tell her? That I’d met some magical weirdos who’d managed to rope me into their shenanigans? I wasn’t crazy about the idea of that conversation, or how I was going to explain it without sounding completely loopy—so I put the phone down again and glanced around the room. Since no one had brought me homework—and I wasn’t about to ask for any—I turned on the television bolted to the wall, settled back into the bed, and had just started watching a reality show about bored, rich housewives when there was a knock at the door.
I had no idea who else would visit—other than brat packers hoping to gloat about their victory —but I pointed the remote at the television and turned it off.
“Come in,” I said.
The door opened and closed, followed by the sound of heels clacking on the tile floor. Foley appeared from around the corner, hands clasped before her, a tidy, pale suit on her slender frame,
ash-blond hair tidy at her shoulders. Her expression was all business.
“Ms. Parker.” Foley walked to the window, pushed aside a couple of the slats in the blinds, and glanced out at the city. “How are you feeling?”
“Good, considering.”
“You lost consciousness,” she said. Said, not asked.
“That’s what I hear.”
“Yes, well. I trust, Ms. Parker, that you understand the importance of our institution’s reputation, and of the value of discretion. We, of course, do not wish to elicit untoward attention regarding the hijinks of our students. It would not serve St. Sophia’s, nor its students or alumnae,
for the community or the press to believe that our institution is not a safe place for its students.”
I don’t know what she knew about what went on—or what she thought went on—but she was certainly keen on keeping it quiet.
“I also trust that you understand well enough the importance of caring for your physical well-
being, and that you will take sufficient care to ensure that you do not lose consciousness again.”
That made me sit up a little straighter. What did she think—that I was starving myself and I’d passed out for lack of food? If only she’d seen the private moment I shared with the pudding cup earlier.
“I take care of myself,” I assured her.
“All evidence to the contrary.”
Okay, honestly, there was a tiny part of me that wanted to rat on Scout, Jason, Michael, and the rest of the Adepts, or at least on the brat packers who threw me into harm’s way. It would have been satisfying to wipe that smug expression from Foley’s face, and replace it with something a bit more sympathetic.
There were two problems with that theory.
First, I wasn’t entirely sure Foley was capable of sympathy.
Second, I had to be honest. I hadn’t gone downstairs because Veronica and the rest of her cronies had forced me. And I’d made my way down the other hallway—and into the Reapers’ path—because I’d decided to play junior explorer. I’d been curious, and I’d walked that plank willingly.
Besides, I could have walked away from all of it earlier. I could have stepped aside, told Jason,
Michael, and Scout that I didn’t want to be included in their magical mystery tour, and let them handle their Reaper problems on their own. But I’d invited their trust by asking them to fill me in, and I wasn’t about to betray it.
So this time, I’d take one for the team. But Scoutso owed me.
“You’re right,” I told her. Her eyes instantaneously widened, as if she were surprised a teenager would agree with her orders. “It’s been a stressful week.” Total truth. “I should take better care of myself.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “That’s a surprisingly mature attitude.”
“I’m surprisingly mature.” It wasn’t that I wanted to snark back to the principal of my high school, the head honcho (honchess?) of the place I lived, slept, ate, and learned. But her attitude,
her assumption that I was here because I lacked some fundamental ability to keep myself safe,
practically begged for snark.
On the other hand, since I’d made the decision to move deeper into the convent instead of heading back to my room, maybe I did.
Foley lifted her brows, and her expression made her thoughts on my snark pretty clear. “Ms.
Parker, we take the well-being of our students and the reputation of our institution very seriously.”
Given what was going on beneath her institution, I wondered about that. But I managed to keep my mouth shut.
“I expect you’ll return to St. Sophia’s tomorrow?”
“That’s what they say.”
Foley nodded. “Very well. I’ve asked Ms. Green to gather your assignments. Given that tomorrow’s Saturday, you’ll have some time to complete them before classes resume. I’ll arrange for a car to transport you back to St. Sophia’s. If you require anything before your return,
you may contact our staff.”
I nodded. Her work apparently done, she walked toward the door. But then she glanced back.
“About our conversation,” she said, “perhaps I was . . . ill informed about your parents’ professions.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the about-face. “Ill informed?”
“I recognize that you, of course, would know better than I the nature of your parents’ work.”
She glanced down at her watch. “I need to return to the school. Enjoy your evening.”
My mind began to race, but I managed to bob my head as she disappeared around the corner,
then opened and closed the door again.
I stared down at the remote control in my hand for a minute after she’d left, flipping it through my fingers as I ruminated.
It was weird enough that she’d dropped by in the first place—I mean, how many high school principals visited their students in the hospital? She clearly had her own theories about what had happened to me—namely, that it was my fault. I guess she wanted to cover her bases, make sure I wasn’t going to spill to the media or call a lawyer about my “accident.”
But then, out of the blue, she brought up my parents and changed her story? And even weirder,
