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“I won’t.”

The tip of the sword lifted my chin. I was forced to meet those eyes of wrath and Dark magic. He forged me. I owed him everything. “If you do?”

“May my life be forfeit. I tie my soul to hers.”

May her pain be my pain.

May her suffering be my punishment.

And should she die, bury me breathing in the ground beside her.

Chapter Twenty-Two

There is no poetry for this.

Friends, classmates, people I’ve known since childhood, now gone. Some were always going to die. Some were always going to turn. But not Poppy. As I sprint down the hall, my cohort around me, the emotion that I’ve barely kept in check for the past several hours surges through me. It isn’t terror. It is sheer fury.

None of this was necessary. Not a single death. I’ll destroy the Dark for this. I’ll dedicate every moment of my life to toppling both the hypocrisy of the royals and the wickedness of Imaelhain.

People. War always forgets people. Two regimes, both claiming moral high ground, chose to make a school their battleground. But Gossemort is my home, and I’ll make them regret it.

We put distance between us and Poppy, finally stopping at the top of a set of stairs on the main floor. There is a statue of Saint Reginald, his head held on a platter in his own hand, and we hide behind him to regroup. The moment we stop, Hugo slumps against the wall and buckles to the floor.

I am glad of my broken heart.

In moments like this, I can separate myself. My best friend is locked behind bars, mutated into something monstrous, and though the pain of that is sharp, I tuck it away and let the stoic calm cover me. I will endure. To hold up the others when they cannot handle it, I will endure this night.

Lonan sweeps the hair back from his head and takes a deep breath. “All right. I agree with Vesper’s judgment. We need to find the headmaster, if he can be found.”

“Agreed,” Orla says.

“We should split,” Ollinde says. “We’ll find him or any of the other teachers more quickly.”

Orla nods. “And if we’re attacked by a siphon, we won’t all be at risk.”

Apprehension prickles the back of my neck. “We just found each other.” I don’t want to let any of them out of my sight.

“Thoughts, Larose?” Lonan asks Hugo. It’s an olive branch after the threats they just exchanged.

But Hugo stares listlessly at the heels of Saint Reginald. He merely shrugs in response. I drop to a crouch and wrap an arm around his shoulders, pulling him tight. He buries his face against my hair, and his shoulders shake from sobs.

Lonan rests the tip of his sword on the ground, folding his hands over the hilt. “We’re all tired. We’re all afraid. But the morning will come, and then it will be time to rest and grieve and vindicate. For now, our only job is to survive this.” He kneels down beside Hugo and puts a hand on his shoulder. Hugo lifts his head. His eyes are red-rimmed. He looks ready to give up, like he’d rather be back in the dungeons with Poppy than surviving with us.

“Hold on,” Lonan says, meeting Hugo’s eyes. “Just till morning, hold on.”

Hugo swallows and nods, and when Lonan stands, he tells Orla, Ollinde, and Hugo to take the east wing of the school, while he and I take the west in search of the headmaster.

Orla’s mouth forms a thin line, glancing between the two of us. “You think that’s . . . expedient?”

“Galvin will be hunting Vesper. The fewer of us with her, the better,” he says.

“But—”

“It wasn’t a suggestion, Malebranche.” Lonan sheathes his sword, and Orla’s shoulders go rigid.

Then his eyes are off her and on me. “You, Vesper, will not leave my sight for the rest of the night. I know it’s nearly pointless to ask, but for once, resist the urge to be difficult and stay by me. If you don’t, all this is futile.”

I glare at him, thankful at least for a new reason to hold him in contempt. “Yes, captain.”