The Thief (33 page)

“
Why are you here? There’s
nothing to interest you in Havenwood.”

“
You, grandma, are lying,”
Meredith states. “The Wolf is here, I can feel it, it’s just so
bloody foggy in your air. I have to find it and I have to destroy
it. It’s my thing, it’s what I do. I’ll tell you the same thing I
told the Hardy boys, the sooner you give it to me, the sooner I’ll
get out of your hair. And you can go back to being old and boring
and I can go back to the pub. Everyone wins.”

“
And what if I keep you here
forever?”

“
I just told
you...everything...melts,” Meredith says, smoke rising from her
fingers around the bars.

“
I’ve lost two to you,” Bea
said. “I won’t lose another.” She turned her back on the cage and
walked to the door.

“
You think it’s cute now!”
Meredith shouted after her. “In another couple of months it’s going
to start murdering people and you will beg me to end
it!”

“
I don’t follow zealots,”
Bea said. “Not anymore.” She punched the keypad and the heavy stone
door sealed behind her. She came back up the stairs into the
tearoom.

Destin, Camille, and I are waiting by the
computer panel. She gives us a hard, considering look.

“
You need to get to school,”
she says.

“
And just leave her here?” I
say. The monitor already shows a firestorm brewing around Meredith,
swirling around the cage’s stone bars, making them glow.

Bea follows my gaze. “Yes,” she says. “This
is the most dangerous place to be right now. What we need is a
Null. We need John Tailor.”

Chapter 18

Jul

Camille had said she’d be back - but it
looked like whatever she’d forgotten was keeping her busy.
Fidgeting with the arrangement of our experiment, I hoped she’d
return soon. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand here
alone. I hadn’t seen Mac or Destin either, and wondered what was
keeping them. Though it was possible I’d just not managed to spot
them yet. The gymnasium was packed to the brim with students and
their families, grouped up around winding rows of folding tables
draped with standard white cloth and each showing a science project
in varying stages of assembly.

I stood back from the table to admire our
handiwork. Mostly Camille’s, to be fair. The tri-fold display
contained all the pertinent information about our invisible ink
experiment - told as a bright, cheery comic. Camille had called the
art style ‘chibi,’ which meant tiny bodies and large heads drawn
overly-cute.

“
I think the glitter paint
for the rainbows were the right choice,” I said to
myself.

“
Well I don’t,” said an
unmistakable voice of disdain. I turned - there was Rhys, arms
folded over his crisp dress shirt.

Guilt bubbled up along with indignation. My
movements were stiff as I rearranged the test tubes and the pieces
of paper showing the stages to and from invisibility. I could stand
to be invisible right about now.

“
I thought you wouldn’t be
coming,” I said, back to him as I focused on the
display.

“
I had to bring you this,”
he said, and I turned to accept the folder he handed me. The paper.
Right. His contribution. My eyes met his briefly as I took it, and
just as quickly I looked away. He was still angry with
me.

“
Thank you for bringing it,”
I said, formally, and turned back to fiddling with the test
tubes.

He made a small sound of astonishment behind
me. “That’s it?” he said. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

“
I’m not apologizing, if
that’s what you’re looking for,” I said, focus on the table so my
voice wouldn’t waver.

“
You promised me -
”

“
You
blackmailed
me into promising you,” I
said, the fabric of my dress sighing as I turned on him, angry
enough to hold his gaze now. My heels put me at eye level with him.
I kept my voice low so as to not attract unwanted attention from
nearby groups. “Holding
my
journal hostage. You act like I betrayed some
trust, but how could I trust you when you’re always threatening to
take things away from me?”

That got a reaction. Off-balance, he fumbled
a response. “I had to - you - you don’t know what’s at stake -
”

“
I know that if you really
want to be king one day,” I said, “you won’t ever have loyalty if
you rule by fear.”

I didn’t want to make him angry like this,
but also I did - I knew that he could do better, I was certain of
it, and he shouldn’t think he had to resort to bullying. If no one
ever made Rhys compare his situation to others, he’d never know he
had options.

“
Everything alright here?”
Tailor said, coming up behind me, eyes on Rhys.

Rhys regarded Tailor narrowly, his dislike
plain. “Nothing that’s your business.”

A muscle under Tailor’s eye twitched.
“Everything that happens inside these walls is my business, Ryan.
The rules are the principal’s, but I’m the one who enforces
them.”

“
And what about outside?”
Rhys said lowly. “Are you forgetting whose jurisdiction that
is?”

“
Certainly not yours,”
Tailor said, tone flat. “You’re on the wrong side of the mirror,
Ryan. I don’t know what your mother’s led you to believe, but you
don’t have a kingdom here.”

“
Yet,” Rhys said.

Tailor’s gaze was cool. “Don’t say that in
front of the principal,” he said, with exaggerated pleasantry.

Rhys glared at him, and, with a look in my
direction that might almost have been remorseful, he stalked off
into the crowd.

“
Royalty,” Tailor sighed.
“They think they own everything.”

Does he know?
I couldn’t even look at Tailor now, even though I
really wanted to. I wanted another look at his eyes, to see if
maybe the color matched mine. Had he known the whole time? Did he
have any idea?

“
Have you seen Charlotte?”
he asked, surveying the crowd. “She’s supposed to be grading this
mess.”

“
She was talking to Gabriel
awhile ago,” I said.

“
One of these days,” he
grumbled, almost to himself, “she’s going to do something she can’t
take back...”

“
And you’re going to say ‘I
told you so’?”

He glanced at me, his flat brown eyes like a
solid negative force. “Or nothing,” I amended.

“
Forget it, I’m going to
check the classrooms,” he grumbled, heading off for a side door to
the stairwell.

I turn back to fiddling with my display,
wondering why men only ever seemed to be scary. Where was Mac when
you needed balance?

As if summoned, he appeared at my elbow.
“Holy crap you will not believe the day we’ve had,” he said. Destin
and Bea were weaving through the crowd behind him.

“
Have you seen John Tailor?”
Bea asked, expression intent.

“
He was just here,” I said,
confused by everyone’s collective unease. “He went to look for
Charlotte. I’ll go get him - can you watch my board until Camille
gets back?”

“
Umino grabbed her when we
came in, to get her ready for kendo stuff,” Mac said.

“
She was with
you?”

“
Just go get John,” Bea said
tersely. “We’ll explain everything when you both come
back.”

“
A-alright,” I said,
slipping through the crowd to the door Tailor had used. I went up
the stairwell and out the door to the second floor. I spotted
someone down the hall, looking over the banister at the atrium
below. I approached, thinking it was Tailor, but I soon realized it
was Gabriel.

“
What are you - ” I started,
but he clapped a hand over my mouth and pointed to the three people
in the atrium below.

Tailor

There she is.

I come around the hall and can see her in
the foyer, talking to someone whose back is to me. A man, with dark
hair and a long wool coat. I assume it’s Gabriel. They’d been
spending far too much time together. Charlotte has always had the
worst taste in men, and it had only deteriorated when her older
brothers left town. She has this habit of attaching herself to
people who see her as nothing more than a resource. Gabriel is by
far the worst person I can imagine her with.

I’m about to call out to
her, berate her for abandoning the festival, and the students she’s
supposed to be grading. But before I can, the man spots me,
recognition sparking in his bright blue eyes, and he immediately
bends down to kiss her. It’s a kiss for my benefit, I know
instinctively. Just as he intends, I freeze, blood running
cold.
Simon.

I’ve always known, somehow, that he would
come back eventually. But this is not what I’d been prepared for.
Simon pulls back from Charlotte, smirking at me over her bright
copper hair.

I was wrong. This is worse than Gabriel.

Charlotte turns, flushing bright red. “Oh!
John...look, Simon’s come home!”

“
Is that what this is?” I
say, tone as flat as I can manage.

“
Look at you, Tailor, you’re
a step away from being an old professor. Just what I expected,”
Simon says, giving me an evaluating look and curling a possessive
arm around Charlotte’s shoulders.

I haven’t seen him in over a decade, but he
hasn’t changed much. There are lines starting to show around his
forehead and two-day stubble on his face. A little ragged around
the edges, maybe. A little dark around the eyes, a little cruel
around the mouth. But some girls go for that.

“
I’m - I’m sorry I didn’t
tell you,” Charlotte says. “I know you were worried about him, but
I knew he was fine.”

Damnit, Charlotte.
He can’t be serious about her. He’d always ignored
her. This is some sort of punishment he’s arranged for me. Because
as much as I’ve wanted to forget, Charlotte always did like him.
All of the awful boyfriends she’s had over the years, may have just
been replacements for Simon. She’d been a wreck when he and Kyra
had run away senior year.

“
I wasn’t really all that
worried, to be honest,” I say.

Simon leans against the banister in the
foyer, as if he owns the place. It ticks me off. He’d never been
part of this school; he’d left before it was even built. I’ve never
had any true claim on Charlotte, but Havenwood is a part of me. I
hate it most of the time, and maybe it’s the spell binding me to
the foundation talking, but this is my school, not his. I am not
his subordinate here.

“
Aren’t you going to tell
him our happy news, Charlotte?” Simon says.

Charlotte fidgets.

“
There’s going to be another
Graham,” he says smoothly. “A real one, this time.”

I look at Charlotte. At her stomach. She
flushes harder.

“
John, don’t look like
that,” Charlotte pleads. “It’s good news.”

Then why do you look so
guilty?
I think. There’s a sort of buzzing
in my ears. Half of me wants to run away, at least until I hit the
limit of the binding spell. The other half wants to murder Simon
where he stands.

“
That’s more like it,” Simon
says appreciatively, eyes on my expression. “Do you get it now? You
know what it feels like?”

“
What
what
feels like?” I say through my
teeth.

“
Are you seriously going to
pretend it never happened?” He’s suddenly seething, pushing past
Charlotte to get in my face. “I suffered in ignorance for years
because of you, trying to understand why my powers wouldn’t work in
my own home. I was free of you...I should have been fine. But every
night I came home to my apartment, there was a little brat waiting,
and my powers would curdle and die. Did you think I’d never figure
it out? Did you think I was that stupid?”

I’d stopped breathing while he spoke. “No,”
I say, a horrible night of despair I’d tried to forget pushing its
way back up into my memory. I hated her so much, for the way she
manipulated Simon. And me.

Charlotte is looking at me like I’m a
stranger. Panic rises, but I push it down. “No,” I say. “You’re
imagining things, Jul isn’t - ”

“
So you’re saying you never
slept with Kyra?” Simon demands, and I flinch at the words. Said
out loud, they seem real. I want it to be impossible. That night
should never have happened.

“
Tell me the truth!” Simon
shouts.

My voice sounds over-quiet in the wake of
his outburst. “Once,” I say, swallowing. “Only once...”

“
Once is all it takes,
buddy,” Simon snaps. “Do you have any idea what you made? I’ve done
the research. I know the prophecies. Born of absolute power and
nothingness.” He laughs, and it echoes bitter around the atrium.
“That’s your girl. The monster to end all monsters. If she’d been
mine - if she’d actually been mine - none of this would be
happening right now. Kyra would never have left me. So I’d never
have taken that mirror from Gabriel Katsura, and he wouldn’t have
needed to move his pet Wolf into
your
range. The Ender wouldn’t have
followed them here. And I wouldn’t have had to bring Charlotte into
this.” He kisses her on the forehead but his grin is
cruel.