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Overall, the students were discouraged from entering the town. It was considered a sort of slum, so most witches didn’t bother. Still, some of the more subversive (often night class) students had been known to sneak into town to drink or gamble. It would have resulted in a demerit if discovered, but legacy students were rarely penalized further.
“You’re sure you don’t know where Location B is?” I asked him, the first words we’d spoken on this trip so far. “It’d save us the trouble of asking around. You know the professor and his cronies are going to be on the alert.”
“If I knew, I’d give you directions, and we’d pop up right beside it. They have my cousin, and I wouldn’t waste time asking questions if I didn’t have to.” He took a breath. “Astrid, I don’t like this any more than you do, but pretending to be one of the spoiled rich kids coming to slum it in the village is going to be our best bet. So… just play along.”
“Fine,” I sighed. “But I wish Morgana and Rook were here. They’d be better at this than me.”
“Probably,” he said with a sigh. “But they’re busy searching the dungeon. With any luck, Location B is in the castle, and they’ll spring Shasta before we get back to school.” Looking at me, he frowned. “Will you just relax? You won’t be able to travel back to the castle if you’re too panicked to focus.”
Relax? How the spell was I supposed to relax when I knew there was a vampire conspiracy to kidnap faeries and turn them into weapons? And even if we managed to find proof of what the vampires were doing, how could we make it public? The correspondences in Professor Valserak’s desk proved he was in contact with one of the founding families. If we revealed ourselves to the wrong family, we’d have targets on our backs. Well, Morgana and Rook would be killed—Oleander and I would become lab rats, with no one else the wiser. The witches would think I’d fled the castle after months of harassment, and by the time they knew better, it’d be too late. Professor Valserak’s allies would unleash their hybrids on the school and everyone who didn’t fall in line would die or turn into one of the undead. And when the school was conquered... well, then they’d go nuclear, declaring Blood War 3 on the rest of the world. Without prior warning, witches wouldn’t stand a chance.
Someone outside of this school had to know, just in case. But how could I send a message to Haven Hollow without the traitor knowing? My mail was probably being checked by the Grimsbanes, just to be sure I wasn’t complaining about my situation in my letters home. If one or more Grimsbane witches had decided to ally with the vampires and discovered I was onto them, the consequences could be lethal. Why they’d want to ally with the vampires was another question entirely, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility until I had to. So, no, emails or letters were out. And I didn’t have a cell phone because they weren’t allowed on campus.
An idea came to me after a few minutes of thought, breathtaking in its simplicity. I reached for my school bag and shoved a hand in, groping for my book of shadows. It didn’t have the witchy panache of Wanda’s journals, or Betanya’s leather-bound tomes. I’d been forced to hide my spell materials alongside my mundane high school textbooks, so the easiest way to write down spell ideas had been in a spare notebook, and I’d never bothered to drop the ruse. Thus, my book of shadows was pink and dotted with smiling marshmallows on the cover. The inside pages had more marshmallows in the margins. I’d decided to commit myself to the pastel farce and used glitter gel pens when I wrote in it.
It took another minute of groping to find a purple pen and scrawl my message on one of the pages. I had to leave things vague, just in case the message ended up in the wrong hands, but it was something at least.
Trouble at Blood Rose Academy. Can’t explain in detail. If I don’t write back in a week, come looking for me. Morgana will know what happened and can fill you in. Love you all, -A
I tore the page free from the notebook, folded it so the glittering letters were facing the outside world, and then concentrated. I’d never done something like this before, but it had to be simpler than transporting my body and Oleander’s. So, I focused all my attention on Wanda’s shop, recalling the long hours I’d spent inside her back room. I knew the smell of her shop and the feel of her fabrics by heart. I’d leave the message on her sewing table. If I just dropped it on the ground, there was a chance someone would pick it up and toss it in the trash before she had a chance to see it.
Oleander cursed when the notebook paper disappeared in a flash of autumn leaves. His eyes darted up the road toward town, scanning each window to see if one of the townspeople had witnessed what I’d done.
“What the hell are you doing?” he hissed.
“Sending an SOS, just in case,” I muttered. “We know whoever is behind this isn’t averse to killing people so what do you think happens if we get captured?”
Oleander paused, eyes flying wide. Apparently, the thought we could become hybrids if the vampires subdued us hadn’t occurred to him. He crossed his arms over his lean chest, trying to disguise a shudder.
“Okay, it wasn’t a bad idea,” he admitted grudgingly. “But you still should have warned me.”
I inched my way up the tree, testing my legs. I felt a little shaky, but I could stand, which was more than I’d been able to manage five minutes ago.
“Just look at it this way,” I said with a smirk. “At least now I smell like an Autumn faerie, not a witch. That should help us, don’t you think?”
Oleander harumphed, which I took as assent, then he steadied me when I swayed on my feet and put a hand on the small of my back as we made our way toward town.
“Where are we headed first?”
“The Blind Horseman,” Oleander said in an undertone. “Loch delivers mail to this town and the next. He’s a notorious gambler. He spends every paycheck on a game of cards or dice. If anyone has seen something odd going on around town, it’ll be him. The fifty in your wallet will get us answers.”
Chapter Eighteen
I wasn’t sure that a man like Loch would be trustworthy, but I trusted Oleander.
If he thought this Loch person could get us to the missing faeries, he was probably right. So, I leaned against Oleander, trying to sell the idea we’d snuck out for a little fun. The people we passed barely glanced up.
The road we were on ran straight through town and began to widen in between the small homes that surrounded the town center. I couldn’t help but stare. It was like stepping back in time. The roofs were thatched. Smoke curled from very functional chimneys. The muddy roads were covered with crisscrossing wagon wheel tracks and peppered with animal manure. The smell was enough to make my eyes cross. As we continued on, the shops looked less and less well-maintained. Two mangey, emaciated dogs that were chained to a post barked at us as we strode past. A man with long, matted hair wobbled on the road, his trousers loose around his waist while he peed into the street. He raised a bottle in a brown paper sack in a mocking toast to us as he let out a drunken laugh, winking at me before giving his exposed parts a suggestive squeeze. I averted my gaze but couldn’t completely block out his raucous laugh.
“Please tell me that wasn’t Loch,” I whispered.
“No, that’s Percival. He’s not right in the head.”
“That sounds safe.”
“There’s no law and order around here unless the Grimsbanes or Thornes deign to get off their high and mighty assess to sort things out. And I probably don’t have to tell you, but they haven’t bothered for generations. As long as we don’t kill each other, they don’t care what we do.”
Oleander hid me from sight as a wagon passed us, spattering our legs with mud. Several chickens clucked their way between alleys. Unfriendly eyes watched us from the windows of nearby homes, but no one came out to chase us off.
