The Nightmare Dilemma (Arkwell Academy) (17 page)

Only, I hadn’t accounted for the book, so big and awkward. I rounded a corner too tight, striking the locker with the top of the book. It tumbled out of my hands, struck the ground, and scooted several feet, disappearing beneath a bench. I dove for it, heart ramming against my rib cage.

I couldn’t find it at first and started to panic. Any moment now someone would figure out what was going on and utter the counter spell to turn the lights back on. Finally, my hands closed around it, and I lurched to my feet. I clutched the book to my chest like something that would break if I dropped it again then darted for the exit.

Just as I reached it, a hand closed around my arm, fingers pinching. I shrieked at the same time as a familiar voice spoke my name.

“Hypno-soma,” I said automatically. A bright burst of magic exploded from my fingertips, highlighting Paul’s stunned face as the spell struck him in the chest. He stumbled backward, his grip on my arm slackening.

I turned and bolted through the door, and I didn’t stop running for a long, long time.

15

A Crow’s Feast

I hid
The Atlantean Chronicle
on the top of a storage shelf inside one of the secret passageways of Vatticut Hall. Only Ms. Hardwick ever used the passage, and she was several inches shorter than me, guaranteeing she wouldn’t see it unless she went climbing—not very likely given her plumpness.

Keeping the book with me was a bad idea. It was evidence that I had been in the locker room, and I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that Paul wouldn’t come looking for it, looking for me.

Damn
.
Why does everything always have to go so wrong?

There was no answer to my silent question as I made my way to spell-casting class. I’d briefly considered going to the infirmary for real, but Miss Norton had written down the time on the note excusing me, and I was well beyond it. I figured it better to try my luck with Mr. Carbuncle than attempting to account for my whereabouts for the duration of the last class period to the infirmary nurses.

Mr. Carbuncle was in a generous mood, and I got off with only a verbal reprimand for my tardiness. But despite my good fortune, I was a nervous wreck when I left the classroom to head to third period. I expected Paul to ambush me around every corner. And whenever I spotted the red and black uniform of a Will Guard, I braced for them to stop me. The darkness spell wasn’t exactly illegal, not for Nightmares, but casting it during school hours—and in the boy’s locker room, no less—surely was.

But for whatever reason, everything went smoothly. That was, until lunchtime. Eli had stopped off at his locker before heading to the cafeteria, and one look at his face as he arrived told me he had heard the rumor about the locker room prank and had figured out what I’d really been up to during English class.

“You said you were going to look around Britney’s locker,” he said, holding out his hand for the moonwort key.

I couldn’t bring myself to look in his eyes as I gave it to him. “I did. Like I said, it was empty.”

“Right. But you failed to mention you were checking Paul’s locker, too.”

I began to fidget with my napkin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to be worried.”

He slid the key into his pocket. “So you were just trying to protect me, huh?”

“Yes.” I dared to meet his gaze.

“I’m not the one in need of protection.” I started to argue but he cut me off. “I understand why you did it, and I also realize that you’re too stubborn to drop this crap with Paul, so I’ll make you a deal. I won’t fight you on it anymore if you promise to be honest about what you’re doing and to let me help.”

I stared at him, unsure how to respond.

“I just want to keep you safe,” Eli said. Then without waiting for my answer, he turned and walked off.

The subject didn’t come up again throughout the rest of the day or at dinner that night, but only because Eli had gone out to dinner once more, this time with his grandma.

“I wonder what Paul wants with that book,” Selene said for at least the tenth time as we ate. I’d told her about the photograph, too, but she’d dismissed it as unimportant by comparison. I didn’t quite believe her, but then again, it wasn’t like she could know his motivations for having it anyway.

I shrugged. “Beats me. But I’m going to go over every inch of it before I put it back in his locker.”

Selene nodded. “And I would like to try the detection spell on it. But we need to do it fast. If Mr. Corvus finds out you stole the book, there’s no telling what kind of trouble you might be in.”

I swallowed, remembering the torturous hours I’d spent deciphering that ancient text. “Good point. I’ll sneak it out on my way home from my dream session with Eli tonight.”

The next few hours after dinner passed maddeningly slow. I spent the time in the dorm with Selene, doing my best to resist the urge to head down to Vatticut Hall and fetch
The
Atlantean Chronicle
. But it was too risky. Until curfew, Paul could be anywhere. He could be out
after
curfew, too, I knew, but I figured it was a lot less likely.

Absolutely refusing to do homework on a Friday night, I wasted time on the computer, checking and rechecking all my favorite websites and reading through my Spellbook feed. As usual of late, Selene wasn’t proving to be much of a distraction. She was working on some sewing project for the home economics class she was taking this semester. The very idea of such a course made my skin crawl, but she seemed to be enjoying it.

“What are you working on?” I asked, eyeing the black coat draped over her lap and the needle and thread in her hands. The thread was strange. It was silvery in color and oddly textured, flimsy and light like gossamer. If I didn’t know any better I would’ve thought it was spider’s silk.

Selene glanced up. “Just a costume project.”

I frowned, taking a longer look at the garment. She seemed to be making some kind of alteration to the back of it. “For what?”

This time she didn’t look up. “Um, the drama club is putting on a play.”

“Fun,” I said, returning my attention to the computer screen.

Finally, the time came for me to leave. I slipped on my black leather moccasins, said good-bye to Selene, who was in the bedroom changing for bed, and then left the dorm. Eli was sitting at his desk in front of the computer when I arrived, the screen opened to a Spellbook page.

“Hey,” he said, not looking up as I walked in.

“Hey.” I sat down on the sofa, keenly aware of the lingering tension between us. I cleared my throat. “What are you looking at?”

Eli glanced over his shoulder, his smile clearing the air a little. “I’m trying to figure out what this Terra Tribe is all about.”

“Oh, yeah, that. I forgot to tell you in all the excitement of finding the joker card, but I know a little more about it.”

“Yeah?” Eli swung his chair around to face me.

I nodded, less than enthused by the idea of reliving the scene with Oliver Cork. But it was too late to stop now. I gave Eli the short version, leaving out the aftermath and how I’d gotten hit by the baseball bat inside the Gauntlet. I would go to my grave without telling him about that one. Fortunately, the story stung less than I thought it would, but it still left an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

By the end of it, Eli was scowling. “You’ve got to be kidding? Arkwell really allows that kind of stuff to go on?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Apparently. Selene says stuff like that has been happening for ages.”

Eli grunted and ran a hand through his hair. “No wonder I haven’t gotten a response to my request to join.”

I sat forward on the sofa. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s why I haven’t gotten one either. Talk about adding insult to injury.”

“For real.” Eli turned back to the computer and started clicking the mouse. “And it definitely paints the group in a different light.”

“You mean sinister?” I stood and walked over, coming to a stop behind his chair. He’d navigated to the Terra Tribe’s Spellbook page, but when he clicked on the friends’ list all he got was a message stating membership to the group was private and that his request to join was still pending.

Eli drummed his fingers on the desk. “What we need is someone who belongs to the group who’s willing to talk to us.”

“Yeah, but who?” I bit my lip. “Are you friends with Oliver on here? We might be able to find the members that way.”

Eli shook his head. “Nope. I’m not even friends with Britney. I don’t really friend people unless they ask me to. Too much hassle.”

I made a noncommittal “mmmm,” although the childish, prone-to-be-jealous part of me was secretly glad Britney hadn’t friended him.

“Actually, I think the only naturekind I’m friends with is Irene Stark,” Eli said, his fingers striking the keys as he entered a search.

I rolled my eyes at the back of his head. Britney would’ve been far preferable to Irene.

In seconds, Eli had pulled up Irene’s wall. He clicked on her info, and we both saw the Terra Tribe listed as one of her groups.

“Bingo,” Eli said.

I caught myself grinding my teeth and stopped. “What makes you think she’ll talk to you about it?”

“I don’t know if she will or not, but I’m going to give it a go.”

Perfect
.

“Are Oliver’s friends hidden or can you see them?” I asked, bending toward the desk.

“No idea.” Eli searched for Oliver and clicked on the link.

We could see the list all right. And it was long. Half of the people I didn’t recognize, many of them adults. I suspected quite a few might be Arkwell graduates. There were a number of photos of people wearing jerseys from the various international magickind universities.

Eli scrolled slowly through the first hundred or so then started moving through the rest more quickly. I recognized a couple of people but none that I knew well enough to try and get them to spill the beans on the Terra Tribe’s inner secrets.

That was until a familiar face caught my eye.

“Wait a minute.” I touched Eli’s shoulder, hyperaware of how warm he was and how close. “Go back up.”

Eli did as I asked, and he stopped in the right place without any prompting from me. He knew exactly which person I’d recognized. He beamed up at me. “Perfect. You can get her to talk for sure. She owes you big time.”

I nodded. Melanie Remillard did owe me, a little anyway. She had asked me to discover her best friend’s murderer, a task that eventually led to the showdown with Marrow. Still, I wasn’t wild about the idea of asking her about the Terra Tribe. She seemed nice enough, but after the way Oliver had behaved, I wasn’t sure I could count on her to help. Nevertheless I said, “I’ll ask her about it as soon I can. I’ll get Selene to come with me. She knows Melanie better.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Eli tapped his wand ring against the desk. “She might not be willing to tell us much about the group, but she should at least be able to shed some light on Britney’s activities that night. And it’s not like we have any reason to believe there’s a connection between the Terra Tribe and what happened to her.”

“Good point.” I smiled, feeling better about the whole thing.

Eli stood up without warning, going from beneath my eye level to towering over me. I took a step back, my senses on overload. An odd expression crossed his face, and for a second, I allowed myself to believe it was disappointment that I had moved away.

“You ready?” I said.

In answer he turned and lay down on the sofa, his body covering the expanse of it with at least a foot of leg hanging off the end. “I will be soon.”

I leaned against the desk and waited for him to drift off. Then I climbed on top of him and into his dreams like I’d done so many times before.

But unlike all those dreams before, the world I emerged into was blurred and foggy like a picture out of focus. The ground beneath me seemed to be nothing but smoke and mist, and I experienced a moment of vertigo, feeling like I would fall right through it.

“Whoa,” I heard Eli say from somewhere to my left. “What’s going on?”

I turned my head, wishing there was something I could hold on to, to steady myself. A second later a tall-backed chair appeared in front of me. I reached for it, and the vertigo stopped.

“You okay?” Eli said as he emerged from the fog.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet.

Eli halted a few feet from me and motioned to the formless world. “Are you doing this?”

I shook my head. My reply came out a croak. “I’m not doing anything.”

Eli didn’t appear to hear me. His attention had shifted to the world beginning to take form around us. It was like watching a painter filling in the blank spaces of a sketch.

We were in some kind of large chamber with a high-vaulted ceiling. Tall stained-glass windows decorated the stone walls at regular intervals with marbled statues of various magickind in their native forms set on the floor in between them. In the center of the room stood a long rectangular table, a massive wooden slab polished to a bright shine. The tall-backed chair I was leaning against was one of several set around the table.

“Wow,” I said, recognizing the place from various pictures in the magickind news outlets. “Have you been to Senate Hall before?”

Eli didn’t look at me as he answered. “Yeah, the day I found out I’m a Conductor. One of the scientists was pretty friendly. She thought I might enjoy seeing it. I guess they don’t let civilians in here very often.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that, too.” Across from me, several suits of armor were just coming into focus, lined up along one section of wall. They were far grander than the ones at Arkwell, with vivid indigo plumes on their ornate helmets and glistening shields engraved with the Magi Senate crest. I wondered if the real-life ones were as lively as those at Arkwell. It would make for interesting meetings.

“I’ve never even been to Lyonshold,” I added, a little envious.

“You’ll get to see it soon,” Eli said as he moved down the table that, like the knights, was still taking on form around us.

“How do you figure?”