25

It takes until my lips are blue and shuddering and my fingers are born of ice and frost, before I finally get the door loose enough to spring hope in my chest.

I gave up about half-an-hour ago trying to slam my body weight into it. My shoulder wears the bruises from that idea.

I found a crowbar and a shovel.

Those are the tools I owe my escape to.

Couldn’t jimmy the lock, so I jimmied the hinges. Thank the gods they are old and rusted, they spring free and crumble too easily.

I drop the crowbar with a clang.

Then, with a trembled breath that shudders through my ice-cold body, I boot out at the door with everything I have, once, twice—then that final kick.

The door cracks. Doesn’t fly open like I expected, but it cracks from the side of the hinges, some planks fall away, and it creates a gap wide enough that I can squeeze through.

I do.

And I stagger out the other side, splinters and scratches to show for it. Not to mention covered in shit. Clotted in my hair, lumped into the woollen threads of my sweater, some clumps have fallen into my boots, and it’s just smeared completely all over the back of my sweatpants.

The stench lingers. It’s a cloud wrapped around me.

I stopped retching, though it still burns my throat.

But I haven’t stopped crying.

The sobs have dissipated at least, giving my twisted chest some relief, but the debris lingers enough that my bottom lip is wet and shuddered, and my vision milky as I stumble down the long, damp corridor.

Between every raspy, cutting breath is a moan, one that traps in my chest as I try to soothe myself. Hands fisted at my sides, I don’t do anything smart, I don’t leave the corridor and turn for the Living Quarter, I take a right for the stairs and break into a staggering, unbalanced run for the atrium.

Cheeks wet, I feel the streaks of manure trickling down my face. Can’t even wipe at myself without smearing shit deeper into my pores.

The moans ribbon out of me.

The rubber of my boots is loud on the floorboards, cluttered.

I stumble through the atrium with one destination in mind.

Not the dorm room, not the shower, not the office of a teacher—but home .

I want to go home.

My face twists with the words that thrum through me.

I want my mother.

Across the atrium, the doors are firmly shut.

The metal level hooks the doors together. The winds outside rattle them both, deafening the grating sounds that come from my trembling, wet mouth.

I stagger into the doors and, reaching up on my toes, yank at the lever. It tugs free with a loud crack !

I drop back onto my boots and fumble my frozen hands against the ice-to-the-touch lock. Dark metal is a glacier kiss to my numb fingers, but this isn’t the first time I have snuck out of Bluestone or tried to make a run for it, so I know to the turn the key clockwise twice, then counterclockwise once with the lever out of place first.

The doors unlock with a wall-shuddering groan.

I shove through and stumble onto the snow-caked stairs. My boots crunch on the thick layers too built up from the night—and the night has passed, mostly, with the early pinkish hues of dawn touching the horizon.

I spare it the dullest of looks from my wet, bloodshot eyes, and I’m sure I look like a walking corpse, a wayward consequence of a rogue ritual.

I run down the stairs.

I don’t cut right for the gondolas, they aren’t running yet. So I make for the lengthy road of cleared trees that declines all the way down to the village. It’s a long fucking trek, it’s hours in the cold, and my bones are already frosted over.

But I can’t go back, I won’t go back.

Even if there’s a teacher and two Snakes in my way—and headed right for me.

Master Novak hikes up the hill from the barn. Mildred and Landon are in tow—both of them a part of the snowball fight that sealed my fate.

I look at the teacher, dull.

Master Novak’s mouth tucks into a line as she eyes me over. She sighs a frosty breath that cools in the air, then gestures to the smirking Snakes to go on ahead.

They do, but not before they take in the state of me, and Mildred’s eyes twinkle that bit brighter. But neither of them throws a barbed word my way.

Exhaustion has subdued them. All night in the barn, doing whatever manual labour they were sentenced to, the fatigue wears them down too much for more than a smile or a scoff or a shake of the head.

I watch them from under my low-hanging lashes until they are out of earshot.

I turn back to Master Novak.

She’s hiking up the thick crunching snow towards me.

“I’m going home.” The resolve of my voice doesn’t impress. It breaks, it hitches, and the tears are quick to wobble my mouth. “You can’t stop me.”

But of course she can. We both know it.

I’m stopped every year, because year—at least once—I try to run away to the village. Twice, I made it there. But I was stopped by security before I could even get close to the veil.

“Would you like to come to my office and tell me what happened?” she asks, but holds out her arm in something of a guiding gesture, and I know I have no choice. “Some hot chocolate or tea to warm you?”

“I’m going home,” I echo, but my words are shuddering now. “ I wanna ,” And there it is, the final twist of my face. I slowly double over, like I can’t find the strength to stand anymore, and the sobs strike me like a sword. “ Go-o-o-huh-huh-om-mmm .”

Can’t get the words out.

They are choking me.

My mouth parts with the grating breaths that scrape through me. I’m unintelligible, but as though I speak clearly and make perfect sense, Master Novak nods, gentle.

Her hand firms on my shoulder. “Can you tell me what happened?”

My face scrunches like paper in a fist. I shake my head.

Chin to her shoulder, her soft brown eyes crease with the pity-fuelled line that slants her mouth. “We’ll call your Father, yes?”

All I can do in answer is nod. My shoulders jerk, harsh, with each gasping breath cutting through me.

She steers me through the snow, back to the academy.

Stiff and covered in manure, I drop into the old, musty chair.

The sun-bleached upholstery is pilled and scratched along the arms. Now, it’ll be soaking up the shit and melting snow clinging to me.

The dim light of the chilly office is just some flickering candles and lanterns bolted to the walls.

Master Novak shrugs off her fur-lined robes and tosses them onto her own chair. They hit with a crumple before she’s plucking the receiver from the phone and, from the bottom drawer of the desk, unearthing a leather-bound tome.

Breaths still shuddering, eyes still dazed, cheeks still wet, I bring my arms around myself and hold, firm. I watch as she flips the thick beige pages until stopping at the one headed with my family name.

She runs her finger down the page—and stops on the phone number for Elcott Abbey.

The seconds are punched by her finger sticking the numbers of the rotary phone, turning the circle until it clicks, then waiting for it to slide back in place before moving for the next number, and it’s taking too long .

Finally, the number is dialled—

Then Master Novak turns her back on me and dips her head.

I frown at the greyish braids plaited onto her scalp, as though that will somehow help me make out the mumble of her words. It doesn’t. All I hear is the hum of her voice, a pause, then another hum, a pause, and then, a final hum of garbled words before she turns to gesture me over.

My rubber boots creak as I push up from the chair, and they are heavy thuds on the rug—just smearing faeces all over this office—as I drag myself to the desk.

I outstretch a hand, then falter.

Black grime is caked under my nails, scratches smeared along my knuckles, but beneath the mess, my flesh an unformed rainbow of raw crimson and glacier blue. Cold and wounded.

Master Novak closes the distance between herself and my hand, reaching out the receiver until it presses into my palm—and snares my attention back to her, to now, to the call.

The mere thought of my Father or Mother on the other end, it’s enough to trigger the tears again, a dam eroded, and my cheeks are quick to dampen again.

With a snivel, I bring the phone to my ear.

My breaths are wet clicks and grated, raspy breaths.

“Olivia,” Father starts, warm, “what happened? Are you hurt?”

“Mm-mm-mm.”

The strain of the tears is too thick in my chest.

Can’t get the words out.

‘How difficult it must be for him to love you—for the sake of your mother.’

Silence floods the phone for a heartbeat.

Then a whisper from a small distance, Mother’s thick-with-sleep voice, “The semester ends in two weeks. Just bring her home now, Hamish.”

Father puts up no fight. He must agree, because his tone remains soft as he says, “Mr Younge will come fetch you now, Olivia.”

I hand the receiver back.

A thick swallow bobs my throat and, as though Father can see me, my nods are faint.

I turn back for the armchair, then sink into it. I bring my knees to my chest, hug them tight, and bury my face into them.

I wait.

I wait the long three hours, then—with a tired glance at the grandfather clock, showing that breakfast will be abuzz in the mess hall by now—another forty minutes.

Finally, the door shudders with a firm knock.

I blink, tight and scrunched, as though I was sleeping. Maybe I was, maybe I drifted, but not quite far enough.

I look up as Master Novak abandons the assignments she was marking at the desk, a flurry of papers disturbed by her swift pace across the office.

Fatigue clings to her as much as it does to me.

She tugs open the door—and Headmaster Braun stands on the other side, his face severe. His gaze slides to me.

I frown at him over the spine of the armchair.

Then he steps aside for Mr Younge to appear.

The tight coil in my chest loosens.

I slip off the chair.

The deep brown of Mr Younge’s familiar eyes considers me, studies me from head to toe. Then, as though disappointed, his mouth thins.

Probably thinks I’m not hurt enough to return home, or not wounded enough to justify his journey to Bluestone.

I don’t give him a moment to speak before I’m dragging myself out of the office, my rubber boots heavy and scraping over the floorboards.

I mutter a “thanks” to Master Novak.

Se inclines her head, the weight of her lashes obvious.

Mr Younge makes no move to back away from the door. He blocks my way, and that rigidness lures my gaze up to his.

The moment our eyes lock, he says, frostily, “Witchdoctor Dolios will be at Elcott for your arrival.”

I say nothing.

Mr Younge isn’t subtle about his insinuation, that I lied on the phone to Father when he asked if was hurt. I am hurt. And technically, I didn’t manage a word, so I didn’t really lie.

I did mislead.

I don’t regret it. Because now, Mr Younge takes me away from this hell.

Like his journey here, it’s a long one back. The gondolas run for us, take us down to VeVille where there’s a twenty-minute walk to the veil.

The security guard, the one who’s always fucking here, the one who’s stopped me from running off a handful of times before, traces me with narrowed eyes. Suspicion.

I keep my cheek to him and follow Mr Younge through the veil. He doesn’t speak when the warped, shadowy panel of time and space leads us out into a crooked lane tucked in the heart of Edinburgh. Doesn’t mutter a word as he leads the way through more and more winding streets to the London veil, and then another from London to Stonehenge where the car is parked up the hill.

It is well into the afternoon by the time the car’s tyres are slowing down and, in the back seat, I push up from my sleep.

I turn my tired eyes out the window.

The breath that slumps me is a sudden release of tension in my chest.

Mother and Father stand in the doorway.

And just the sight of them has me weeping all over again.

What’s that saying the krums use?

There’s no place like home.