by Sofia Daniel
Sebastian headed for the east wing, and I practically flew up the four flights of stairs. The first thing I would do once I got dressed was to hand Bianca back the envelope of money I’d stashed in my school bag. I wouldn’t tolerate any more shit from her, her best friend, or her freak of a father. But if she ever needed me to serve as a witness, I’d be there.
I unlocked the door to my room and stepped inside, only to find it completely stripped. Everything—my laptop, my books, my pictures, my school bag, even my comforter from home—everything was gone.
My stomach dropped to the parquet floor, and I rushed ahead and flung open the closet. It was bare. Each drawer I opened was bare. The storage area in the bedside cabinet was also bare.
Who had taken all my stuff?
“Calm down,” I whispered to myself. “There’s a logical explanation.”
My mind whirred through the possibilities. Maybe my room was being fumigated. Maybe Mrs. Benazir had decided to expel me and had ordered my things packed up. I shook my head. Both would require some kind of notice, and neither would happen overnight.
I walked to the window and stared out into the gardens. A bonfire blazed in the middle of the lawn.
I blinked. Bonfire?
Mrs. Benazir didn’t allow the lawn to be tarnished on Bonfire Night, so why would she allow a fire during a no-festival day? Bile rose to the back of my throat. Someone was burning my stuff. Someone had moved my things, placed them in the middle of the lawn, and set them alight.
Probably in retaliation for having Miss Claymore fired.
“Shit!” I bolted out of my room, down the hallway, down the stairs, and out through the fire exit.
One of the cases I had taken from the house lay at the bottom of a bonfire piled with burning books and items of clothing I recognized.
“Fucking hell!”
People streamed out from the doors to watch the spectacle. A warm hand landed on my shoulder, and Cormac asked, “What’s going on, Willow?”
“That’s all my stuff,” I said with a sob. “My books, my clothes, my laptop, some money, and Corrine’s diary.”
Cormac’s face fell. “A-are you sure?”
I nodded. “Whoever did it stripped the room bare.”
“Bloody hell.” He ran both hands through his hair, and his face turned the shade of diluted milk. “Bloody. Fucking. Hell.”
All concerns for myself burned into the ether, and pain lanced through my heart. It looked like the destruction of Corrine’s diary had struck Cormac with a fresh wave of grief. I wrapped my arms around his middle, remembering how I had felt after seeing Mom’s watercolor portrait of the family torn to pieces.
“Cormac?” I looked into his face.
Staring blankly at nothing, he shook his head. “I-I’ve got to sit down.”
We walked through the crowds and back into the main building. The only place I could think to take Cormac was the infirmary, and I guided him through the parquet hallways and into one of the comfortable seats in the reception area.
Cormac rested his head in his hands. “This is going to sound stupid.”
“You can tell me anything.” I rubbed his back.
“Knowing that you had my twin’s diary was like having her live through you.” He turned to me, his eyes glistening with tears.
I could have said that she still lived in our hearts or some other cliché, but it would be like a slap in the face. A meaningless platitude that only served to make the speaker feel better.
“Cormac.” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “I know how gut-wrenching it feels to lose the last part of a loved one, but you’re not alone.”
He shook his head. “It was always Corrine and me until…”
“But you have me,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if you go to Oxford and I go to Cambridge. You’ve been with me through some terrible situations, and I’ll be with you for as long as you need me.”
He pulled his hands away from his face and stared into his lap. “Do you mean that?”
“With all my heart.”
We sat side-by-side in the infirmary with our arms wrapped around each other, each commiserating on our mutual losses. Why hadn’t Ashely and I banded together like this in the face of Mom and Dad’s accident? It had only driven us further apart.
Cormac and I had both lost siblings—his to death, and mine to betrayal—but at that moment, I truly felt what it meant to have a brother.
Mrs. Benazir wasn’t in her office, and I left a message with her receptionist informing her that I needed a new set of books and uniforms. Throughout the morning, I kept wondering who might have burned my things. Bianca? It would be twisted of her to leave twenty-five thousand pounds on my bed in the evening, only to burn all my stuff in the morning.
I sat next to Leopold in Economics, tapping my fingers against my bottom lip.
He leaned into me and whispered, “It was Claymore.”
“She’s at the top of my list of suspects,” I muttered. “She probably has a skeleton key for every room.”
“Probably?” Leopold scoffed. After looking from left to right, he whispered, “Seb went through a phase where he spent every night on Kash’s sofa so that you-know-who wouldn’t steal into his room with her fist of fury.”
I wrinkled my nose, trying not to picture a furious Miss Claymore on top of my boyfriend. “Why didn’t he stay with you?”
Leopold raised his brows. “The big dipper comes out at night, where it shines both strong and bright.”
“Is that your way of telling me you’re a man-whore?”
He pressed a hand on his chest. “Reformed, unpaid man-of-the-night. Now I’m faithful to one-third of a woman and still awaiting my smothering.”
“Mr. Brunswick?” Mr. Fisher stormed across the room. “Would you like to share your conversation with the rest of the class?”
“Why, certainly, my good sir.” Leopold stood. “I was reciting a composition I made. An ode to man’s best friend: his penis.”
Laughter broke out across the room, and I slid down my seat. That wasn’t even funny, so why was I laughing?
“Get out!” Mr. Fisher roared.
Leopold shrugged. “A man can’t be faulted for doing as he’s told.”
The next class of the day was English. An elderly man took the place of the previous teacher who had stuttered and shaken throughout the lesson. While he didn’t have Miss Claymore’s flare or enthusiasm for the subject, he knew what he was talking about and could make himself understood.
I explained to the kings why I wanted to spend a bit of time with Cormac. Surprisingly, they understood, and no one made any disparaging comments about my best friend.
Mr. Blunt wandered into the lecture theater with his flat cap in his hands. His gaze swept around the room until it landed on me.
He addressed the new teacher. “Excuse me, sir, I have a message from Mrs. Benazir.”
“Go on,” said the old man.
The caretaker’s eyes rolled upward as though he was memorizing from a list. “Miss Evergreen, Miss Byrd, and Miss Hill are wanted at the headmistress’s office.”
Cormac stood. “I’ll escort the ladies.”
Dread rumbled through my belly, and I pulled myself to my feet. Sebastian grabbed my arm and asked if I wanted him to come, but I shook my head and wrapped my arms around my middle.
If Mr. Byrd was here, complaining about the bonfire of his blood money, I would report him to the police for bribery and harassment.
The caretaker scampered out of the lecture hall and around to the other side of the building. As we stepped out, I turned to Cormac and whispered, “I don’t think I can be polite to Geraldine if she snipes at me.”
“And I fully expect you to fight your corner. She might be the love of my life, but she’s wrong about you on several counts.”
I glowered at the pair of self-styled queens walking ahead of us with synchronized steps. How could Cormac tolerate such a vicious little poser?
“Do you know what it could be about?” he whispered.
I shook my head. “There are so many things going on, it could be anything.”
When we reached Mrs. Benazir’s office, Cormac motioned for me to follow Geraldine and Bianca inside. I gave him a grateful smile and stepped through the doorway.
The headmistress sat at her desk, opposite two familiar-looking police officers. Geraldine and Bianca stood to one side with their arms linked.
“Go on.” Mrs. Benazir waved her hand at the female officer. “Tell them.”
“Neither of your DNA matches the samples we took from the forensic medical exam. We need a list of girls who were at this…” She glanced down at her notepad. “Initiation.”
Bianca batted her lashes. “It was just the two of us and Ashley.”
“There were about twelve girls,” I snapped.
“Their names, please?” asked the officer.
Bianca and Geraldine turned to me, each giving me the kind of smug smiles that made my fingers itch to slap their faces.
“They weren’t in my year or taking any of my classes.” I ran a shaky hand through my hair. “But I can point them out.”
Mrs. Benazir slammed her palm on the table. “I’ve just lost a dedicated deputy headmistress, a valuable source of legal advice, and now you wish to turn my dining room into an identity parade?”
“We wouldn’t ask the girls to form a line,” said the police officer. “Willow can walk around and ask those girls responsible to—”
“To hand themselves over for DNA testing and police interrogation?” Mrs. Benazir folded her arms across her chest. “What you fail to realize is that we’re now victimizing girls aged sixteen and under for the benefit of one girl who I’ve already bent over backward to accommodate!”
Rage burned through my veins. “All of this could have been avoided by stamping out bullying.”
“We had a deputy headmistress who battled the bullies, but your accusations drove her out!”
An awkward silence stretched out through Mrs. Benazir’s office. From the way she twisted things around, it was my fault for getting abducted in the middle of the night, nearly killed with alcohol, and then sexually assaulted. I’m sure she would have given me a nice eulogy if I had kept my head down and endured the taunting until the bullies finally drove me to suicide.
Mrs. Benazir drew in a deep breath through her flared nostrils. “I apologize for the outburst. Recent events have made my job four times as stressful.”
I held back my comments. The headmistress had only recently recovered from her food poisoning, appearing pale and over-inflated with stress. Any more, and she’d probably burst.
Geraldine placed her hands on her hips. “Since we’ve been proven innocent, may we leave?”
“You may go.” The headmistress waved them away.
“What about obstructing the course of justice?” I turned to the police officers. “If this crime was about money, you’d make them reveal their accomplices.”
The officers exchanged glances, and I balled my fists. Why was it so difficult to do the right thing?
After Advanced Calculus, Prakash and I walked down to the first floor. He’d been glancing at me throughout the lesson as though wanting to ask a question, and I finally asked, “What’s wrong?”
“You’re changing.”
“Like Corrine?”
“Angrier.”
“I think it’s frustration.” A lump formed in my throat. “Sometimes, I wonder if I’m keeping this whole thing alive by pursuing justice.”
“If you didn’t fight back, your persecutors would ensure a death of some kind.”
“Huh?”
“That sweetness that radiates through your eyes has turned into righteous fury.”
“Is that a good thing or bad?” I asked.
“Either version of yourself wants to do what’s right.” He sighed and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Don’t give up. I’ll stand by you all the way.”
My heart thudded, and a breath caught in the back of my throat. Of all the kings, he was the most distant. The one I couldn’t reach. To discover that he had observed me so closely was both eye-opening and flattering.
I raised my chin and gazed into his glistening, ebony eyes. “What happened to the Prakash who wanted me to leave?”
“Retreat is no longer an option,” he murmured. “The more you defend yourself, the more of a difficult target you become.”
I lowered my lashes. “Thanks. Sometimes, I felt hopeless. Like I’m being selfish somehow for wanting those people who hurt me to be punished.”
“Never think that.” He laced his fingers into mine. “You haven’t done a thing to deserve these people’s wrath, yet they keep coming after you.”
“The police are getting sick of me,” I whispered.
“They’re doing a crappy job in protecting you.” He swept the hand on my shoulders around my back and pulled me into a hug. “Come to my room, and I’ll make you a soothing blend of Kashaayah tea.”
Chapter 20
As we walked through the hallways, I stole glances at the most mysterious of the kings. My memories of the day we had spent together still hadn’t resurfaced, but according to Leopold, we had been getting along exceptionally well.
And more importantly, there was something about Prakash that tugged at my heart. A feeling that he cared more deeply about me than he could ever express. He opened the door to the nearest stairwell, releasing the scent of beeswax polish.
“I suppose you know a lot about tea,” I murmured for want of anything else to say.
“It’s been the family business since the days of Queen Victoria. We’ve had centuries to perfect the perfect cuppa.”
“Oh.”
While Prakash explained that all tea came from the same plant, Miss Claymore’s parting words to me in her office reverberated in my mind. She’d told me that Prakash had seduced Corrine, broken her heart, and driven her to her death.
Swallowing hard, I dipped my head, continued up the stairs, and listened with half an ear to Prakash talk about tea. Miss Claymore had told me Corrine had confided that she had become a nuisance to the wrong person. Had she been talking about Prakash?
“The blend I will share with you contains white tea,” he said. “We pick young buds before they open and dry them without processing.”
“Is it as healthy as green tea?” I asked as we reached the top of the stairs.
Prakash opened the door to the top floor hallway and talked about a scientific study his father had commissioned to measure the phenols and polyphenols in their white tea.
I nodded at the right places and forced myself to focus on the conversation. The time for sneaking about behind his back and learning about him through Corrine’s diary was over. Whoever had burned my things had cut off all options. I had to get the information from the source.
As soon as he opened the door to his room, I placed a hand on his arm. “What happened between you and Corrine Gibbons?”
Inhaling a sharp breath, he walked to the other side of his room, where a kettle and teapot rested on a cabinet. “I can’t talk about it sober.”
“About what?” I lowered myself onto his armchair.
He glanced to the side. “I failed you, just as I failed Corrine.”
“How?”
“I was possibly the last person who saw you on the night Miss Claymore tried to kill you.”
My mouth fell open, and a dozen questions rose to the back of my throat. The first of them was to demand why he had left me vulnerable to the whims of an obsessive murderer. I shook off the accusation and forced myself to listen.
His Adam’s apple rose and fell before he said, “If I hadn’t left you in the infirmary, Miss Claymore wouldn’t have caught up with you.”
“Then why—”
“After the auction, we went out for drinks, and I explained to you exactly what had happened between Corrine and me. How my actions had killed her spi
rit.”
My eyes bulged. What auction? Nothing he said made any sense. “How could you possibly kill—”
“I should never have started the game.” Prakash picked up the kettle and took it into the bathroom.
I bit down on my lip, trying to process a resurfacing memory. “But you fell in love with her.”
“You remember?” He stepped out of the bathroom, holding the kettle.
“Snippets.” I rubbed my temples and pictured velvet chairs and a butler with a tailcoat. “We sat in a fancy bar with table service, right?”
“That’s right,” he said with a lilt of hope in his voice.
My muscles relaxed. If he had attacked me as Miss Claymore had implied, he wouldn’t seem so pleased about the return of my memory. “But I don’t get how you killed her spirit.”
Prakash turned on the kettle and picked up the teapot. “Corrine seemed perfectly normal before I started the game and perfectly normal until Geraldine and Bianca announced that she was my pig.”
The only way I could describe my brain during this conversation was déjà vu.
“Then she changed.” I quickly added, “Cormac said she had become obsessed.”
He knelt at his cupboard and pulled out a few items. “That’s a mild way to put things, but towards the end, Corrine was no longer the sweet girl I knew.”
As I nodded, my gaze caught the knife in Prakash’s hand. My stomach twisted, and I placed my hand on the arm of the sofa… Just in case my memories were all wrong. “There’s one more thing about that night.”
His brows drew together. “What?”
“You telling me that you’d always save me. And you’ve always been there for me whenever possible.”
“But not enough.” He placed the knife on the cabinet and picked up a cake tin.
A gust of relief blew through my insides, and I gave myself a mental slap for not dismissing Miss Claymore’s words. I pushed myself off the sofa and strode to the other side of the room.
“Kash, look at me.”
He turned around, meeting my gaze, his dark, fathomless eyes etched with pain.
I pressed my hands on both his cheeks. “You couldn’t possibly have killed Corrine.”
