Page 54 of Faerie Gift

Did this mean I had to get him something in return? “I might have overreacted a little,” I admitted.

“Justa little?”

I chuckled. “Okay, I said some nasty things too. I hated fighting with you.”

A tiny hint of my magic ignited inside of me the longer he stared and my heart ticked faster. Like a spark bursting to life.

“Let’s both promise not to do it again.”

Yes, absolutely. “That’s an easy one to make. Yes, I promise. I’m sorry too.” I hugged the sneakers against my chest, warmth spreading out from the area. “So tell me what I missed while I was sleeping. Anything exciting?”

“How long have you been here?”

I grimaced. “Since Wednesday.”

Mike’s frown deepened, and he averted his gaze. I knew something was wrong. “Well…”

“Oh, just tell me,” I said. My fingers pressed into the shoe box. “I know that look. Something bad? Something shocking?”

“Well, Thursday night, a student turned up dead and half-eaten outside the school.” He leaned away as though disgusted with what he’d just said, then grimaced. “I’m sorry, I know it’s gross, and there’s no good way to tell you.”

The news was like a sonic boom straight through my system.

Thursday night. The same night I had found those two boys in the hall trying to break into the exchange students’ rooms.

Holy shit. I’d been in the right place at the wrong time.

“Tavi, are you okay? You’re white as a ghost!”

I didn’t hear Mike through the ringing in my ears. The latest dead body could have been mine.

18

Ijust couldn’t figure out how, but it was all connected. Wasn’t it? Otherwise it would be one hell of a huge coincidence, and I didn’t believe in coincidences.

The Augundae Imperium and the shifters were both intimately intertwined.

Whether I had brought the wolves to the school or not didn’t matter at this point. They were here, and after the Augundae Imperium, or me. Or both.

Saturday afternoon I was well enough to move back to the dorm, but I didn’t get to work right away. Instead, after a long shower I took a trip to Melia’s room and the two of us chatted for the longest time before I turned to my homework.

I didn’t ask for her help, not wanting to burden her, though it took me hours to get through the literal stack of papers from my professors. My only saving grace was that Professor Marsh hadn’t assigned anything for me in Divination. I didn’t want to think she’d played the favorite card…yeah, I did.

She had, however, included a note to see her in her office, and when I went, we ended up talking for a long time. Our chat left me much more confident about going forward after my absence.

But I didn’t tell anyone about theothernote I’d found in my underwear drawer once I’d finished my shower. From Barbara.

Hurry the hell up, Tavi. Or else.

The “or else” worried me more than anything. It left a lot of room open for interpretation, and part of me wondered if she had some worse ideas in mind than just exposing me.

I shoved my dinner down quickly and crawled into bed before Persephone got back to the room. I didn’t want to look at her face.

But by midnight, after listening to the muffled sounds of half a dozen sleeping girls, I climbed down my ladder and slipped on my old sneakers.

Homework done, check. Shower and food, check. Catching a killer? Still a big blank. Finding the Augundae Imperium? Also blank.

I turned on the landing outside of my door and took the flight of stairs up, ending on a stone floor landing, with another empty, open hallway like all the others in this place. Punctuated by periodic glowing lanterns kept alive by magic, the upper floors of the castle were a maze of these kinds of claustrophobic corridors. Downstairs most of the halls angled toward the huge open entrance chamber filled with windows, like spokes moving out from the center of a wheel. Not the case up here.

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