Page 30 of Faerie Gift

“How can you be sure?” I pressed. One hand lay against my stomach and I felt it rumbling, partially out of hunger but more from anxiety.

Marsh stared down her nose at me. “Hon, the teachers at the academy care about our students. None of us wants to see anyone fail, regardless of our personal feelings. I’ve known Hoarfrost for a very long time. We’ve both been at the school longer than most of the other faculty members. He can be an asshole, truly—and don’t you repeat awordof this—but I have never known him to carry a grudge for a student all the way to graduation. If he has, it has never resulted in an expulsion.” She leaned back into her chair and crossed one slender leg over the other, folding her hands on her lap. The picture of sophisticated poise. “Do you trust me?”

I swallowed. “Yes, I trust you.”

“Then keep your head down in his class, do what he tells you, and the issue should pass by next term. He’ll find another victim and you will be off the hook. Luckily you won’t have to deal with him for much longer.”

I didn’t agree with her but I could appreciate the pep talk.

Professor Marsh and I chatted for a moment longer before I had to run, already late for my next class. To make up for the tardiness, she wrote me a note to give to my professor and sent me on my way with a final encouraging yet brusque word.

It felt good to get my nervousness over Hoarfrost off my chest to someone other than Melia. If there were any teachers I could trust, I counted Marsh among them.

The halls were emptier than usual thanks to class having already started. I urged my feet to hurry, listening to the echo off the walls. Man, things didn’t even look this desolate after curfew at night, and there were plenty of times I’d aimlessly roamed the halls after hours or when I couldn’t sleep.

I wouldn’t do that anymore, I told myself. I’d stick to looking for the artifact for Barbara and nothing else. A few spells, a trip to the exchange student housing, and done. Then at least I would have one less worry on my plate.

The smell hit me suddenly and stopped me in my tracks. The smell of something dead or dying. I knew that smell intimately, having run with the rest of my pack in the woods to hunt deer. Nostrils widening, I drew in a deep breath and nearly gagged.

This wasn’t deer. I didn’t need to see it to know it.

Turning the corner, my stomach rose into my throat and I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from throwing up. The body was leaned against the wall. Except for an arm splattered in the middle of the hall. And a leg a few more feet down.

It was the same chaperone from the library the other day. The one who’d warned her exchange students not to talk to us at the academy. Not to get close.

And she’d been torn to pieces.

11

Another dead body.

And I once again found myself sitting in a small room off of the headmaster’s office faced with my favorite werewolf detective and his habitual stony expression. Because why? I had a habit of being first on the scene.

Detective Wilson stared at me, a muscle near his eye twitching. Today he wore a corduroy jacket with fake sheep’s wool around the collar and his badge pinned to the outside pocket. His brown hair—disheveled in a way I knew: he’d been up all night—refused to be tamed and fell down past his ears. Sharp eyes took me in, judged me, and without his having to speak I already knew he wasn’t happy to be here with me. Again.

The feeling was mutual.

“We really have to stop meeting under these circumstances, Miss Alderidge. You sure do have a propensity for stumbling into crime scenes. Maybe I should hire you,” he said flatly. “At least you know enough to leave the evidence alone.”

His poor attempt at teasing didn’t work. I sat there with my knee bobbing, worrying my lower lip and wondering if I’d ever get used to the things I faced in life. Probably not. And did I really want to?

No.

“I’m sorry. You know if there were any other choice, I wouldn’t be here.” At least I had the benefit of working with someone I’d met before. Not only met, but spoken to, planned with. Shared secrets with. “I found the body by accident.”

“I’m sure you did. You already know how this works,” Detective Wilson said when I failed to answer to his joking. “Take me through the night and don’t leave out a single detail. I need to know everything.” Flipping a notepad and pen out of his jacket pocket, he set both on the table between us and stared at me some more. Waiting.

He prompted me through a cursory interview to get the basic details he needed. Then it was up to me to fill in the little details that might turn out to be clues. I tried to remember everything about the crime scene. My mind flashed back to the blood. The blood and the pieces of slashed body parts strewn around the hallway.

I hadn’t met the chaperone personally, but seeing the way her eyes stared at nothing, the way her mouth gaped open, frozen in a silent scream of terror… Her hands had still been clenched at her sides when I found her. Well, one of them had, at least. The other had been thrown across the space, not far from where her left leg had been flung, and her right leg was missing. No clue where it was.

The recollected images shook me to my core.

“Look,” Wilson said when I finished. Then placed his hands flat on the desk, and when I glanced up into his eyes, I caught a flash of gold. His wolf was close to the surface. Seeking out every point those sharp senses could in the short amount of time we had together. “We both know you didn’t do this, Tavi. I understand your situation at the school is…delicate…and all you want to do is get through your schooling and get the hell into Faerie without looking back.”

“You’re right,” I said. My knee continued to bob.

Wilson shook his head and sighed, letting his lips audibly ripple on the exhale. “You need to keep your nose out of trouble. You can’t keep stumbling into these, pardon my French, fucking fiascos and expect to walk away without an issue.”

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