24. My Own Merits
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
My Own Merits
I 'm on the sixth floor again.
It's not one of the scheduled mentorship sessions. In fact, Stratford isn't even here. I'm alone getting in some studying time before finals.
It's been two nights since the Pinnacle.
Before we left, Stratford told me he's quitting. Which alarmed me, but he's sure it will help. For one thing, it would shut down the rumors involving me as much as possible.
It would also imply guilt on his part, improving my reputation.
Absolutely not, I told him.
Until he explained that he had a pile of money sitting around in his bank account and also a network that would be happy to work with him in a year.
Most important of all, it would get the Society to back off.
He isn't going to walk away, but it would be good if they thought so.
I try to focus again on the chemistry report in front of me, but really, my God. Letters aren't supposed to look like this.
The elevator slides open, which is a little surprising. No one ever comes here. Soft footfalls. A shadow flickers at the edge of my vision.
Carlisle peeks around the tall bookshelves lined with dusty old tomes. Curly brown hair spills over her shoulders, framing her face. Even with minimal makeup and an oversized hoodie designed for paparazzi sightings, she still transforms the place into the set of a hip music video.
"There you are," she says.
I glance over my shoulder. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you." She grimaces, I had to reach out to that guy who outed you to find out where your mentorship sessions were held.
My pulse picks up. "What's wrong?"
"There's a rumor."
"Do not even say the words Tanglewood Tea."
"It's not on there. This is…worse."
"What is it?"
"There's something big happening in the humanities department right now. People are saying it's a coup, like an academic bloodbath."
My blood runs cold. "What does this have to do with me?"
"I don't know. Maybe nothing. Except that Stratford is involved. And with the connection to you, I just had to see for myself that you were okay."
"What do you mean, involved? Like he's taking over."
"No, he's being overthrown."
The world around me seems to tilt on its axis. "I'll go to him."
"That's the thing. He's gone."
Gone? "This is kind of a secret, but Stratford was quitting. So maybe he's just not in his office because he turned in his resignation."
She looks worried. Not about him. About me.
"You saw him again, didn't you?"
I'm surprised by the feeling that I need to defend myself. Carlisle has always been open-minded, though now that I think about it she was pretty hard on Stratford when the news came out. A lot of people were.
"Look, I know it sounds crazy, and this isn't the time, really, if some bad stuff is happening, but I love him. And he loves me."
Her mouth falls into an O . "Anne. "
Anne, she says, as if I'm an idiot. And maybe I am. Did he turn in his resignation and then…leave campus? He told me to wait, to trust him, to let him quit, and then we'd figure out a way to be together until I graduated. Except what if that's all bullshit you tell an inconvenient prostitute slash undergrad?
No, I'm overreacting. It's just Carlisle's worry.
And something else.
A strange energy that becomes more apparent as I emerge from the library. It's as if the campus has been pressed into a socket, an undercurrent of tension that makes everyone walk a little faster, their heads down.
It's the animals in us. They know something dangerous is happening.
I reach Professor Stratford's office on campus. I haven't been here all semester, but it's exactly where I remember it. The door is ajar.
Cold dread settles over me.
He's someone who usually has stacks of papers and folders and notebooks. Now, there's a credit card on the floor by his desk. No, not a credit card. It's the room key. The same one he gave me, with the emerald and gold pattern.
I turn it over, check underneath. Nothing.
Is this supposed to be a message? Or is this a piece of trash he tossed on his way out? Probably trash, but as usual I really can't tell. I hope he hasn't done something spy-worthy like encode a secret message on the little door-opening part, because I don't have time to get Daisy.
There's one person who will know what happened, whether Stratford quit or not, where he is right now. My heart is pounding as I cross the campus. First I'm fast-walking, then flat-out sprinting.
There's the familiar gold placard, the oak door.
Except when I open it, the office looks completely different.
I pick up the letter, my hands trembling as I read the words that confirm my worst fears. It's a typed resignation letter thanking the university for his years here, saying he had to retire suddenly for personal reasons. A generic-sounding letter. I wouldn't even know it was from him if he hadn't signed the bottom.
My heart sinks.
Somehow, they've gotten rid of him.
Probably because he was getting too close to the truth. The Shakespeare Society struck back, and like all dying things, they struck back hard.
Luca Andini saunters in. My blood runs cold as he closes the door behind him, his dark eyes lingering on me with a predatory intensity.
The letter flutters from my hand. "What are you doing here?"
Green eyes glint with amusement. "This is my office now. Since Dean Morris left his post so…suddenly, I'm helping my alma mater by stepping in as temporary dean."
The room tilts, the walls closing in as the gravity of his words sinks in. "Dean Morris would never leave like this," I say, my anger a welcome shield against the fear. "You've done something to him—"
A dismissive wave of his hand. "Perhaps he simply wanted to spend more time with his lovely family. Before something terrible happened to them."
A chill runs down my spine. The framed photograph on Morris's desk, the one of him with his arm around a gorgeous dark-haired woman, a little girl with pigtails perched on his shoulders, is gone. The image of their smiling faces is a stark contrast to the hard lines of Luca's cruel grin.
Morris, with his military bearing and the jagged scar that marred his cheek, wasn't a man who scared easily. He'd faced down enemies in combat, fought for his country, and carried the weight of those experiences with a quiet strength that commanded respect. But this wasn't about him anymore. It was about the people he loved, the family he would do anything to protect. How could he stand against an enemy that targeted those he held most dear?
"You won't get away with this."
"You of all people know what I'm capable of."
The air between us crackles with tension, a silent battle of wills. Even as we both know that I'm outmatched. Luca has more power in his little finger than I've ever had.
"Oh, where is that boyfriend of yours? Not around to protect you anymore?"
I turn cold. And then hot all over. "What did you do to him?"
"Anything I want. That's the point. This is only one piece. The Society controls every part of the city."
I retreat to the relative safety of the door, a public space that would make dismemberment a little tricky, even for someone this bold. I lock eyes with Luca, my gaze a challenge to his arrogance. "Almost every part, but you missed something. Because you sure as hell don't control me."
I'm not a fighter, not physically, anyway. My weapons are words. And I show up to the Mayfair armed and dangerous. I knock on his door at the Mayfair.
The dorm features privacy as a perk, with celebrities like Carlisle, with children of senators or foreign royalty. Or in this case, with wealthy sons of megalomaniacs. But their rooms are an open secret.
His eyes narrow when he opens the door. "You."
"Here's the deal," I say, sweeping inside. His suite is even larger than Carlisle's, which is wild. I didn't even know you could upgrade. Apparently she'd gone low-key with her nine-hundred-square foot suite. "I need information. And I need it fast."
"Why the fuck would I help you?"
"Because you're gay. And while I don't care about that, your father does."
He lifts his top lip in a beautiful sneer. "It's the twenty-first century. What gave you that idea?"
"Oh, for starters, the fact that he's living in the sixteenth century," I say, ticking them off on my fingers. "Then there's the fact that he offered to share me with everyone there, including you. And lastly because you lashed out like a wild animal when I happened to see you kissing a guy."
His expression hardens. "Fuck off."
"So here's the deal: you're going to help me find Stratford or I'm going to Luca Andini, sorry, I mean, Dean Luca Andini, and telling him about you."
"You're a bitch."
A brief smile touches my lips. It's not the first time I've been called that. In a twisted way, my father trained me to take the kind of bullshit women get in the workplace. "Am I a bitch or am I just not taking your family's bullshit?"
"I don't know where Stratford is."
"Then find out."
A few minutes later we have our answer. He's in one of the old underground nuclear shelters, the ones the society controls. I attended a party there at my first event. Matteo also produces a key.
His stony expression makes it clear he doesn't enjoy being blackmailed. Which is understandable. Though maybe he should try less evil hijinks.
"Don't tell him I'm heading there," I say. "Or the deal's off."
He shakes his head. "For what it's worth, I didn't want the Tempest Prize that way. I wanted to win it on my own merits."
I don't know whether he means with the initial boost of Thorne's mentorship, which probably included her writing the paper. Or whether he means the way I was kicked out. "Funny, so did I."
It's raining by the time I exit the dorm, the sky a tumultuous canvas of London fog grays and deep purples. The students around me huddle under umbrellas and hoods, their conversations a low murmur that weaves through the patter of raindrops on the pavement. I pass a group gathered beneath the awning of the student center, their words carrying over the din of the storm.
I catch a few words that tell me they're talking about the humanities department. "A real Shakespearean tragedy," one of them says, sounding amused at their own joke. "Like, the power struggles, the backstabbing."
"The ruthless takeover of it all."
The casual banter feels like acid on an open wound.
I can't help but bristle at their casual dismissal of the situation. They're acting like it's some Netflix show they've binged. They don't know how dangerous the Society is, or even that the coup is run by them.
They don't know what's at stake, which will make fighting this harder.
That's a problem for another day, though .
Right now, I need to find Stratford.
I pause beneath the shelter of a large oak tree, its branches providing a meager respite from the relentless downpour. My trembling fingers move over the screen of my phone as I write a quick email to Professor Avery Miller, explaining what I know and exactly where I'm going. She's one of the few people on campus I can trust right now, but I don't know when she'll get this. I'm not even sure she's still a professor here.
Another email I send to Cormac Stratford, William's brother. I've never even spoken to him before, so I have no idea whether he'll believe me. It might come across as the new junk spam. Instead of sending money to a Nigerian prince, it's getting your brother out of the clutches of a secret society.
I hope they can help, because I don't have much faith in my own ability to get Stratford out of this. But I can't sit around while he might be hurt.
A chill runs down my spine, and it's not just from the cold rain soaking through my clothes. The thought of what might have already been done to him sends waves of nausea and panic through me. Would they have hit him? Probably. It's crude, but Andini is really just a brunt-force bully beneath the Society's ritualistic robes.
Stratford will still be alive, though.
I have to believe that.
Even if Andini were willing to murder, an idea that doesn't exactly stretch the imagination, he would keep Stratford alive if only to gloat. At least, I hope so. The alternative is too hard to even consider.
My brain swerves away from the despair waiting there.
I'm fully drenched by the time I reach the half-hidden door, a slab of inconspicuous metal that looks like it leads to some utility room. I use the code Matteo gave me on the keypad. It unlatches.
The air grows cooler as I make my way down the steps, the only sound the echo of my own footsteps reverberating off the concrete walls. The underground nuclear shelter, a relic of a bygone era, has been repurposed by the Shakespeare Society for their parties. For free drugs and orgies.
The front porch, Andini called them.
There's no party happening now. It's dark and dim.
I want to call out for him, but something tells me to stay quiet.
I'm not alone down here .
The cold air in the underground shelter makes goose bumps rise on my skin. Or maybe it's the eerie silence. The only sound is the soft brush of my shoes against concrete. I dial 9-1-1, turn the volume way down, and leave my phone on the floor, facedown in the shadows.
Whatever happens now, at least they'll know where I went.
I find a trail of footprints in the dust.
There's a dark patch on the ground. Blood.
My fingers brush against the cool wall to guide me. Out of nowhere, I'm yanked backward, my body slammed against a wall. A knife glints in the dim light, the blade pressed against my throat.
Fear lances through me, sharp and icy. I can't breathe, can't think. Terror even blinds me for a moment, before I recognize Stratford. He looks wholly changed. More animalistic. A different creature than the one at Pinnacle.
He sucks in a breath. The knife is gone. "What are you doing here?"
He's disheveled, his dark hair falling over his forehead, a wildness in his eyes I've never seen before. There's a dark stain on his shirt, spreading across his side. Blood. "Oh, you know, I came to ask you out. Watch a movie. Grab some fro-yo. Typical date things .
"You need to get the fuck out of here," he growls.
"I'm not leaving you," I say, my voice steadier than I feel. My hands flutter to his wound, and he winces. "We're going to get you to a hospital."
He pants, leaning back against the wall now that he's not busy trying to attack someone. "It's too late for that."
My heart pounds. "What do you mean?"
"They got me through Brandon."
"He did this to you?"
"No, but that might have been easier to accept. My ex used him to get me down here. They were waiting for me."
"Why would she do that?"
His teeth gleam white as he gives a pained laugh. "She's offended that I fucked someone, ironically. That's what brought me down. Simple jealousy, even though we haven't shared a bed or a civil word in decades."
"An ambulance is coming. I already called them."
"They poisoned the blade, Anne. I managed to get two of them, and they took off, but it was too late. They'd already done it."
Fear, visceral and white-hot, burns through me. "This is insane. "
"There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but now is not the time for Shakespeare."
"I knew the risks when I came back. I'm only sorry that I dragged you into this. The important thing is that you go. Not the dorm. Not home. Go far away. Secret. Safe. Cormac can help."
"Don't you dare pass out on me," I say, my voice breaking.
I'm not worried about him passing out. I'm worried about him dying.
That this breath might be his last. Or this one. Or this.
He slides down the concrete wall. His eyes flutter open, a look of surprise on his face. "I didn't expect…to fall in love with you," he murmurs, his voice barely a whisper. "But I did. It's the best thing I've ever done."
I press my hand to his wound, applying pressure in a desperate attempt to slow the bleeding. Except I might make it worse. I don't know how you treat poison. "We're going to get through this," I say, as if I can make it true. Tears blur my vision. "You're going to be okay."
A soft sigh escaping his lips.
"No," I say, my voice rising in panic. "Don't you dare leave me, William. Don't you dare. I will bring you back from the dead and kill you."
His eyes close. He's limp in my arms. I cradle him against me, rocking back and forth as soundless sobs wrack my body. I came here to save him, and instead, I watched him die.
*
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