The Nightmare Dilemma (Arkwell Academy) (15 page)

I grimaced, remembering clearly the day Britney had been sweating so much in our alchemy class that the air around us felt as humid as a tropical rain forest.

“Typical,” Selene said, folding her arms.

Lance pointed at her. “And you said I’d been cursed, so whoever attacked Britney must’ve attacked me, too.”

“Maybe,” said Selene. “But why were you down there in the first place?”

“The note, obviously,” said Eli, not looking up. He was standing over a table with his wand pointed at the joker card and its remnant, their torn edges aligned. “Diorthon,” he said, and a wisp of yellowish light puffed out from the tip of his wand.

I jumped up from my seat. “What are you doing? Don’t mend it. That’s our only proof he’s guilty.”

“Excuse me?” Lance said.

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Eli said through gritted teeth. “It’s not working.” He gave the wand a flick, engaging the glamour. The piece of wood vanished and a thick gold ring appeared on his palm. He slipped it onto his index finger then faced me, his expression hard. “And he isn’t guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I put my hand on one hip. “How do you figure?”

Eli waved at Lance. “He must’ve found the note and decided to investigate it himself. It did say it was a matter of life or death. And he couldn’t have known when I was going to get back from dinner with my dad.”

“Yeah.” Lance bobbed his head in agreement.

Selene snorted. “Why would you even care what the note said?”

Lance shuffled his feet, looking uncomfortable.

“Because he wants to join the Dream Team,” said Eli, grinning. “It’s an excuse to be near Selene.”

Lance jerked his head toward Eli, a scowl twisting his features. “Thanks, man. A lot.”

Eli shrugged. “Sorry. But hiding your feelings is just stupid. Being upfront is always better.”

Look who’s talking,
I thought. He and I had spent another day sitting in the same classes and
not
talking about that kiss. Actually, if it hadn’t been for me finding the piece of that joker card, I didn’t think Eli would’ve talked to me at all today. He was still unhappy about the Paul situation.

Frustrated all over again, I pointed my hand at the joker card and the piece I’d found. “Diorthon.” A bright flash of yellow light erupted from my fingertips. The magic struck the two pieces, and a loud crack echoed around the room. The bigger one shot up five feet into the air while the smaller one burst into flames.

Eli reached out with his right hand and snatched the bigger piece as it fell, and with his left he stamped out the flames before the desk caught fire. “Nice.”

Lance clapped his hands, grinning. “Bravo! So much for evidence.”

I plopped down into my chair, annoyed with my shortcomings. I scooted over next to Selene and Buster. Selene’s face looked slightly pink, but I knew the blush wasn’t on account of my embarrassment. She was used to my magical mishaps and probably relieved that she hadn’t been in the line of fire this time. No, she must be thinking about what Eli had said about Lance. I suppressed the urge to gag.

“Are you
sure
you don’t remember anything from that night?” Eli said as he brushed the ashen remains of the card off the table onto the floor.

All the computers in the room beeped at once, the noise like a high-pitched foghorn going off. I jumped in my seat and nearly fell out of it. Selene wasn’t so lucky. She tumbled to the floor as Buster gave another hard buck and rolled to the right.

“I’m sorry!” Eli shouted to the room at large. It wasn’t the first time one of us had upset the place. “I’ll bring a vacuum next time. I promise!”

The computers beeped again in final scolding then fell silent.

“Great headquarters you got here,” Lance said, rubbing his ears.

“Just one more reason for you not to join us,” Selene said, getting to her feet. Buster wheeled toward her, but she put a hand up. “No. You stay. I warned you last time what would happen if I fell off again.”

If it were possible for a chair to look crestfallen, Buster did.

Lance shook his head, his expression both amused and disgruntled at the same time. He turned to Eli. “To answer your question. No, I can’t remember a thing. But I think the curse is still having an effect. I’m having a tough time sleeping, and I can’t focus at all.”

Despite my aversion to doing such a thing, I took a good long look at Lance. Deep, dark bruises rimmed his cheekbones beneath bloodshot eyes. And it was clear from the baggy jeans and ripped up sweatshirt that he hadn’t put his usual level of effort into getting dressed this morning. I wondered if his socks matched today.

“You should go to the infirmary,” Selene said, the tiniest hint of concern in her voice.

“I can’t,” Lance said, not looking at her. “Not now.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because they’ll want to know what happened to him and
where,
” said Eli.

I frowned, coming to grips with the truth that we weren’t going to turn Lance in. Only, who was I kidding? I’d known from the start we weren’t going to. He was our best clue yet, but if the sheriff found out he’d been there, who knew when we’d have access to him next.

Holy crap, I’m turning into Eli
.

I exhaled, not entirely displeased with the revelation. “What we really need is a way to jog Lance’s memory.”

Eli turned to me, his expression brightening for the first time since he failed to mend the joker card. “That’s a great idea.”

I blinked. “Um, you know that jogging a memory is just an expression of speech, right?”

“Not among magickind it’s not. With mind magic it’s possible to
extract memories
.”

Duh
, I realized. We learned about that particular police procedure after the fight with Marrow.

“We need to ask Deverell how it’s done,” Eli went on. “If anybody would know, he would. Tomorrow, I’ll—”

“No,” I said, cutting him off. “I’ll do it. He likes me better.”

Selene giggled. “You mean
you
like
him
better.”

Eli glanced between the two of us, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“Dusty thinks he’s hot.”

I felt a blush threaten to warm my face, but I managed to fight it back. I shrugged my shoulders instead and grinned. “Well, it’s true.” I glanced at Eli, wanting to see his reaction. He was watching me with his mouth opened and eyes narrowed.

“You can’t be serious?”

I smirked. “No harm in looking. And besides, of all of us, I’m the most capable at psionics. It’s my strongest subject.”

“Nuh-uh.” Lance pointed a finger at me. “No way am I letting you mess around in my brain. You might incinerate it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like you’d even miss it.”

“Ha, ha.”

Eli cut off any further remarks with a whistle. “Don’t start.” He glanced at me, his expression still dark. “You talk to Deverell then, but do it soon. If Lance is still under the curse we need to figure out a way to break it as quick as we can.”

I tilted my head and gave Lance an appraising look. “I don’t know. I think it might be an improvement.”

Selene snorted.

Lance opened his mouth to say something, but I waved him off. “I’ll leave lunch early tomorrow and try to catch Deverell before class.”

After that, the meeting adjourned. Selene darted for the door, in a hurry to make it to her Musemancy Club meeting on time. Lance followed her not long after.

I lingered behind on purpose, same as Eli.

“So,” he said, running his fingers through his hair.

“So.” I waited, breath held for him to go on. There were a thousand things I wanted to say to him, questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t find the nerve.

After a few seconds, I couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “Can you bring the moonwort key to dinner tonight?”

Eli cocked his head. “Sure, I guess. Why do you want it?”

I searched for a safe response, knowing I didn’t dare tell him the truth—that I wanted it to break into Paul’s locker. I decided on a half-truth. “I want to check Britney’s locker, see if there’s anything useful in there.” I hadn’t planned on doing that, but once the idea occurred to me it seemed a worthwhile task.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll bring it.”

“Thanks.” I opened my mouth to ask him about that kiss, but my courage failed me as I saw his expression. He seemed so cold, so distant, as unapproachable as a snarling hellhound. I picked up my backpack and turned to leave.

“Hey,” Eli called as I reached the doorway.

I glanced over my shoulder. “Yeah?”

He ran his fingers through his hair again, not looking at me. As I watched him struggle with what to say, my gaze fixed on his parted lips, and my body tingled, the memory of our shared kisses always so close to the surface. I wanted to run over and kiss him again. If only I could be certain he would welcome it, not back away and tell me he was sorry. But his swings from hot to cold left me too confused for such courage.

Eli drew a breath and then said on an exhale, “Never mind…”

Swallowing my disappointment, I turned and walked off, wishing that I hadn’t stayed behind in the first place.

*   *   *

Eli brought the moonwort key to dinner that night, but once again he decided to sit at Lance’s table. I didn’t want to read anything into his decision to sit there, but I couldn’t help wondering if he was still avoiding me. I kept glancing over at him, fuming each time I caught Katarina flirting at him. At least he brushed her off same as always.

Nevertheless, as I fell asleep that night, it was with horrible images of Eli and Katarina dating again, swirling in my head. I half-expected those images to follow me into my dreams.

They didn’t.

I dreamed of the plinth again. Everything was the same as before, the tower, the wind, the all-consuming need to read the word.

Only this time, after hours of digging and clawing and scratching, I finally uncovered not just one but two of the letters.

B E

That was all. A consonant and a vowel and only two out of eight. And yet here, in this place, this dream, those were the two most important things in the world.

14

Locker Room Recon

Eli didn’t come down for breakfast the next morning, but I decided that was a good thing. It gave Selene and me freedom to discuss my plan to raid Paul’s locker. I didn’t expect to find much—the guy was way too smart to carry around a notebook detailing his evil schemes—but I figured there was a good chance I could find out what the book was he’d borrowed from Mr. Corvus. I doubted that it mattered, but you never knew. The book might’ve been another one of Marrow’s trinkets left behind, full of secret messages and black magic spells. Or, that could just be my imagination running away with me again.

Selene and I arrived at English class a few seconds before the bell rang, our timing perfectly orchestrated. Miss Norton was already sitting behind her desk, which conveniently stood right next to the door. Trailing behind Selene, I walked in, clutching my stomach and moaning.

Miss Norton eyed me suspiciously. I wasn’t the first student to attempt to fake an illness, after all. I ignored the look, my eyes half-closed from the imagined pain as I stumbled into the room and took my usual seat. Eli arrived moments later, his hair disheveled and cramming down the last few bites of a granola bar. To my general horror, Katarina followed right behind him. He sat down next to me, but Katarina took the desk on his other side, flashing a cold smile my direction.

I started to glare, then remembered my sick routine and coughed instead.

As soon as the bell rang, Selene said in a loud voice from the chair beside me, “Are you sure you’re okay, Dusty?”

“I’ll make it.” I coughed into my hand then followed up with a groan.

Katarina scoffed. “The rest of us won’t.” She raised her hand. “Miss Norton? Can Dusty be excused? She’s flooding the room with her germs.”

Selene and I exchanged a look, both of us holding back a grin. Who knew Katarina would prove so useful?

Miss Norton sighed. “Yes, of course. Go on down to the infirmary, Dusty.”

I stood up slowly. “Thank you.” I coughed in Katarina’s direction once more before I walked to the front of the room and accepted Miss Norton’s proffered note excusing me from class. As I exited, I caught a glimpse of Eli’s confused stare, and I smiled reassuringly, hoping he would guess I was off to break into Britney’s locker. I didn’t want to think how he would react if he knew Paul was my primary target.

Even with the note, I kept up the sick act as I made my way to the cafeteria building where all the student lockers were located. I checked Britney’s first, keeping an ear out for hall monitors and members of the Will Guard. It was empty, and I guessed the police must’ve cleaned it out in their search for her attacker.

I moved onto Paul’s next. He was using the same locker he had been before. The e-mail Lady Elaine had sent me with his schedule also contained the location of his lockers and his new dorm room. As I slid the moonwort key into the master lock, it vibrated in my hand, the magic in the thing kicking on. A second later the lock clicked, and I swung the metal door open.

Aside from a math textbook and a handful of loose papers lining its bottom, the locker was empty. I sighed. I’d expected as much, but I couldn’t help being disappointed. Especially because this meant I would have to activate plan B.

Ignoring the sick feeling in my stomach, I shut the locker as quietly as I could and then made my way to the Phys Ed building, where Paul had gym first period. I quickened my pace as I spotted the door into the boy’s locker room and the empty hallway before it. If I hesitated, I knew I would chicken out.

A second before I reached it, I heard a door open behind me and a gruff male voice say, “Stop right there.”

I spun around, fear-fueled adrenaline rushing in my ears. Captain Gargrave stood a couple of feet from me, a suspicious scowl on his face. He held his wizard’s staff in one hand pointed at me. It was as long and straight as a broom handle, the top curved downward in a slight hook set around a red stone.