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Thanks, Arabella. I’m sofuckingthankful.
I slam a book into the shelf harder than I intend, scowling at it. My deepest apologies toThe Women’s Guide to Conception and Fertility.
Dr. Moncrieff’s eyes linger on me. “I don’t agree with the things they do here on Hallowe’en.” He pauses. “Or is it Samhain? Maybe their gods will smite me for that slip-up.”
I look at him in surprise. “You weren’t there?” I’d assumed all the staff were.
“No, I had business to attend to.” He runs his hand through his sandy hair. “And besides, it’s all nonsense anyway. Risking a student’s neck for some ancient practice. It’s barbaric. You wouldn’t believe we were in the twenty-first century.”
Dr. Moncrieff has always struck me as a rational, enlightened man of science and academia. But I can’t deny my healed leg. I can’t deny the things I saw in the forest.
And maybe speaking them aloud will bring them further to life.
“I saw things.”
Dr. Moncrieff keeps his gaze on me. His sharp eyes narrow. “I thought the ritual wasn’t completed?”
I stare at him. He suddenly sounds a whole lot more interested in that night now that I’ve started talking about it.
“What does it matter?” I ask cagily, meeting his curious gaze full-on.
What reason does he have to be curious in the first place? What reason, whenit’s all nonsense anyway?
“No reason. Literally, thereisno reason to it. It’s all purely irrational, superstitious nonsense. But…”
I tilt my head to the side. “But?”
“In all my years of study, I’m not unaware of the power of rituals and how much blind faith the establishment places in them. Westminster itself functions using centuries-old traditions and political voodoo. It doesn’t mean I necessarily believe in rituals having any kind of higher power — I don’t. But it’s one of those irritating things where there is no evidence to the contrary because there cannot be. So consider my interest merely academic.”
My mouth twists. “Tell me what they believe the ritual does and I’ll tell you what I saw.”Well, some of it.
Dr. Moncrieff drums his fingers against the bookshelf, like he doesn’t want to enter into this little bargain. But nevertheless, he nods.
I wait on bated breath.
“They believe… that Hallowe’en is the time when the two realms are at their closest points. They use the fear of a student to appease the spirits, and the spirits work on aligning their powers. The spirits are seers — they can see the whole world — and the ritual is supposed to imbue a willing vessel with that same power for the duration of the ritual. When the ritual is successfully completed, everyone who’s ever been blessed enough to attend Lochkelvin — including all her alumni — will be stronger and more powerful for the rest of the year.” His mouth twitches at the edges. “Not that I believe in it, obviously—”
“I saw dead animals.”
Dr. Moncrieff stares at me. “Deadanimals?”
I say nothing for a while, scanning the shelves for a certain book.
“That’s an omen right there. What sort of animals? Big animals? Small? British? Scottish? Did they correspond to costumes any of the students wore?”
I don’t answer any of his questions.It’s all nonsense, my ass. The one man I considered smart enough to be beyond all this is foaming at the mouth for answers just like the rest of them.
But he’s the only teacher I like here. The only man I trust. And so I flip open a copy ofA Comprehensive Guide to the Lineage of the House of Milton, and thrust it in front of his hungry eyes.
“Theseanimals,” I say. “I saw these animals.”
Dr. Moncrieff takes the tome and gazes down at the picture it shows. It’s a large annotated crest, the crest Luke had been talking about before the ritual had started. It’s one of the few details of the night pre-ritual that stuck with me, mainly because I remember how out of it I’d been to sneer at Luke right after.
On the crest, a soft brown rabbit and a red dove are on opposite sides. A gleaming gold crown is perched on top of a pillar, the rabbit pawing at the pillar, the dove flapping up to it.
“I always thought it was amusing their crest featured a rabbit. I suppose it’s where the Royals get their breeding tips from.”
There’s something about the harshness of this remark that should surprise me.
