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As soon as the door clicks shut behind us, I drop my head in sudden relief. The pain… has vanished. It’s gone, like it had never happened. I’m startled. My breathing comes easier and I finally feel like I can move my limbs freely again. I hadn’t even noticed until now how tense my whole body had become.
Danny rushes over to me, crouching beside my angled leg. “You okay?”
I nod, even though moments ago the pain had been so strong I’d felt beads of sweat running down the nape of my neck.
“I’m fine.” I meet Rory’s eyes, confused. “I don’t know what happened.”
“The castle’s going haywire without the unicorn. No wonder things are going to shit. The world’s unbalanced and we aren’t properly protected. Old wounds are opening up.”
Danny cocks his head to the side, examining both our faces as though this may be an elaborate joke, but he says nothing.
“We need that unicorn back. I won’t have you in pain again.” Briskly, Rory instructs, “Tomorrow, D-boy, talk to Baxter. She won’t listen to me — she never does. But you’re a good student. I bet she won’t bite off your head. Ask her what happened to the unicorn.”
“The unicorn,” Danny echoes, sounding uncertain. “This unicorn… It’s just a statue, right?”
In a neutral voice, Rory answers, “It channels the energies of the ritual to protect Lochkelvin alumni.”
“Right. Of course it does.” Danny doesn’t look like he believes Rory, but I suppose it sounds like the kind of insane ramble from what Rory had demonstrated last year to be a ritual-obsessed mind. Finlay, with some embarrassment, had considered it Rory’s only shortcoming. But I — I’dseenit. I’d seen rain paused mid-fall. I’d seen those ethereal standing stones, silent ancient giants, protectors. Why the others can’t, I don’t know, but their quiet humoring of Rory hurts me in ways different from the throb in my ankle. Rory has never lied; he’s been failingly honest about this, respecting the other chiefs enough to tell them the truth, to the point that the others begin to think worse of him. “A legend or something?”
“Or something,” Rory says tiredly. “Just ask her.”
Danny nods. “I will.”
“Do you think we’ll still have the classroom?” I ask nervously, rubbing my ankle. It’s weird. The pain has disappeared since Arabella left but I can still imagine its grip on me.
“She won’t say anything,” Rory declares with more confidence than I feel. He’s fiddling with the radio again, twisting the volume knob. “If she blabs to Moncrieff, which she won’t be able to resist, then he’ll shut her down. I guarantee it. He thinks he’s some kind of shadowy double agent, and maybe he is. He’ll probably palm her off by saying he’s got us right where he wants, or something equally pathetic.”
Double agent. I hadn’t considered it, but I suppose it does kinda apply to Dr. Moncrieff. He’s playing two sides at once: the approved public version cheering on progress and pride for his brother, and the less popular one denouncing all of it behind closed doors.
The radio fuzzes and crackles with static before settling onto regular talk again.
“What did you mean, about your plans?” I ask Rory. “You said you had plans for Arabella?”
In the background, a trio of male voices sounds like they’re arguing. The reception keeps getting interrupted by jumpy static, so that the voices sound indistinct and distant, almost underwater. It’s the first time I’ve listened to this stupid radio station without instantly hearing some kind of fawning commentary about Savior Benji.
Focusing, Rory turns up the volume, trying to make sense of this rare inter-Antiro fall-out. Through the choppy signal, I hear the impatient words, “Look, she had the right idea!” followed by someone adamantly replying, “No, it’s just not on. It’sslander.” Rory frowns, adjusting the dial by microscopic degrees to finally eliminate the last of the static.
And then, slicing through the chaos, comes an all-too-recognizable voice, distinct enough because it’s female.
It’s Arabella.
“This,” Rory breathes, a wicked smile curved across his lips. It’s the first time he’s looked excited instead of tired these past few days. “This is what my plan is for Arabella.”
32
“She got what was coming to her! My views in this library are no longer respected!”
It’s the recording. Rory’s recording of Arabella in the library. My jaw swings open. “How did you…?”
“I asked Finlay to blast it everywhere he could when he finally got a signal. You know what this means, right?” Rory asks, his gray eyes twinkling. He suddenly looks a lot more energetic. “This istonight. Arabella won’t even know about it. If Antiro’s forced to discuss it, then it must have exploded online. Who knows, we might even see it in the papers over the coming days.”
“Nah, she’s one hundred percent in the right here,” one of the men agrees, which earns a nervous, sucked-in breath from one of the others. “You chat shit about her, she has the right to chat shit straight back. Who’s the guy…? Has anyone identified him yet? Whoever he is, he’s clearly some ultra-royalist drone.”
His words are so dismissive andwrongthat I have to hold back my laugh — Finlay, anultra-royalist drone?
“I mean, I agree, but — to play devil’s advocate — this little girl is also wildly misrepresenting Antiro. We all know Antiro had nothing to do with the death ofthatwoman, yet she’s going around saying stuff like this? If she reallyison our side then it’s a bad look, you can’t disagree with that. We can’t let her bad vibes torpedo our overwhelmingly joyful, positive movement.”
My jaw is still hanging open. They’re actually debating Arabella’s intentions.Arabella. The top Antiro champion of the school, as if she isn’t a pure enough follower. My heart is hammering like a drum. This feels — it feelsbig. To have our bubble reach the outside world, to have invoked the chaos Arabella had delighted in harnessing, and to reflect it all on her… My eyes flick to Rory, stunned. He leans in his chair, hands cradling the back of his head and leg crossed over his thigh. He looks monumentally pleased with himself.
