The Nightmare Dilemma (Arkwell Academy) (7 page)

I once again considered the idea of running out of here, but a new possibility occurred to me. “Paul’s uncle is a senator. Couldn’t he be pulling the strings?”

“Doubtful,” said Lady Elaine. “Titus Kirkwood has been the biggest roadblock to Paul’s plea deal.”

That made sense. Magistrate Kirkwood had always despised his nephew. I gulped, suddenly emotional again. Half the reason why I couldn’t truly hate Paul was because of the abuse he’d suffered at his uncle’s hands.

“So are you going to help us or not?” said Brackenberry, suddenly impatient. His sharp gaze seemed to pin me in place.

I looked away, drawing a ragged breath.

“This is very important, Dusty,” Lady Elaine said.

I swallowed, searching for my voice, which seemed to have gotten lodged in my throat. “Why? Marrow is…” I searched for the right word. He wasn’t dead. As far as anyone knew he couldn’t die—not with an immortal phoenix as a familiar, one capable of resurrecting him time and time again. “He’s gone, right? I mean, he hasn’t come back yet, has he?”

“No,” Lady Elaine said, firmly. “We don’t believe he’s back. But he has his supporters. Surely you’ve seen how quickly animosity is spreading among the different kinds. Not all of the unrest can be attributed to the loss of The Will. We believe Marrow’s followers are behind most of it. Including what happened to Britney last night.”

I resisted the urge to fidget. Now would be a good time to come clean about Eli, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “Why do you think that?”

Brackenberry scowled. “Because we were finally able to analyze the curse used on her. It’s black magic, of the sort that hasn’t been seen in centuries. Only someone like Marrow could’ve known the spell. We believe he passed it on to some of his chief followers who are now acting on their own to continue his work.”

I shuddered. This kept getting worse and worse.

“This also means,” Lady Elaine continued, “that you and Eli should focus your dream sessions on Britney’s attack. In light of this new evidence.”

I sighed, the last of my resolve giving way. I might hate every minute of my time with Paul, and I was nearly as frightened by the idea of facing him as Marrow returning. But I knew I had to.

“Okay,” I said, meeting both of their gazes and somehow managing not to flinch. “I’ll do it.”

7

The Client

I left the conference room a few minutes later and nearly bumped into the principal lurking beyond the door.

“What are you—” I broke off at the dangerous flash in Dr. Hendershaw’s eyes, the look magnified to an absurd level by her Coke-bottle glasses. Considering how long it had taken me to complete the heinous restroom-cleaning detention she’d given me last semester, the last thing I wanted was to get in trouble again. Besides, the loud, annoyed huff I heard from behind let me know Lady Elaine would be all over the principal’s nosiness.

I made my way to my history class, walking faster than I meant to, the frenzy of my thoughts having a direct effect on my feet, it seemed. I walked through the door into the classroom, not bothering to announce myself. Mrs. Rosencrantz probably wouldn’t notice.

“Excuse me,” a deep, raspy voice said.

I jerked my head to the front of the room. With a jolt of shock, I realized it wasn’t Mrs. Rosencrantz sitting behind the teacher’s desk, but an old and rather horrible-looking man. His bald head gleamed in the overhead lights. Two narrow strips of steel-gray hair fanned the tops of his lips in a severe mustache. The same gray color formed the bushy eyebrow hanging over his right eye. There wasn’t a left eyebrow at all. Where it should’ve been perched the top of a black eye patch that seemed to be affixed directly to the man’s skull.

I froze halfway into my seat, gaping in surprise. “Woah, you’re not Mrs. Rosencrantz.”

The man fixed his single eye on me. “Very observant, Miss Everhart. Please sit.” He waved at the chair with one hand, the knuckles disproportionally large.

I remained in that awkward halfway position even as my leg muscles began to burn. Sitting seemed like a bad idea, akin to running away from a snarling dog. But as the man took a step toward me, I plopped down into the chair with an audible thump.

He stopped right before my desk and stared down at me. How someone could look so imperious with only one eye, I couldn’t guess. But it made me understand the unnatural quiet in the room. This guy commanded respect.

“Do you have a note explaining your tardiness?” the man said, brushing a bit of dust off the sleeve of his dark gray, oddly militaristic blazer.

“Um.” I began to fidget, running my hands over the pockets of my jeans, even though I knew I didn’t have one. I hadn’t bothered to ask. “No, but—”

He silenced me with a single jerk of his chin. “I see. Then I’m sure you will understand the detention I must give you in light of this oversight.”

“But—”

He turned away before I could say anything more. “After class tomorrow. Room three thirty-seven, Monmouth Tower. I expect you to be on time.”

Choked by the injustice of it all, I glanced sideways, only now registering that Selene was present. She gave me a sympathetic look, but shook her head when I started to mouth a question at her.

I swallowed and forced my gaze to the front of the classroom where One-Eyed Pirate Man now stood before the teacher’s desk—
his
desk now, apparently. I wanted to shout and rail at him. I’d been doing something important. Something for the
government
. I shouldn’t be punished. But I held back, realizing that I couldn’t say any of that.

The teacher addressed the class at large. “As I was saying before our interruption, the city of Atlantis, as described by the philosopher Plato, was comprised of three concentric ring-shaped islands separated by motes.” The man raised his hands, and a swell of powerful magic filled the room, making my skin tingle. “It resembled something like this.”

An involuntary gasp escaped my throat as a holographic image appeared in the air above the man’s head. It was as real and detailed as one of Eli’s dreams. The image depicted a city, one with a strange assortment of buildings. A few looked like Egyptian monuments while others appeared to be straight out of ancient Greece or Rome. Three ringed islands formed the city with a wide expanse of bright, blue water separating each one. A series of stone bridges served as the only connection linking them.

The largest, most prominent building stood at the center of the inner island. It was a towering cathedral-like structure with tall pillars surrounding its entrance. At the very top of the structure, a single tower stretched upward like an ancient space needle.

“But … sir,” someone said. I pulled my gaze away from the image toward the speaker. Never in my life had I heard Travis Kelly refer to one of the teachers as “sir.” As the son of a senator, Travis ran with Lance’s crowd, which meant he considered himself too important to bother showing such respect to a lowly teacher.

Until today. I wondered exactly how many detentions this guy had given out already.

“Yes, Mr. Kelly,” Pirate Man said. It was starting to bug me that I didn’t know his name. I scanned the dry-erase board to see if he’d written it up there, but the magical hologram obscured my sight.

“That can’t be Atlantis,” Travis said.

“Why do you think so?”

“Because it looks just like Lyonshold.”

I turned my gaze back to the vision, intrigued by Travis’s claims.

“Ah, yes, the resemblance is true. But what about now?” The teacher gestured with his hands, rotating the image until a massive gateway appeared front and center. Two statues of a half-horse, half-fish creature perched on each side of the gates like stone sentinels.

“Guess I was wrong,” said Travis, sounding crestfallen. “There aren’t any statues like that in Lyonshold.”

“Indeed not,” said the teacher. “Lyonshold is guarded by stone lions, not hippocampus.” He fanned his fingers and the horses transformed into two regal lions with shaggy manes and wide mouths opening into a snarl.

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Travis, brightening.

Beside me, Selene raised her hand.

“Yes, Miss Rivers,” the teacher said. He lowered his hands and the vision of Atlantis disappeared.

“Why the similarities?” asked Selene.

The man smiled at her. I got the impression it wasn’t something he did very often. His teeth looked alarmingly yellow and sharp. I wondered what magickind he was. I looked around for an item that might be a wand or staff hidden by a glamour, but couldn’t find any. So either he wasn’t a wizard or he had the object hidden beneath his blazer.

“That’s a good question,” the teacher said. “The exact one that we will attempt to answer in the coming weeks as we delve into the dark, tragic history that was the rise and fall of Atlantis.”

Despite my resentment toward the man, I couldn’t help the excitement that came over me at this news. I already knew what ordinaries believed to be a myth was actually real, and the idea of Atlantis intrigued me. A lost island, swallowed by the sea? Definitely cool. I wondered if there were magickind archaeology teams who went around excavating stuff like that.
Sign me up for that career choice, please.

The teacher turned to the dry-erase board and wrote down our homework assignment. I quickly pulled out my notebook from my backpack and copied it, managing to finish just in time for the bell sounding the end of class. Then I scooped up my things, and Selene and I hurried out the door together.

“Geez, what a jerk, huh?” I said, peering at Selene.

She pulled her pink-and-gray camouflage baseball cap out of her bag and yanked it down over her braided black hair, frowning. “He’s definitely strict. Made me take this off when class started.” She pointed to the cap.

I grimaced. Most of the teachers didn’t care if we wore hats to class, even though it went against school policy. I wondered if this guy would enforce the no-gum-chewing rule, too.

“Sucks about your detention,” said Selene.

“Yeah, no kidding.” I grimaced. “So what’s his name anyway? And if you tell me it’s Blackbeard or Sparrow I’m totally going to lose it.”

Selene adjusted the strap of her olive green messenger bag hanging over her shoulder. “Close. It’s Corvus.”

“How’s that close?”

“He said it means raven.”

I snorted. “Well then it
is
just as bad. What kind is he?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Weird. I wonder why he would keep it a secret.”

Selene glanced sidelong at me, a familiar patient expression on her face. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Uh…”

“He doesn’t want us to know.”

“Why not?” I said, stepping closer to her to avoid a collision with a tuba someone walking the other way was carrying.

Selene exhaled, her voice low, conspiratorial. “There are some kinds that always try to keep their identities secret, like vampires and hags, even some of the fairy races. And certain demonkinds, of course.”

I grimaced. “The darkest of the dark, you mean.”

Selene nodded. “The administration and all the teachers will know, but not students.” Then her expression hardened. “Not that I blame him for wanting to keep it secret. Stops people from judging you based on your kind.”

I didn’t say anything, understanding her bitter tone all too well. Nightmares had been hunted to near extinction all because the rest of magickind feared we would suck their souls out through their dreams. And everybody assumed sirens were manipulative and vain and that their only value lay in their beauty.

We walked along in silence for a couple of minutes as we navigated the crowd of students making their way to the cafeteria. The pre-lunchtime ruckus seemed at a fever pitch today despite the presence of the Will Guard watching from alcoves or trolling the hallways, their red tunics like warning flags.

But once we reached the underclassmen cafeteria, Selene said, “So why were you late to class?”

I looked around to see who was nearby. It didn’t seem like anybody was listening in, but you never could tell with magickind. Used to be I didn’t have to worry about people paying attention to me. I was just a nobody, a halfkind and a Nightmare, the lowest of the low. But after all the stuff with Marrow, my classmates had started taking more of an interest. I didn’t think it was a good idea to risk it. I shook my head as we stepped into the lunch line.

A hurt look crossed Selene’s face. For a second, I didn’t understand, but then I remembered our argument from the night before. “It’s not like that,” I said. “I just can’t tell you here. It’s secret and a pretty big deal.”

Selene pursued her lips. “Does it have to do with Eli?”

I paused, caught off guard by the question. Then I remembered English class. “What’d you hear?”

“That he stole someone’s wand and tried to kill Miss Norton with it and almost succeeded.”

I rolled my eyes and then relayed the honest, unembellished story about our English class. I resisted the temptation to point out that she would’ve seen it for herself if she hadn’t ditched this morning. She listened, intrigued as we traversed the line.

“I wonder how he was able to do it,” Selene said when I finished.

“No idea.”

Selene readjusted her ball cap. “Maybe it has to do with The Will being gone. He could have witchkind blood somewhere far back in his family.”

“I guess it’s possible,” I said.

Starving after my skimpy breakfast, I decided on a hamburger and a heaping mound of fries. To my surprise, Selene chose the same, forgoing her usual soup and salad combo. Maybe she needed to refuel after her busy night with Lance.

Ew
.

We sat down at our usual table, side by side to make for easier whispering. Then with our heads practically touching, I told her about my meeting with the sheriff and Lady Elaine.

“I can’t believe they’re letting him go,” Selene said when I finished. She drummed her fingers on the table, each hard tap emphasizing her dismay.

Nodding, I picked up my water goblet and took a drink.

“And how dare they ask you to go all femme fatale on him. Minus the fatale, of course, since he’s the bad guy.”