“What’s that?” Lia asked.
“Oh, um, a gift from Gabriel.”
“A little early for a birthday present, isn’t it?”
“It’s not for her birthday,” Pilar said. “A White Day gift, right? I saw how much trouble you went through making his Valentine’s chocolates.”
Holly’s brows shot up. Her smile widened as she leaned forward and rubbed her hands together, all of her interest on my chocolate box. “Wait, she made him chocolates. Well now I have to see what he got you.”
“It’s tradition,” I said defensively. “And fine, make room.” I scooted onto the couch, sitting on Liadan and Holly both until they spread apart to make room for me.
Once I removed the pretty fabric wrapping, I set it aside with every intention of saving it for a hair scarf or something. It was too pretty to tuck away in a drawer.
Raising the lid revealed a variety of sweets. My eyes were drawn to three beautifully decorated white chocolate fans with pink and gold flowers painted on them. Two matcha-dusted truffles were nestled in beside them with a variety of other candies in different shapes and sizes, each one colored different from the last. They were all so beautiful I couldn’t bring myself to eat them, and I wondered if it would be an insult to save them on my shelf forever.
The second half of the box held an assortment of snack-size Kit Kat bars in flavors I had never seen before—sweet sake, matcha, purple yam, red bean, and roasted green tea. Silence fell over the small group, everyone staring down at my gift with as much bewilderment as I felt.
Pilar spoke up first. “That is real edible gold.”
“What?”
“The gold leaves on the fans and the stripes around the truffles are edible gold dust and gold leaf.”
“You can tell by just looking?”
“It’s gold,” Pilar repeated, as if that should answer my question.
“You’re going to share those, right?” Holly asked.
“Nope. All mine.”
Holly pouted her lips. “Not even one?”
Pilar laughed shamelessly at her. “See what homemade chocolates earn?”
“Gold-foil chocolates were definitely worth that really annoying morning of making chocolates that looked like turds. Liadan gets one for putting up with fixing my mistakes.”
“Thanks!”
Holly mock scowled. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to tell me what bedroom moves you put on him after that because nobody buys a gift like this for a friend.”
“Wait a second. You really don’t think—”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to be shy about it. Trust me, I’m the last person to judge.” Holly leaned over. “Sentinel stamina is amazing, right? I swear, they can go all night.”
“I’m not sleeping with Gabriel.”
“If you are, the secret is safe with us,” Pilar said. “We’re not Ben.”
“I’m not. Honest, if I was, I’d have told you guys by now or said something. Seriously.”
Liadan came to my defense. “She’s telling the truth.”
“I mean, aside from him being my sentinel and it being against the rules for sentinels and wards to date, I’d be down for it. He’s an amazing guy.”
Holly rolled her eyes. “He bought you gold-covered chocolates. If that’s not asking to get into your pants, I don’t know what is.”
Before I could come back with a snappish retort, Liadan jumped up. “Drinks anyone?”
“I will take another Coke,” Pilar said, seeming to catch on.
I had the best friends.
When Liadan returned, she placed a frosty Coke in Pilar’s hands, set a frothy root beer float in front of me, and squeezed into her spot again. “So, Holly, what are your plans for the break?”
“Staying on campus.”
“It’s not too late to come to Spain with us,” Pilar offered. “Papá says we can have the entire west wing to ourselves. There will be no one to trouble us.”
“It’s all good. I have plans for the week.”
“With your boyfriend?” I asked.
Holly grinned. “Yeah. We’re gonna pretend to be tourists and hit up all of Chicago’s hotspots.”
“Well, be careful,” I said. “If you’re gonna bone away the week, make sure he rubbers up.”
“I will, Mom.”
We grinned at each other, and any lingering irritation evaporated like dandelion seeds floating on the breeze.
For the rest of the evening we binged anime on Netflix and forgot about boys.
21
A Blood Moon
At least a dozen students never returned to the campus after spring break. None of them reported home, and since they weren’t in the care of their parents either, sentinel forces placed them on the missing list of juvenile supernaturals. Tricia O’Keefe was among their number.
The only good news was that I had passed all my midterm exams.
In the weeks that followed, the classwork increased exponentially as our professors prepared us for finals. Gabriel and I managed to squeeze in two training sessions a week, and days passed where I didn’t sleep more than an hour or two at night because it wasn’t fair to inconvenience him to train during my daylight schedule. In the days before finals week, we didn’t work out together at all.
“This is it. Last weekend before final exams. I’m not sure whether we should toss the books and party or read until our eyes bleed.” I dropped down on the couch and stared at the pile of textbooks on the coffee table. Common sense said I should pick one up and read over things again, but I was sick of studying, and it was almost eight. We’d had our noses in our books all day.
“I say we read a little until Pilar comes back up, and then I’ll break out that mead I’ve been holding onto. We can watch movies and relax. Sleep in tomorrow,” Lia suggested.
“Sounds good to me.”
The moment I picked up a book on advanced glamours, my phone chirped in the annoying screech of an incoming campus alert. A text in all caps followed seconds later.
CAMPUS LOCKDOWN. ALL STUDENTS RETURN TO PNRU PROPERTY.
Liadan fumbled out her phone and dialed up Pilar on speaker. “Did you see the alert?”
“Of course I did. I’m stuck in the library and they won’t allow us to leave,” Pilar answered. “What am I supposed to do here?”
“Study,” I offered helpfully. “Hey, did they say what’s going on?”
“No. Tristal and Bedivere came in and locked the doors. That is all I know.”
I frowned. “Okay, well text us if you hear anything, and we’ll do the same.”
Before Liadan ended the call, I turned the television to the news. A solemn-faced reporter sat behind a desk with live footage from Chicago playing behind him. I easily recognized Navy Pier by the Ferris wheel.
“—everyone is advised to lock their doors and remain in their homes,” the newscaster said. “Authorities are clearing the streets while the Sentinel Bureau responds to the attacks. Remember, a nosferatu is unable to cross the threshold into your home without a proper invitation. Remain indoors.”
Liadan lifted one hand to her mouth and gasped. “Oh no!”
“Holy crap, nosferatu loose in the city. Nothing like that has happened since—”
“Since the Great Chicago Fire.”
We’d read the horrifying story in history, the bleak accounting known as one of the few times mundane and magical history converged to become one. One vampire had allegedly overindulged and caused the death of a mage who loved him. It was later determined her own father had strangled her for threatening to leave home and concealed the crime by puncturing her throat.
By then, the damage had been done. Dozens of mages had taken to the streets, burning vampire havens and slaughtering anyone with pale skin, while desperate blood drinkers turned to the dark to save their lives. So many innocent lives had been lost and concealed by the humans for decades under a flimsy story about a cow.
Now it was happening again, only this tim
e the threat was real.
An uneasiness seeped into my mind, like a vision trying to manifest but failing. All I knew, deep inside, was that something was wrong with one of my friends. I texted Anji, Radha, Ben, and Holly. My werewolf friend and faerie pal replied promptly, craving information, but nothing came from the others.
I leapt up and hurried to the door, where I pulled on my sneakers.
“Where are you going?”
“To check on Holly and Ben.”
I crossed the hall and knocked on Holly’s door. I had to beat on the door for a while before a drowsy brunette mage with platinum highlights opened it and peered out at me through messy strands. “Hey, Sky. What’s up?”
“Hey, Jess. Just checking on you guys and Holly. Everyone in safe?”
“Holly’s out on a date. We tried to call her, but she isn’t answering her phone.”
“A date?”
“You know, with that mystery boyfriend of hers she won’t name.” Jess shrugged. “I guess he’s from one of the big fams and she’s afraid of jinxing it.”
“I’ll try to contact her too.”
Three doors down, I knocked on Ben’s door. He rubbed his eyes and swayed sleepily in the doorframe. His rumpled hair stood on end, and he looked like he had rolled out of bed to answer.
“What’s up, Skylar?”
“Have you checked your phone yet?”
“That’s what woke me up. Any idea about it?”
I shook my head and dragged him into the hallway. “Nope, and I can’t find Holly, so can you come sit with Lia while I run down to the guard shack?”
He perked up in an instant. “Yeah, sure, of course. Let me just grab—”
“No time.” I tugged him again.
Driven by the unsettled feeling twisting in my stomach, I left Ben at the door and hurried down the hall. Rather than waiting for the elevator, I took the stairs down to the first floor. A quick peek around the corner confirmed my suspicion about staff supervising the building. My Supernatural Politics teacher lurked at the door.
Mrs. Kirshman was never without her phone, even now while an unknown emergency threatened the school. Her fingers flew over the screen, and then she made a disgruntled noise. “Of course, blame me for remaining after hours, as if I volunteered to be here. Ungrateful man.”
Drawing a Prismatic Cloak around myself, I tiptoed by her, certain she’d pick up on my aura. She continued to mutter about her husband until the moment I slipped into the main lounge and out the window. Neither of the two students inside draining the coffee machine glanced up at me.
I didn’t make it more than a few steps from the building when the lantern-lit walking path dissolved, a new image pushing to the surface and overpowering the real world around me.
Stumbling, I fell to my knees and cold dread spiked through my ribs. Holly lay in a coffin with her arms crossed over her chest, bloodless features serene as if asleep. Or dead.
No. Please not Holly. Once the glimpse passed, I pushed back to my feet and hurried forward.
While cloaked in my glamour and using the Twilight, I evaded a junior sentinel in his werewolf form and a vampire perched above me in a tree. Vampires could see in the dark, and wolves had noses sensitive to magical disturbances.
Somehow, I breezed past both of them and crossed the space between the dormitory building and gatehouse in a quarter of the time, though it drained me and mental fatigue pressed against my consciousness by then.
Amalia’s voice reached me before I made it to the window. “For real, girl, if Gabriel wants to patch things up over the summer, wait until he comes to you first. Don’t go chasing after him again unless…” Her voice trailed and her dark eyes narrowed at me. “I better go. Call you back later.”
Just my luck.
“Hey there,” I said. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” Amalia frowned at me and crossed her arms. “We’re in lockdown, and it’s not safe for you guys to be out. They have us on the lookout just in case the little nossie rebellion makes its way here.”
“How bad is it?”
She shook her head. “Not sure yet. It’s at Serious Incident level, but they’re containing it. At last count, they estimated something like three dozen nosferatu and assorted ghoulies. Now what do you need? You didn’t come here to ask about that, did you?”
“I didn’t. I just need to check something in the logbook. That’s it.”
Amalia frowned. “That’s against the rules, dude. I mean, I could get in trouble just because you’re out here in front of me and I didn’t call it in.”
“Please. I’m trying to get ahold of Holly Burke. She signed out a few hours ago, and she hasn’t returned to the campus. She won’t answer her phone, and I’m worried something happened to her. Can you at least check to see if she’s come back to the university?”
The werewolf grumbled under her breath, but she pulled up the logs on the computer. Everyone who passed through the gates scanned in and out.
“Here. Looks like Denise signed her out at four twenty-three with Matt Sinclair. And no, before you ask, I didn’t see them. That was thirty minutes before my watch started. There’s no sign-in for either of them, but they’ll have received the alert to return, so I wouldn’t worry about it so much.”
But I did worry, despite Amalia’s reassurance. Matt Sinclair was the de facto leader of the Hidden Court recruitment on campus.
The vision flickered through my mind again, and I couldn’t shake the horrible dread weighing down on my heart. So I decided to go straight to the top and talk to the provost.
Since the provost sometimes kept odd hours, I hurried into the administrative building and crossed the lobby only to come face-to-face with my archnemesis. Mrs. Hansford, the worst academic advisor known to man, stood less than three yards away from me.
“Miss Corazzi!”
Shit. I froze, treating her like a Tyrannosaurus rex by standing perfectly still. It didn’t work. She stalked down the hallway, waved a hand, and my glamour dropped away.
“The school is on lockdown. Explain yourself.”
“I need to see Provost Riordan.”
“Regarding?”
“I had a vision about Holly Burke. She’s in trouble and she’s off campus.”
“Foresight is hardly your area of expertise. I am certain your friend is fine.”
“But she isn’t fine! I saw her dead! She and Matt are off campus and Holly isn’t answering her phone. She always answers it.”
Mrs. Hansford didn’t look impressed or moved by my disclosure.
“Darklings are abound in the city, and the provost certainly has no time to handle your childish speculations. Any students currently away from campus will be rounded up and returned to safety once the situation is handled.”
“But—”
“That is enough,” she snapped. “Report back to your dormitory, or I will have you escorted back. Is that clear?”
Clenching both hands at my sides, I stared at the mage in front of me and wished I could throttle her without risking an expulsion. “Fine.” I whirled and stalked out.
Pressure built in my chest and tears blurred my vision. Instead of heading back to the student residence hall, I sprinted down the path that would lead me to the one person who might actually give a damn and listen to me.
My lungs burned by the time I reached Gabriel’s floor in the apartment building.
“Gabriel!” I banged my fist against the door.
“What the hell?” Rodrigo jerked open the door. “Skylar? What are you doing outside of your dorm?” He wore a ballistic vest with a heavy, spiked throat collar and was strapped to the nines with shotgun shells and silver-edged iron blades. I stared at the walking arsenal in front of me.
“Where are you going?”
“We got called out by Sebastian ten minutes ago,” Gabriel said. He stepped into view, dressed in a similar fashion, as if he were on the set of a vampire action flick. “Shit’s going
down in Chicago and they need every junior and senior sentinel to help. There’s nosferatu everywhere from Navy Pier to Ridgeland.”
“And spectral activity,” Rodrigo added, stepping away to guzzle an energy drink. “We gotta hit the road in a minute.”
Gabriel frowned at me. “Never mind that though. Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”
“Holly’s in Chicago and she won’t answer the phone, but she always answers her phone, and I keep having these weird, fucked-up visions and nothing will make them stop,” I babbled out in a tearful rush. Despite my effort to remain calm, it exploded out of me.
Rodrigo jerked around to face me. “Holly? Same Holly following my ward?”
“Yes!”
A deep frown creased his face, heavy brows knit together in consternation. “Have you reported this to Riordan?”
“I tried, but Mrs. Hansford intercepted me and said it was nothing to worry about. But it is because I had a vision, and I saw Holly pale as death, lying in a casket.”
Rodrigo growled, the sound a terrifying rumble in his chest that reverberated through the living room. “Where did she go, Skylar?”
“On a date.” I swiped at my eyes. “She has this boyfriend and wouldn’t tell us anything about him. So I ran down to the gate and Amalia was there. We looked together and the log says she went out with Matt Sinclair. That’s when I tried to find the provost.”
Gabriel straightened, spine stiff and jaw clenched, a mask of unconcealed disdain falling over his features. “Matt, eh? What did you tell her exactly?”
“I told her my friend Holly and her date hadn’t returned to the grounds before the lockdown. She told me not to worry about it and said security will recover any missing students after the situation is under control. But she could be dead by then!”
Gabriel placed both of his hands on my shoulders. “Breathe, Sky.”
Air whistled in and out of my lungs. The crying stopped, in time for me to realize Gabriel had dried my face. “I’m okay. I’m sorry for dumping this on all of you. It’s just… I know what I saw. We can’t wait until the emergency is over.”
The Hidden Court Page 27
