Page 6 of Heartless Prince

“Except that one in the eighties they wound up finding in a forest,” Willa chimed in. “But she wasn’t strangled. It was a drug overdose.”

“So no one knows what happened to the rest of them?” Greer said, her eyes widening.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“That’s so creepy. How many missing women are we talking about?”

I frowned, racking my brains. “About four in the sixties, another three in the seventies, also three in the eighties. Not sure about more recent decades.”

“Two in the nineties and another three since then,” Willa said. She was peering down at her cell phone. “I just looked it up. Camille Gorham went missing in 1992, Laura Cecchettini in 1999, Ali Ryan in 2005, Tamika Beck in 2011 and Kylie Burns in 2015. Three of them were Roden students.”

Greer shuddered. “Jeez. That’s actually a lot of missing women for such a small city,” she said. “I mean, the population’s only a hundred thousand, right? That’s tiny compared to places like New York.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t mean there’s a serial killer on campus. With most of them, there was some sort of background that could explain it. Like Kylie Burns. Apparently she had a major coke problem, and her friends were worried she was getting involved in some really shady stuff to pay for the habit. Also, Tamika Beck had pretty serious mental health issues. I know it’s horrible, but those sorts of things are way more likely to have contributed to them vanishing than some creepy old strangler legend.”

“Yeah.” Mellie nodded. “That reminds me. Have you ever heard the other legend about why all these young women go missing? I think it’s way more interesting than the Strangler theory.”

Willa frowned, then nodded emphatically. “Yes! Crown and Dagger!”

I tilted my head to the side. I’d heard that name before, but I couldn’t remember where. “Who or what is that?”

Greer clapped her hands together. “Okay, now that I can answer. A guy at the paper told me about them a few weeks ago. He said he doesn’t know if they actually exist, but they’re supposedly a secret society which recruits right here on campus. Men only. Very clandestine. Lots of shady rumors about them.”

I frowned. I’d heard about a few secret societies here at Roden. They tapped upperclassmen in fall and had weird initiation rituals. Other than that, they were mostly just networking groups for people in similar fields. For example, Book and Quill was known to be a society for writers, and another one called Skull and Key was known to recruit law students.

I’d never heard anyone at Roden talk about Crown and Dagger and who they recruited, though.

“There’s always been a ton of weird stories about them,” Willa said, picking up where Greer left off. “Most of it is just urban legend. I think that would actually make a really good topic for your paper.”

“You’re right. I’m totally locking it in,” I said excitedly. “Is there any proof they actually exist?”

Willa and Mellie exchanged glances. Then Willa leaned forward and spoke in a hushed tone. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but my older brothers and my dad are in it. They were recruited when they were here, and apparently it’s a lifetime membership thing.”

“Me too,” Mellie said, turning slightly pink. “My dad, I mean. He’s a member. My brother isn’t.”

“Why can’t you tell anyone?”

“We’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s all pretty silly, really, but still, my family might get pissed at me,” Willa said. “I can tell you a few things about them, though. They all wear a ring on their right hand with a Star of Ishtar engraved on it. Membership is also very exclusive. Unless you come from a very rich or very old family, you won’t get tapped. Oh, and like Greer said, it’s for men only.”

I briefly glanced over at Elias and his friends. They all wore rings with a star engraved on them. Could they be in Crown and Dagger? Or were they part of some other secret club which also required ornate membership rings?

I looked back at Willa. “What were you saying about the society and the missing girls?”

She waved a hand. “Oh, that’s one of the legends. According to those who believe it, Crown and Dagger kidnapped all those girls. The story came about after they found that dead girl in the forest in the eighties—the one I mentioned earlier. Even though she overdosed on drugs, which was ruled as self-inflicted, she had a crown brand on her lower back. Authorities said it was just a sorority hazing incident that left the mark and closed the case, but people talk, and everyone knows it wasn’t a sorority. Some of them blamed Crown and Dagger.”

“Creepy.”

Greer nodded. “Yup. Also, Crown and Dagger’s motto is apparently Deliciae Dolor, which makes it even creepier. It’s Latin for ‘the delights of pain’.”

Willa rolled her eyes. “That’s just a rumor. My brothers both said it’s bullshit.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They said Crown and Dagger is the same as every other exclusive secret society. Just a bunch of rich guys getting drunk and partying hard.”

Greer frowned. “I dunno. I’ve heard they’re hiding a lot of really shady shit.”

Willa sighed and rubbed her temples. We all knew her well enough by now to know that this meant she was about to deliver a long, critical monologue.

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