Page 70 of The Exorcism of Faeries

“How could he know that?”

Atta lifted one shoulder. “Maybe the guard with the torch saw my car or me? Or— I don’t know. But they kicked me out and made me leave my dorm as well. I—” She heaved a great sigh, and Sonder stood.

“Well, you’ll stay here. I have spare rooms and we will figure this all out in the morning.”

“I’m so sorry to put you in this position. If they find out I’m staying here, there could be consequences for you.”

“It would take quite a lot to get rid of me.”

“But you’re a professor, and I’m a student.” She looked down. “Was.”

“Was,” he confirmed and took her teacup, setting it on the tray. “Now you are a woman who needs to crash with a friend.” He took her hands to pull her up. “And we’ll sort it all out to make you a student again.”

He showed her to a room that bordered on lavish but still tasteful, with dark green walls like her dorm room and a huge four-poster in the middle of a plush floral rug. It had its own private lavatory, and Sonder told her it was just down the hall from his room in case she needed anything. He even brought in all her boxes and helped her put some of her clothes away, and then he stole one of her books and made her laugh.

He left for a few minutes and came back with the milk and biscuits. “I’ll get you proper food tomorrow, but promise me you’ll eat at least a little.”

She promised, and he bid her goodnight.

Exhaustion weighed heavily on her mind, body, and soul, and the bed was the most comfortable she’d ever been in. Sonder was right. They’d figure everything out in the morning.

Soon, she was fast asleep, dreaming of faeries and mythical lands of woods and flora, jagged teeth and rotting bones.

Sonder

When he thought Atta might be asleep, he knocked lightly on the door and opened it. She looked like a painting of a Faerie Queen, lying there in that bed surrounded by clouds of duvet and pillows. The very moment he confirmed she was fast asleep, Sonder grabbed his keys.

Rage buzzed under his skin, his headlamps two beams in a dark haze of fury. He didn’t even turn off the car when he pulled up to the stately brick and column place housing a common-faced demon.

Sonder slammed the knocker repeatedly, then pounded his fist against the door when no one answered. He was seconds away from breaking the damned thing down when he finally emerged.

“Sonder?” Finneas Lynch blinked blearily at him from the doorway. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. What are you doing here?”

“Howdareyou expel one of the most brilliant minds Trinity College has ever seen?” he spat through gritted teeth.

Dean Lynch sighed. His hand dropped from the door handle as he stepped outside in his dressing gown to meet Sonder on the footpath. “Is this about Miss Morrow?”

“Of course it is. She’s brilliant, Finneas. This is ridiculous.”

“She was trespassing on private Trinity property in the middle of the night,” he shot back, his face sallow in the porchlight.

“All part of the collegiate experience, wouldn’t you say? How many times have all of us trespassed? Done something stupid during college?” He couldn’t possibly think this excuse would hold.

“Not where there werePlaguecorpses, Sonder.”

He threw his arm out, his voice rising louder. “Maybe she simply wanted a stroll through a graveyard.”

Lynch stared him down. “With a shovel?”

Fuck.

“She wasn’t alone, either.” The dean’s eyes narrowed, his winning hand splayed out between them.

Two could play that fucking game.

“You know damn well this is about that fucking paper she wrote.” Sonder snarled, taking a step forward, meeting the bastard eye-to-eye. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you and your lackeys rifling through my things? You’re fucking scared.”

“I suggest,” Lynch snapped, jowls shaking, “that you leave my property, Dr Murdoch, before I begin to look intowhyyou are so viscerally opposed to the expulsion of thisimbalancedstudent.”

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