Page 13 of All Hallows Game

He blanched. “Absolutely not. Keep me out of it; I have no interest in risking her wrath again. I’m happy to stay off her radar.”

“Lucky for some,” I muttered as Duncan got to his feet, brushing snow off his jeans as if they weren’t completely soaked like my clothes. I became newly aware of the chill, and a tremor shook me.

He strode quickly down the hill but paused, looking back. “Thank you. For sitting with me, for talking about what happened. No one else will speak a single word about her. So… thanks. I don’t feel like I’m going insane anymore.”

“It’s no trouble,” I sighed, my annoyance quickly fading. I didn’t blame him for wanting to stay as far from Nightmare as possible. She made him kill, too, fucked with his head like she did mine. And Miz’s.

“Find Merchant. I didn’t tell you this, but he’s a hacker.”

My heart leapt. I could track the photo, find Virgil. “Thank you.”

Duncan shrugged and turned away, but he left me with that lifeline.

I needed to find Justin Merchant.

I pushed off the snowy hill, wincing at my wet leggings and the soaked hem of my coat, but before I could take a step, my phone let out a shrill melody.

“Tor,” I breathed, ripping my phone from my pocket. But it wasn’t Tor’s name on the screen. It was Ford’s tenacious student counsellor who refused to leave me alone. I’d already ignored four of her calls.

With a sigh, swallowing my disappointment, I answered the call.

CHAPTER TEN

CAT

“Sometimes it’s easier to speak to someone you’re not close to,” Caroline Beaumont the Second said with sympathy that was surprisingly genuine, as opposed to the practised empathy of the three therapists I’d gone through after what happened three years ago.

Not that anyone knew what had happened. Just that I’d had a mental breakdown. School pressure and exam stress, two decided. One said it was the scrutiny of being part of a renowned family constantly in the press, and they weren’t exactly wrong. Being in the press, having my family name splashed over glossy magazines, was the reason I was targeted and blackmailed.

“I have my best friend,” I assured Caroline, walking slowly down the path to Ford. “Honey and I are as close as sisters, and my family have been amazing, too.” A lie. I hadn’t told them what had happened, and clearly neither had Byron’s family. If they even knew at all. Would they come to collect his body when Nightmare’s barricade finally fell? If it ever fell. I didn’t want my parents to worry. I was scared enough for all of us.

“That’s good,” Caroline murmured approvingly. “You need all your family and friends at a time like this.”

People kept saying that. At a time like this. As if they were too afraid to say what had really happened. I couldn’t do that, put a filter between me and what happened the night he died. I remembered it in such sharp detail that ripples of it played through my head constantly. Even now, walking down the winding road towards Ford, I saw Miz’s horrible, frozen expression, his immobile body. Saw the robotic way he moved when he lunged at Byron and drove the knife into his gut.

I swallowed and shook my head hard, focusing on the snowy road. “I’m doing okay,” I lied. “All things considered.”

I wanted to blurt out everything that had happened, wanted to beg and scream for help, but I choked back the words. I wasn’t doing okay. My brother was missing and kidnapped. My best friend was dead. My other best friend was dating someone who’d made it their mission to terrorise me. The men I loved couldn’t stand to even answer my calls. Therapy would have been nice right about now. Fuck Nightmare for muzzling me—with both threats and magic.

“Well, if you change your mind and want to talk through what happened, some people find it healing to revisit an experience.”

What happened. Officially, I’d been looking for Byron when he never showed to the Christmas gala, and I used the Find My Friends function on my phone, followed it across the moors, and found my best friend murdered. Any accusation that might have been placed on me was wiped out by the fact I was found screaming, clutching Byron’s body in my lap. I barely remembered it—the sudden rush of figures and noise, the gentle hands of Professor Poppy easing Byron from my lap, guiding me to my feet and into a hug. I knew it had been long, long minutes until I stopped screaming. Maybe Caroline had even been there; maybe she saw me lose my mind to grief and that was why she was so determined to help.

Maybe she was just good at her job.

“It could help you heal, whenever you’re ready. I’m in the park at the heart of campus if you want to chat. No pressure or expectation, just a casual talk if you need it.”

“You’re in the park?” I said, craning my neck to see her but blocked by the trees ringing the green space. “In this snow?”

“I know,” Caroline laughed, “Very questionable life choices. I’ve been in love with snow since that scene in Beauty and The Beast where Belle wears the red fur cape.”

“I watched that film last week,” I said, my throat closing up when I remembered the way Honey had squashed into my bed with me while the Disney film played on my laptop, her sobs vibrating through my shoulder.

“I know it’s for children, but I’m a firm believer that—”

She cut off so abruptly that I frowned. “Caroline?”

“Oh my god,” she breathed, her voice faint, strained.

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