Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CAT

M y gloved hands slipped on cold metal long warmed by my touch as I hovered in the trees beside Ford House, my heart beating faster at its proximity. It was the closest I'd dared to come since Halloween. And now I needed to go inside.

Jillian Pendleton went missing at the same time as Professor Lancashire, our breathing professor. All I knew was her body had been found in the blurry stretch of time between Byron's death and now. I couldn't say which day, couldn't even say who'd told me. All I knew was she'd turned up with an arrow buried in her skull.

An arrow from the crossbow I held, my hands sweaty inside my gloves.

My heart pounded faster the longer I hid there in the darkness, losing my nerve.

"For Virgil," I whispered, straightening my back even as sickness swirled in my gut. How was this any different than Byron leaving threatening notes for me? I'd been so angry at him, and here I was, becoming him. Betraying a friend.

"For Virgil."

I wasn't doing this to protect a secret. I was doing this to keep my brother alive.

It didn't make it any easier to watch the front door of Ford House finally open. Duncan slumped down the path, dwarfed by a hoodie far too big for him, his classic, model-esque style nowhere to be seen. Shadows circled his eyes and his brown hair was gone, like he'd shaved it in a fit of mania and stress. My heart clenched, my stomach twisting.

I knew what that felt like. I understood Duncan, liked him even. Trusted him in a way I didn't trust most people at Ford. I hated this. But Virgil was alone, suffering at Nightmare's hands, and if I did this, I could see him, speak to him, and promise my big brother everything was going to be okay.

I watched Duncan walk around the park towards Milton Hall, the windows lit up with bright light in the east wing where the Costa Coffee, bubble tea shop, and Japanese ramen place were. Where Nightmare told me Duncan went for dinner every night at eight p.m. When he disappeared from view, I kept to the shadows and crept up the path to the door.

My back of my neck burned, and I whipped around, scanning the park opposite, the long path. No one was there. No one was in the windows around me, either.

"You're fine, you're fine," I whispered, automatically reaching my finger for my crown ring and jolting when I found the indentation where it belonged, the ring missing. Miz had it. He needed it more than me right now.

A shiver skated from the back of my neck to the base of my spine when the door opened effortlessly. Duncan wasn't the sort of person to leave it unlocked. He was stressed and traumatised and that usually led to paranoia. Leaving the door open didn't fit that. Had he set a trap for me? Had Nightmare got to him too, and set me up? Was Duncan hiding in the park, watching me walk into his home with a crossbow?

"He's not the only person who lives here," I reminded myself. Third year students lived here too. Maybe he needed to leave it unlocked for them. But I shuddered again, hairs rising all down my arms as I let myself into the darkened hallway. It was eerily silent compared to the Halloween party when noise and colour had thumped through every part of the house.

I didn't know how Duncan still lived here after this. If the ritual and summoning happened in Lawrence Hall, I'd sleep in the damn woods to get away from the memories. I couldn't stop my eyes going to the living room, no matter how loudly I screamed at myself not to look.

The rug was gone. The one that had been soaked with Mason Lindgren's blood. Everything else was the same—the coffee table, the fireplace where Rone had stood, the place where I clung to Honey as Nightmare glided into the room.

I could see her here, her awful smile, the gleam in her mismatched eyes, could feel the way her power and presence filled a room.

"Stop it," I hissed. I ripped my stare away and forced myself toward the stairs. I placed my feet carefully, shifting my weight whenever a stair began to creak, my heartbeat riotous.

I didn't know who lived here, didn't know if I had friends or enemies here. For all I knew this place was full of Nightmare's followers who all had permission to murder me if they caught me. Nightmare loved fucked up games. I could imagine her sending me into this place to meet a grisly death.

I shouldn't have come alone. I should have told someone. So fucking stupid. Again.

I wanted Honey with me, wanted my death gods, but if I breathed one word of what Nightmare had over me to anyone, I knew she'd kill Virgil. She wasn't bluffing. I never lie, my terror.

So I held my breath and crept up the stairs to the room on the second floor where Nightmare told me to leave the crossbow, and I ignored the sick twist in my stomach that said I was setting up my friend, that Nightmare had far bigger plans than simply planting evidence of a murder on him.

Duncan didn't kill Jillian Pendleton. If he did, he'd have told me on the snowy hill when he confessed to killing Dean Fairchild. Why tell me of one murder but keep another secret? He didn't do this.

For Virgil.

Music flowed from under the door of one room, while the staccato burst of gunfire came from a video game behind another. I moved stiffly down the hallway even though I knew from books my movements should have been fluid if I wanted to sound natural and avoid suspicion. Escapades were a lot harder in real life than in books.

When I found Duncan's room, sweat pricked my upper lip, but I tightened my grip on the crossbow and committed to the course. The door didn't even creak as I opened it, this one left unlocked too, like Duncan was daring death to find him. Or daring Nightmare to. Like he wanted to kill her every bit as badly as I did.

One day, I promised. One day soon.

I'd make her pay for everything, including what I was about to do. I made that promise to Byron, to Duncan, to everyone she'd hurt as I slipped inside his room, not a single roommate coming out to see who walked the hall. I placed the crossbow in Duncan's wardrobe like I was instructed to.

Getting out was trickier than getting in. By the time I made it downstairs, a light was on in the kitchen and the distinct sound of a coffee maker came from that direction. I froze on the bottom step, paralysed between the crime scene and my escape. What if Duncan came in now and saw me standing here? He'd know I was the one who put the crossbow in his wardrobe.

I reached for the hood of my coat and pulled it over my face. If I'd been smarter, I would have come in a skimpy dress and pretended to do the walk of shame, 1 but here I was in blue flare jeans and a hoodie, looking suspicious as I crept down the stairs.

The coffee machine screamed louder, and I startled into motion, bolting for the door. I was too shaken to close it behind myself; I left it half open and ran down the path, only stopping when I was hidden, gasping, shaking, in the shadow of a broad tree.

How long until Duncan came back? How long until Nightmare called the police to tell them a murder weapon was hidden in a wardrobe at Ford House?

I couldn't think about that now. I could only think about Virgil.

It's done, I snapped at Nightmare. Now let me see my brother.