“Why didn’t you say you were the Wolf?” Destin asks Camille quietly.
“I didn’t know,” she replies, “until yesterday.”
My jaw drops. “Seriously? It was you the whole time?”
The Ender groans, and our attention is recaptured by the image of her pushing herself up on her hands unsteadily. “Ugh, I feel like I’ve been trampled by the post. McAbbey, have we got any more?”
If she didn’t remember anything, why was she calling my mom by that ridiculous nickname?
“I’m afraid you’re enjoying a different sort of hospitality now,” Bea says, entering the room but staying a healthy distance from the stone cage.
Meredith glances up at her blearily through her tangled hair. “Holy hell, you got old. Wait, who are you?” She coughs, sitting back against the granite bars. “Forget it, I don’t care. Just give me a minute and I’ll burn this place to the ground.” She coughs again. “Heh, she wasn’t kidding, that was the good stuff.”
“We’re underground with two stories above that,” Bea states. “Setting anything on fire would bury you under fifty feet of rubble, trapped in a stone cage.”
Meredith seems to notice the cage for the first time. “Stone? That’s clever. Have I terrorized you before? Wait, don’t answer that.”
“The first time you came to Havenwood was in nineteen - ”
“I SAID DON’T ANSWER THAT,” Meredith roars, throwing herself at the bars. Sparks spit around her.
Bea is stock still, watching her cautiously.
“It might take me awhile, but I can torch my way out of this,” she growls. “Everything burns eventually, even stone. Your fifty feet of rubble would be an inconvenience for me, nothing more. I am the definition of resilience. Look it up in the dictionary. Resilience. Noun. Meredith. When are you people going to learn that putting obstructions between me and you only hurts you?”
“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?