I was shaking my head before he finished speaking. “If you’d spoken to those girls, you wouldknowtheir sincerity! They’ve all fought to teach themselves magic over the years, working in secret and in spite of every prohibition. They are ecstatic at the thought of finally learning more! I know what that joy sounds like, Wrexham. I believe them.”
“Andmystaff,” said Miss Birch, “haven’t left their own quarters since lights-out over an hour ago. You can be quite sure of that, I assure you, sir!”
“Those drops of blood can’t be more than an hour old,” said Wrexham, “so I’ll accept that they couldn’t have been left by any staff members, if they’ve all been in their quarters this whole time. But Harwood...”
He sighed as he looked across at me. “I know you see yourself in these girls. But don’t forget: every girl in Angland for centuries has been raised to aspire to the Boudiccate, not to the Great Library—no matter what her own natural abilities might be. So, if anyone in the Boudiccate wished to insert a trusted spy within your ranks—”
“I don’t believe it.” Miss Banks sat stiffly upright, her fair brows knotted and all signs of her earlier embarrassment gone. “We all gathered together in our common room tonight after Miss Harwood’s talk. There was no one amongst us who wasn’t desperate to be here—andfor this school to succeed. I could swear to it!”
“When you met Miss Fennell for your rendezvous,” said Wrexham, “did you come here directly from that meeting?”
She nodded. “I told the others that I wanted a walk on my own before bed.”
“Then the two of you must have arrived just after the summoning had finished, because that blood was still wet when you brought us here. Were you the first to leave that gathering of students tonight?”
“I think...oh.” Her shoulders slumped. “No,” she said. “Two other girls left before me—Miss Stewart and Miss Hammersley. But I’m certain neither of them would have done this. They’re too happy to be here—and too eager for our proper classes to start. Miss Hammersley hasn’t even managed to hunt down any decent spellbooks back home, and Miss Stewart is frantic to start her real work at weather-wizardry. She couldn’t stop talking about how fortunate we are to have Mr. Luton here!”
“Mm,” I said, and hoped that my neutral syllable covered Miss Birch’s derisive sniff. “So, seven of my nine students have alibis already. I’m sure we’ll rule out the other two soon enough.”
“It would be interesting,” Wrexham said, closing the book in his lap and setting it aside on a low table, “to find out exactly how much research either of those two students had done on fey lore before they came here. You might try to find that out when you question them tomorrow, Harwood.”
Questionthem? I rolled my shoulders irritably. “They’re hardly criminals,” I said. “They’re mystudents.Of course I’ll talk with them, but you know as well as I that neither of them is the most likely suspect. For that, we are looking at the people who came herespecificallywith the purpose of shutting down my school. What could possibly serve them better than to summon a fey to cause mischief now, in the midst of our inspection?”
“It wasn’t Caroline!” Miss Banks shot upright, her cheeks flushing. “Pleasedon’t even think to suggest such a thing! She was every bit as shocked as I was to find that awful altar. And actually”—she brightened, giving me a triumphant look—“shewas the one who said I should run and get you as quickly as possible, even though it meant giving up all of our private time together.Andshe needs this school to succeed for her sake, too!”
Oh, young love.With an effort, I withheld a weary eye-roll. “I was not,” I said, “referring to your fiancée, Miss Banks. I was thinking, instead, of the woman who is doing her best to blackmail your fiancée as we speak. Annabel Renwick has no conscience whatsoever, and she’s every bit as malicious as any fey, so—oh.” I cringed, turning back to my housekeeper. “I do beg your pardon—”
“Thatkind of creature,” said Miss Birch, pointing at the windowsill, “ismalicious, and there’s no doubting it. But if you have any opinions you’d care to share now on peaceful, law-abiding fey, who hold to the old agreements and want nothing more than—”
“I don’t!” I said fervently. “I truly do not. My tongue ran away with me, but that is no excuse. I was unforgivably rude, and I sincerely apologize. I’ll owe you even more apologies later, when we have time, if you’d like—”
“No, thank you,” said my housekeeper drily. “The one’s enough, if you mean it—andif you don’t say it again.”
“I won’t. I promise you.” I swallowed down bitter regret.
What I’d said so thoughtlessly a moment ago was just the sort of line I’d heard tossed around in neighborhood social gatherings a hundred times as I’d grown up, surrounded by humans, with the fey known only through warning stories from our woods. Their official ambassadress had been an annual, exotic visitor at Mother’s Spring Equinox ball, but she’d been far too distant, glittering and intimidating to quash any local fears.
Still, I knew better, by now, than to repeat any such prejudicial nonsense myself. It had been nearly thirty years since the first fey-human marriage had been legally recognized. For all that matches like the one between Miss Birch’s parents were still viewed by closed-minded people as shocking, they were hardly unheard-of anymore. Besides, there were more different types of fey than any other creature in the nation. It was horrendously unfair to tar them all with the same brush, and I never would have done so if I had been thinking at full capacity.
Exhaustion was catching up with me after nine nearly sleepless nights, making me start to slip in far too many ways—and it was exactly what I could least afford with so many unfriendly eyes judging my new school.
I tipped my head forward, letting my own eyes fall closed as I rubbed at my forehead with my fingertips, trying to massage away the growing ache of tiredness and gnawing anxiety.
I still had to come up with a new lesson plan for tomorrow, somehow, amidst all this chaos...if, that was, we actually managed tohavea lesson, and that mysterious fey bargain didn’t scuttle everything beforehand.
“If any politician was discovered to have entered into a blood-bargain with a fey against a fellow human,” said Wrexham, “she wouldn’t only lose her career, she might well face a prison sentence, no matter how high her standing might be. Do you think Mrs. Renwick truly cares so much about your school, to risk such a dire fate for herself?”
“It would certainly explain why she was poking around in here,” I muttered. My eyes were still closed, and a faint buzz sounded, high and distracting, in my ears as the room began to gently sway around me. “If she left in a hurry when she heard Miss Banks and Miss Fennell coming, then tried to come back to collect the evidence... Did anyone happen to recognize that silver ring on the altar?”
“I didn’tseeanyone wearing it today,” said Miss Banks doubtfully, “although it is so plain, perhaps I could have overlooked it.”
“It means something important tosomeone,” I said, without opening my eyes. “Otherwise, it could never have been used to seal a blood-bargain.” Such bargains might have been forbidden for centuries, but the whispered stories of their dangers—and their rules—had been passed through every new generation in this southern part of Angland. A lesser bargain might have been agreed upon for a mere trinket, but a blood-bargain demanded a true sacrifice...and not in monetary terms.
If it meant so much to our attacker on an emotional level, though, why hadn’t she been wearing it earlier today? I might not trust my own observational skills when it came to fashion, but as neither Miss Banks nor Miss Birch had noticed it either, I could be fairly certain it hadn’t been visible on any lady’s finger.
In the morning, I would have to ask Amy if she had glimpsed the ring herself—but the mere thought of waking her now to ask that question made me cringe. Self-absorbed though I might be, even I knew better than to rouse a nursing mother who almost never managed real sleep anymore.
As Mr. Westgate had pointed out, I’d dragged Amy into more than enough of my troubles already.
