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At the last round table, dozens of gremlin eyes had intently captured my every move, even as I’d barely spoken, so with an unhappy twist of my lips I decide against wearing my cozy flannel pajamas and remain in my heavy, slept-in Lochkelvin uniform. At one o’clock, however, when I descend to the library in the castle darkness, tiptoeing past whatever cloaked staff member is on duty long after curfew, my heart gives a pleasant thrum as I find only the chiefs. They’re gathered around the table, positioned at the very back of the library, a small candle illuminating three tired but determined faces, and each of them wears soft cotton pajamas.
“You’re dressed for the part of policy adviser better than us, little saint,” Rory observes with wry affection, watching as I sit across from him and smooth out my plaid skirt. With a more serious expression, he nods at my arms. I reach out to him across the table, showing them, and he gently turns over my hands to inspect the red grooves marking my skin. In a vicious voice, Rory mutters, “Thatcow.”
“So that’s all of us been physically assaulted in school by our teachers,” Danny says quietly. “Maybe the authorities would be interested in this.”
“You’ve been…?”
He raises his wrists despondently. His hands, if anything, are redder than mine.
And I ache for him, because if any of this is unnecessary and cruel, it’s to Danny, for whom this punishment must function as a trigger, a reminder of the bullshit he’s been put through by his dad. “They know I’m one of you now,” he explains, examining the angry stripes across his wrists. “That seems to be all that’s required.”
“Whit happened tae the ritual?” Finlay fires at Rory. “I thought that shite was meant tae protect us. That’s whit ye said a’ last year, on and on—”
“The unicorn’s gone,” Rory says quietly, and to everyone else around the table, this sounds like a bizarre non-sequitur.
Indeed, Finlay stares at him and asks, “Whit?”
But Rory’s words bring to mind last year, after the mass brawl in the hallway, when the gremlins had been deployed against Callum Wells and his gang, when Li had booted the shit out of me, and me somehow, without even thinking, as if something else had taken control of my body, managing to retaliate. I remember Rory later telling me about that statue, implying secret powers embedded within it.Lochkelvin stone. He’d been cagey, guarded. But I remember coming away thinking that the golden statue of the lion and the unicorn, the one I’d been punished to scour on my very first day of term, was in some way more important, more functional, than mere decorative art.
And unlike Finlay, who’s never believed in magic, I’ve seen rainbow-colored stones bouncing off flowing crystal water. I’ve seen faces in trees and witnessed a prince’s thoughts being captured by unreal darkness. I’ve seen silver rain refusing to fall, and I’ve lifted a boulder twice my size without any effort at all.
I’ve seen the foreboding sight of tall standing stones on an island very few know about.
I’ve heard Rory tell me, quite sincerely, that there is magic in this world, on Lochkelvin lands, and for all my natural doubt and skepticism, God help me but I believe him now.
But Finlay is incessant in his rage. “I didnae know whit shite ye’re chattin’, but everythin’ here isfucked. Whit do we dae?”
“We lower our voices for a start,” Rory growls, keeping his deliberately muted, as though teachers are prowling the library unseen. “It’s late enough that they won’t expect this, butanyonecould come in here and find us, and from the way you’re barking like a bloody seal, you seem towantto bring them here faster.”
Finlay shuts his mouth with a soft clack of teeth, his arms folded and his scowl permanently lining his face.
“I think we should tell everyone what happened to Luke,” I say, keeping my voice down, flicking my gaze at Finlay to check his response.
Finlay exhales heavily, like he doesn’t want to re-live it, but asks Rory, “Have ye heard the speech he gave at New Year?”
Rory nods. “The Antiro station played it in full, with them laughing in the background. Called him a drama queen and an attention-seeker.”
“What did he say?” Danny asks, looking nervous. “I haven’t heard it.”
“It’ll be in the papers we get tomorrow,” Rory says, “but it was Luke giving the kind of speech his mother used to do on Christmas Day, all about his mother’s death, and how he doesn’t even know where she is. Condemned Antiro and her killers. Wants justice.” After a pause, through which I can hear his grieving for Luke, Rory quietly adds, “Said it all much more beautifully and powerfully and with greater dignity than I ever could.”
“I miss him,” Danny murmurs, and Rory nods in understanding.
“It wasn’t just that.” I’m playing with the egg in my blazer pocket, rolling it between my fingers. “There was a…” I can’t find the words. How can I explain the magnitude of what happened that night, the madness of it all?
“He was gonnae be attacked,” Finlay picks up for me gruffly. And between a series of extended pauses, his roughened voice, breaking as though speaking softly is unnatural to him, describes the events of that night. It’s an accurate, honest reflection, although it skips over the weirdness between the three of us in the instant aftermath — but the more I think on that, the more I believe we were each utterly lost and traumatized following the man’s death and our possible demise that we craved the only healing we knew.
Danny and Rory sit in solemn silence, listening to Finlay’s gravelly words. By the end of the account, the small candle catches the wideness of Rory’s silver eyes and lights up the redness of the hands that Danny’s brought to his face.
“We’re screwed,” Danny says softly. “I knew things were bad — but this? This is beyond crazy. How are we — how isLuke— expected to survive?”
“We knew things would escalate,” Rory notes in a pragmatic tone, although even he looks disturbed. “Mack did well. My mother’s apartments were only a stop-gap. I know there were other backup options in case shit hit the fan, so Luke will already be somewhere more secure.”
As I play with the egg, I find myself slowly saying the words, “He should leave the country.” When three pairs of eyes turn to me in shock, I hesitate before expanding, “It’s always going to be like this until Antiro’s destroyed. And after that, then what? It could be something even worse. There’s no guarantee for Luke. Even if he manages to become king, we know there’s a huge faction that’ll automatically reject him. It’d be safer if he left, like Becca did.”
“And gie up the country tae Benji? TaeMunro?” Finlay asks, startled. “That cannae be the answer, sassenach. There must be another way.”
I count the options I envisage on my fingers: “He stays underground for however long — could be years — and is constantly tracked by Antiro and bounty hunters in a never-ending game of cat-and-mouse. He gets the crown and is instantly hated. He leaves for another country and starts a new life.”
