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But then she spotted a familiar face in the crowd up ahead.
Her father.
“Dad?” she called. Once he was close enough, she stopped, taking elbows in the sides and back as students continued to pass her by. “What are you doing here?”
“Quinton is coming for you,” Erasmus hissed, eyes bolted wide with terror. “You have to get out of here.”
“Max and Conrad are out front—”
“You need to get to them,” he panted. “Now.”
“I need to find Dallas and Sabrine.” She wouldn’t leave them. With the spells in the school out, the safest place was Hell’s Gate. A House Hob like Mortifer could keep spell systems in place, even during a magic outage. They had to get there.
“Now, Loren,” Erasmus gritted out. “Your friends are out front.” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the droves of students, toward the staircase that led down to the entrance hall.
There was something off about her father’s speech.
Loren tried to see through the tall windows by the doors as she followed Erasmus down the stairs. There weren’t many students in this area, most of them already in the shelters. “I don’t see them,” she said.
“They’re with Max.”
“You’re not stuttering.” She yanked her arm free.
Slowly, Erasmus turned to face her.
There was a roaring in her ears. Anger coursed like hot lava through her veins. “How long?” she demanded.
He gave a nervous laugh. “How long what, Miss Calla?”
There it was.
“I said how long?”
He reached for her.
She backed away.
“When you came to see me at Agatha’s,” Loren said, her voice low and steady. “Was that when it started? Or was it before?”
Erasmus’s face was a cold mask. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You didn’t want your picture taken.” Because photographs—cameras—didn’t lie. Glamours could not trick them.
“Loren.” Erasmus’s—the stranger’s tone shifted toward urgent. Demanding. Unkind. “We need to hurry.”
“Who are you?” She backed up, her heels striking the steps as she blindly climbed them. She was painfully aware of how little distance stood between her and the stranger—and painfully aware of how far she was from Maximus. From safety.
“It’s me. Your father.”
Those were her father’s clothes, her father’s face, his body.
But this wasn’t her father.
The clothes… Her mind spun as she remembered.
His townhouse had been broken into. That was where it had started.
The deception. The lie.
