Page 44 of Faerie Marked

I felt an invisible blanket of haze and heat fall over me, a dulling of my shifter senses until my inner wolf sank down with a low growl.

Damn garlic.

Who put garlic in sausage gravy, anyway? I hadn’t been thinking about the possibility. I hadn’t been thinking about anything besides the body we’d found. I was going to have to be much more careful in the future.

* * *

My first class of the afternoon began at one, giving me enough time to compose myself before I sat at what had become my usual desk. I struggled to focus and make a good impression when I couldn’t seem to get my brain on the right track.

A dead half-Fae boy.

A contender for top of the class.

No apparent motive. No real leads.

I couldn’t make sense of the text in front of me. The teacher’s voice had become a blur of syllables and none of them were clear. Part of me wondered if things like this happened often and the school just pushed it under the rug…or if my being here had something to do with his death.

No, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me. I didn’t even know the boy. No one here knew about my wolf side. The potion made sure of it. Besides, if they did, they would come after me, not anyone else.

A knock on the door interrupted the lecturing professor and she stopped, magic fluttering around her fingertips. “May I help you, Ma’am?”

I didn’t recognize the woman at the door, although her face was vaguely familiar to me. “I need to see Miss Alderidge, Mr. Meuller, and Miss Elspeth, please.”

I stood slowly along with two others and we shared a look. They’d been outside with me last night playing Capture the Scroll when we found the student in the tree. My heart dropped to the bottom of my feet. The headmaster had spoken to all of us. Now it was the police’s turn.

The three of us followed the office assistant over to a private room just off the headmaster’s quarters. I recognized his title on the nameplate outside the door. We were told to sit, trying not to stare at each other as we were urged into the office one by one by a man with a shiny pewter badge pinned to his jacket lapel.

The human inspector the school had called in. It made sense, I told myself, for him to talk to us as well. He was doing his job and trying to get a sense of what had happened last night. It didn’t lessen my terror.

I tried to wait my turn while my insides churned and the rest of me felt hot and itchy. The two others were called in first, their interviews lasting less than fifteen minutes total before they walked out past me with pale faces and gazes averted. Soon I waited alone.

And couldn’t help but overhear the low murmur of voices coming from the other room.

“I refuse to allow a werewolf into my school.Tell the force to send someone else.”

My spine went iron-straight and I nearly fell out of my chair at the words.

A werewolf. Had they somehow figured out my secret?

Had Nurse Julie really seen something weeks ago when she’d scrutinized me with the knowing look in her eyes?

Oh no…

“I might be a werewolf but I work for the human world.Do you want humans to know about your magic school by revealing my true nature to them and asking someone else to take the case?Because I’m the best on the task force and the only one truly equipped to deal with your little problem here.”

My eyes widened as I figured it out at last. They weren’t talking about me. Whoever Headmaster Leaves argued with, they still hadn’t found me out. I glanced left and right, making sure there was no one else in the room with me. Then crept forward and pressed my ear against the door to hear better.

“I’m simply not comfortable letting someone like you handle the case. You’ll pardon me if I have a little hesitation to move forward with this investigation,” the headmaster stated. I heard his fingers drum against the desktop as he sighed.

Fabric rustled. “If neither of us says a word, then your kind and my kind remain hidden. Safely. But you have to let me do my job without question. You can’t follow along behind me or sit in on my interviews. You certainly cannot speak to my superiors at the station about having me removed.”

“Without question?” Headmaster Leaves squawked. “You’re asking a lot, Wilson.”

Someone growled, the sound ending on a groan. “I’m asking for theminimumyou would afford a detective of any other kind. Stay out of my way and I’ll find your killer. End of story. Do you understand?”

The headmaster didn’t like the other man’s closing statement, if his indignant sputter was an indication of his feelings.

The door swung open and I scrambled back, nearly making it to the chair in time before Leaves and the detective strode forward. Thewerewolfdetective, I told myself, schooling my face into a semblance of nonchalance even as my heart raced. Headmaster Leaves didn’t even look at me on his way out the door, his teeth clenched and a muscle twitching in his jaw. Apparently, he’d been booted from his office for this.

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