Killing November

by Adriana Mather

  We all walk silently back to the courtyard. I notice that Nyx’s hand periodically clenches around her sword, and Felix and Ines seem on edge. Between the dark cloud of general anxiety created by Charles’s death yesterday and Conner looming over us, it’s not really a surprise, though. I’m just grateful Brendan isn’t here. My money is still on him for the “You will be eliminated” message.

  “We’ll start today with some freestyle sparring to get your blood moving, and then we’ll begin our lesson,” Professor Odd says, and clasps his hands together. “Dr. Conner, would you like to choose the pairings? And remember, everyone, no boxing or martial arts, just swords.”

  “How thoughtful, Professor Odd,” Conner says, and looks us over with a smile. “How about…Felix with Kiku. Ines with…Jaya. November with”—he scans the group—“Nyx.”

  My stomach drops. He goes on pairing students, but I don’t listen.

  Professor Odd tells us to spread out and then promptly turns to Conner. The two men start chatting, and I reluctantly follow Nyx to the far end of the open courtyard.

  She stops close to the dense wall of trees that separates us from the vine courtyard and turns to face me. Her curly hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail and her eyes are just as wild as mine would be if I had lost someone I cared about. As much as I don’t like her, I also can’t imagine how awful it must have been for her to see Charles die like that. I could barely handle it, and he was trying to kill me.

  “Look, I know you must—” I begin, but she swings at my left side with her sword. I parry and our blades ring. “Whoa, I wasn’t even in position yet.”

  She immediately goes for my right side. I deflect again. She’s hitting me with surprising force, and I remember what Ash said about her taking down people much bigger than her.

  She makes eye contact with me, and the hair on my arms stands up.

  Nyx swings at my knees. I jump over her blade and give her a good whack on the shoulder.

  Her eyes practically smoke with fury. “This is your fault,” she spits at me. “All of this is because of you.”

  “Are you kidding? Charles tried to kill me, not the other way around,” I say in a low voice, but it only seems to make her angrier.

  She lunges forward, slicing her sword in one direction and then the next. I parry, our swords hitting each other in a constant stream of clangs.

  “This is supposed to be—” I start.

  Nyx fakes right and swings left. Again I deflect her, but I’m nervous. She’s really good and she’s coming at me like we’re dueling to the death, not warming up. With the force she’s using, if she does land a hit, I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t break one of my bones or give me a concussion.

  “—practice, Nyx. You’re gonna wear us both out before we ever get to our lesson.” I glance momentarily at Professor Odd and Conner, but they’re laughing together and not paying any attention to how aggressive she’s being.

  Looking away was a mistake, because Nyx sidesteps and slices at my head. I just manage to block and step, but now my back is to the tree wall.

  “Wear us out?” She laughs, but the sound is anything but happy. It almost verges on a sob. “Screw you, November. You and your family should have died a long time ago. Now we’re all suffering for that mistake.”

  For a second I think I misheard her. Is she talking about my Bear Family or my immediate family?

  She runs at me and angles her sword at my ribs. I block, but her momentum forces me to backstep again. Nyx slashes high at my head and I duck. Her sword hits the tree trunk behind me and I ready myself for another blow, but her blade is lodged in the trunk. She screams in frustration, and Professor Odd and Conner turn in our direction.

  My heart starts to pound so hard that it blots out all the noise in the courtyard. A dull blade wouldn’t do that.

  Panic shoots through me and I move quickly away from the trees as she yanks her blade out of the wood. Sure enough, her sword is razor-sharp. I’ve been so busy dodging her blows that I didn’t notice.

  “Nyx!” Odd yells from across the courtyard, and her name is suddenly like a bell in my mind. Sarete ridotti could also mean “You will be nixed.” My Italian is rusty or I would have considered it earlier—a clever play on words.

  Nyx rushes at me, slashing her blade three times, fast and hard. I block, but only barely. She grunts in frustration and aims at my face. I move to deflect, but she doesn’t follow through. Instead, she throws a kick at my legs and I land hard on my back. In an instant she’s standing over me.

  She lifts her sword over her head and jabs it at my heart with both of her hands. I roll, but not fast enough, and the blade catches the edge of my upper arm. I swing my sword at her, forcing her back so I can scramble to my feet.

  I can hear Odd and Conner screaming at her, but she doesn’t pause.

  Nyx slashes at me before I regain my balance. I get my sword up, but at an awkward angle, and she hits it so hard that it flies right out of my grip. For a split second we make eye contact and the corner of her mouth twitches upward. One swing and I’m dead.

  I turn and run for the trees. The trunks are mostly smooth bark and the branches don’t begin until a good twenty feet up. But there are some nubs where the lower branches have been cut off.

  Nyx’s boots pound the grass behind me and I jump for one of the sawn-off branches, only just pulling up my legs as her blade hits the wood. I manage to climb a few more feet and she screams, pacing at the bottom of the tree. But I can’t go any higher. The next handhold is too far to reach, and my arm and leg muscles are already straining from the awkward position I’m in. My cut upper arm throbs and I know I only have about a minute before I lose my grip.

  Nyx wraps her fist around her sword hilt, and I can see she’s switched tactics. She’s going to throw it like a spear. Shit. She narrows her eyes as she calculates. But just as she pulls back her arm, Professor Odd grabs her wrist. She turns around, swinging.

  Conner pulls a needle out of his blazer pocket and jabs her in the arm. She stumbles two steps, drops her sword, and falls into the grass.

  “Get two guards and tell them they’re to take her to the dungeon,” Conner says, and Odd takes off at a jog.

  I let go of the tree and drop into the grass. For a couple of horrible seconds everyone is completely still. And it occurs to me—none of the other students tried to help me.

  Conner dabs his forehead with a handkerchief and frowns. “Go to the infirmary, November.”

  I look down at my arm. Blood is dripping off my knuckles and into the grass.

  LAYLA AND I walk down our empty dorm hallway, carrying books. There’s only a single wall torch to light our way and it’s burning low, casting long sections of the hall into dark shadow. My arm throbs from the stitches the nurse gave me, and I’ve learned that this place doesn’t believe in painkillers. I glance over my shoulder, but everything is silent and still.

  I unlatch our door and Layla and I put our books down—some on European history for me, which Layla said would give me the basis of understanding for what she needs to teach me, and more on criminology for her. She also threw in some regular books about poisons and swords just in case Pippa is taking note of our reading.

  I’m not sure why Layla’s still obsessively researching Stefano’s murder after we found out Charles was the culprit and Ash and I were cleared, but she seems to be fixated on the details. Maybe she just wants to understand what happened to her friend? I would ask Ash if this is normal behavior for her, but I haven’t seen him all evening.

  We check the room to make sure no one is hiding anywhere, and Layla sits on the couch in front of the fireplace.

  “If Brendan took the time to break in and write that message on your floor, why didn’t he just kill you when he had the chance?” she asks.

  I sit down next to her. “I don’t know.�
�� I reflexively touch the bandage on my arm. “Maybe Nyx wanted to be the one to do it, to cut me down publicly?”

  Layla chews on her lip. “Yeah, but she didn’t succeed. And from what I heard, you held your own, which, against Nyx, is saying a lot. I think she saw an opportunity and took it, simple as that. Because why would she chance fighting you in the open if she could just sneak in and slit your throat?”

  I shudder. “No knife?”

  “That’s possible,” she says. “But how did she manage to come by a sharpened sword? The sparring blades are kept dull for a reason. Something here doesn’t add up.” She stares at the crackling fire.

  “Conner said they were taking her to the dungeon,” I say. “Are they going to enforce the eye-for-an-eye rule? And how would that even work? Because technically she cut my arm, but obviously she was trying to kill me.”

  Layla turns toward me. “I’m not exactly sure. I’ve never seen a situation play out this way before. They’ll do something. The dungeon is miserable, from what I’ve heard, but I’m sure you’ll get a chance to retaliate as well.”

  I frown, wishing all this retaliation business would just stop. “What about Brendan? Whether he was the one who broke in or not, I’m assuming he’s got to be pissed now that one of his friends is dead and the other is in the dungeon.”

  Layla’s fist clenches for just a moment. “Oh, this definitely isn’t over. I’m not trying to scare you, but if the Lions want you dead, they’re not going to stop until you are.”

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Before I even turn around, Layla is off the couch.

  “We’re coming,” she says as she lifts the latch.

  The guard on the other side of the door looks around, and once she sees me, she turns and goes to the next room to knock.

  Layla hands me my cloak and I slip it on.

  We follow the other girls down the hallway and into the foyer where Nyx and I competed in the dark. It’s hard to believe that was only a week ago; I feel like a year’s worth of chaos has ensued since then. Blackwood stands by the wall, and the twenty-four of us girls assemble on the ground in front of her and form a U.

  “We have some new challenges for you tonight,” Blackwood says, and her tone makes it sound like a carefully concealed warning. “You will find these challenges different from any you have been presented with thus far. And there will be serious consequences for not completing them properly.”

  She looks behind her at the guards, who step aside to let six faculty members pass, including Liu, Gupta, and Conner. Blackwood nods at them and they begin to move around the U like we’re playing a creepy game of Duck Duck Goose, each one selecting a handful of students.

  Conner taps the girl on my left and Gupta taps the girl next to Layla. The girls get up and walk off in small clusters, following the faculty members who selected them, until only Layla, Aarya, Ines, and I are left.

  “Follow me,” Blackwood says with no warmth. I want to protest, but I don’t dare show Aarya that I’m nervous about whatever is about to happen.

  Blackwood leads us two doorways down to the teachers’ lounge I was kept in when I first arrived. The fireplace isn’t lit like it was then, and the only source of light is a single torch by the arched doorway.

  Four large guards follow our group into the room, and the X guard is one of them, which only escalates my unease. Layla and I glance at each other, and I can tell by the look in her eyes that she’s worried, too. I want to ask her how extreme these challenges get, but no one is talking right now—not even Aarya.

  I immediately take in the details of the room. There are two big couches near the fireplace, with a wide, sturdy coffee table between them. Two sets of armchairs with footstools separated by small end tables. A sideboard with a pitcher of water, clean glasses, and a bowl of apples. A round table with four chairs. Tapestries on the walls, and a couple of empty torch holders. A large fireplace with decorative stone trimming. A shelf full of books. A wrought-iron candelabra hanging from the ceiling. And no windows.

  “Your first challenge is simple,” Blackwood says, standing directly in front of the door with two guards on either side of her. “There are six objects hidden in this room. Find them and it will make completing the second challenge easier. Don’t find them and you will wish you had—some of you more than others. I will be the one to decide when your time is up.”

  That doesn’t sound remotely comforting and pretty much tells us nothing except that Blackwood makes the rules and unless we move quickly we’ll regret it.

  “Begin,” Blackwood says, and everyone springs into action.

  Ines goes to the bookshelf and methodically starts taking down every book. Aarya moves to the sideboard to inspect the apples. Layla drags the coffee table to the center of the room. She grabs a chair from the round table and places it on top, climbing up to the candelabra.

  I turn in a circle. The furniture is the obvious go-to and most likely contains more than half of the objects. And I have no doubt those three will find whatever is there. But there has to be at least one object that isn’t hidden in the furniture. I run my eyes over the walls, looking for anything that could be shifted or manipulated. I yank on the empty wrought-iron torch holders, but they are firmly attached. I lift the tapestry, but there’s nothing behind it.

  I stop at the fireplace. The stones are large and seemingly mortared in place. There are no logs in the fireplace, but there is some leftover ash. I sift through it with my fingers.

  “Found one,” Aarya says with a gloating tone. She pulls a hairpin out of the end of an apple and places it on the marble top of the sideboard.

  A hairpin? They hid things that small? I smack my hands together and a cloud of soot billows out. I run my fingers along the brick-sized decorative stones that make up the mantel, looking for any crack or groove that shouldn’t be there. My sooty fingers leave a trail, particularly in the tiny imperfections. Well, now, there’s an idea. I scoop up the ash and smear it on all of the small stones by the fistful, painting the whole mantel with dark gray.

  “Metal nail file,” Layla says, and we all briefly turn to see her pulling it from the end of an unlit candle in the candelabra.

  Aarya is removing the drawers from the sideboard and inspecting them for false backs and bottoms.

  I look around me for a piece of spare fabric, but there’s nothing but the heavy tapestry. Screw it. I grab the end of my cloak and start wiping the excess soot off the stones in a circular motion.

  “Two paper clips,” Ines says, pulling them from the loose spine of an old book.

  Paper clips, a metal nail file, and a hairpin—there’s definitely a theme here and I’m pretty sure it has something to do with locks. Except that the door in this room, like all the doors I’ve seen, closes with a latch.

  I rub at the stones faster, and a soot line forms around a fist-sized stone in the upper left corner of the mantel. I drop my cloak and grip the rock with my fingertips, wiggling it back and forth. Slowly it comes out in my hand, and I catch Ines watching me from where she’s checking the seams of a couch.

  I peer into the small stone cubby and glimpse a dark metal object pushed all the way to the back. “Got one,” I say, and pull medieval-looking pliers from the hole, placing them on the mantel.

  Layla slides out an inch from under the coffee table, where she’s inspecting the wood.

  “Time’s up,” Blackwood says.

  And just like that, the torch goes out, smothering the room in complete blackness.

  “Layla?” I say.

  “I’m—” she starts, but gets cut off by what sounds like a blow to the stomach. Wood scrapes against wood, and there is a squeak I can only guess belongs to moving metal.

  I take a fast couple of steps toward Layla’s voice, my arms out in front of me, and smack into the coffee table with my shins, pitching fo
rward.

  “Get the hell—” Aarya starts, and her voice is muffled.

  Layla coughs and wheezes, only instead of coming from the floor, the sound seems to be coming from above my head.

  There are a few rough thuds of what I can only imagine are people hitting each other, and I cringe, wondering if I’ll be next. Something crashes to my right, and books topple to the floor from one of the bookshelves.

  I recover my balance and climb onto the coffee table, moving toward the sound of Layla’s labored breathing. My heart beats a mile a minute.

  There is the whine of an old hinge as the door briefly opens and slams shut. A latch slides into place from the outside, and then the room falls into complete silence besides Layla’s wheezing.

  “Layla, where are you?” I say, waving my hands in front of me.

  “Light. We need light, November,” Layla manages between breaths.

  I hear a couple more books fall. “Mierda,” Ines breathes, and I’m pretty sure it’s the first word I’ve ever heard her say.

  For a split second I stand there with my heart racing, lost in the darkness. There are no matches. There aren’t even coals to work with. And I’m pretty sure whoever left the room took the torch with them, because I can’t see any embers glowing from where the torch holder should be.

  Ines gasps. “Aarya?”

  I can hear the fear in her voice, and it brings my awareness into sharp focus. “Paper,” I say with urgency, “the older and drier the better. Bring it over to the fireplace, Ines.”

  If I’m not wrong, some of the stones making up the mantel are actually flint, including the one that was loose. And there’s a chance those old pliers are made of steel. I step down from the table and run back to the fireplace faster than is cautious, my hands in front of me.