Page 92 of Kingmakers, Year Two

Maybe the Spies are rubbing off on me after all.

“I have to know what you’re looking for,” I say. “Or else I won’t know if I can do it.”

Hedeon narrows his eyes at me, suspicious.

I try to maintain my innocent, wide-eyed expression. Like I only want to help him.

“I need access to student records,” he says. “Old records.”

“You think they’re on a server?” I say. “I thought everything at Kingmakers was written by hand.”

I’m thinking of our acceptance letters, our contracts, our assignments, our grades. My impression was that it was all kept on paper so it could be burned or disposed of with no permanent record.

“There’s nothing in the archives,” Hedeon says, frustrated. “The records must be somewhere else.”

I hold my breath, realizing that Hedeon already asked Saul this question. That’s why he was in Saul’s room the day I bumped into him down in the Undercroft—he wanted Saul to check the archives, which Saul has access to as a library aide.

Saul must have told him there were no records down there.

Which means they must be online.

Or stored somewhere else.

“I don’t know if I can even look,” I tell Hedeon. “All our keystrokes are tracked in the computer lab. I’m sure they have some pretty hefty protection against us accessing the school server.”

Hedeon is already turning away, disappointment clear on his handsome face.

It’s that look of anguish that pricks me, turning curiosity into guilt. I do want to help him.

“Wait!” I say, calling him back.

“What?” Hedeon rounds on me, angry as well as discouraged.

“What about the stables?”

He frowns, not understanding me.

“The night of the Halloween party, I was sitting on a stack of boxes and I knocked them over. There were a bunch of papers inside. Old documents. That couch is from the Chancellor’s office, everybody says. Maybe the papers are too?”

Hedeon considers this, lips pressed tight together.

“I’ll look,” he says. And then, as an afterthought, “Thank you.”

“No problem. I hope it helps.”

His face darkens once more and he growls, “Don’t tell anyone about this, Cat. Nobody. Not even Zoe.”

“I won’t,” I say. “I mean, I don’t even know anything.”

Hedeon looks at me closely, then stalks off.

It’s true, I don’t know anything.

But if Hedeon wants old school records . . . then I’m beginning to guess.

16

ZOE

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