by Sophia Shade
“What else did you learn?” Erick says, breaking me from my thoughts. “You said Myra is the poisoner. How do you know?”
“Oh, well, after the professors were no help, I went to the kitchen.”
“What do you mean they were no help?” Erick asks, sitting on my bed. “They should be at the front of this.”
“I have no idea.” I dab the cloth against Dannika’s cheeks. “It’s like they feel defeated already. After I told them the poison was mundane, it was like they just threw up their hands.”
“Even though two students have died?” he asks in disbelief. “Sorry, but I find that hard to believe.”
“Of course you do,” I say bitterly. “But it’s true.”
Erick gets that fallen expression again, and I’m starting to think that maybe he just has sucky communication skills and doesn’t mean to come across the way he does.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “I just mean that I’m surprised.”
I need to make more of an effort to give Erick the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s not always trying to be an ass.
“Even so, I don’t know what is going on around here. I have felt it in my bones ever since I arrived that something just isn’t right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t explain it,” I say. “I don’t know this place well enough to know what is normal and what isn’t. Every time something seems incredibly off to me, I just shrug it away as something I don’t understand. But it happens too often. Things aren’t normal.”
“I think I understand some of what you are saying,” he says. “This year has been…different from years past.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just as you said, I can’t put a finger on it.”
He props one of my pillows under his arm. Now that pillow is going to smell like him tonight. Why does that give me butterflies?
I sigh and go back to Dannika. “Well, the most important thing right now is saving Dannika. Then we can take on the whole school if we have to.”
“But first we need more information,” he says. “Go back to what you were saying before. About going to the kitchen. Then what happened?”
“Right. Well, I was looking in the pantry for poison when I heard a fight. Apparently, the brownie cook caught Myra in the kitchen, and she was very angry about it. I don’t know what she saw, but it was enough to turn her full boggart on Myra.”
“Poor Myra,” Erick says with a half-smile.
“If she wasn’t murdering people, I would agree with you,” I say. “Anyway, I confronted her, tried to get her to eat some of the cheese that poisoned Dannika. She refused. There was a struggle, and she dropped the book I mentioned earlier. But she got it back, and when I tried to pry it away from her, she tossed it into the fire and got away while I was trying to fish it out. The book was destroyed.”
“I see,” he says. “Well, now that we know Myra is behind it and Ella’s mom has a copy of the book, I guess that part doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I say. “If I’d been able to get the book, we wouldn’t be sitting here waiting while our friend is dying. I just don’t get it. Why would Myra want to poison the students? This is her home.”
“I don’t know,” Erick says. “I don’t know her well. She was a transfer student, second year.”
“Transfer?” I ask. “But her mom works here? Where was she going before?”
“There was another Fae university that was shut down for improper use of dark magic,” he explains. “So the students were sent to various other schools this year. I don’t remember anything specific about Myra. Dozens of students were transferred. Normally they try to keep children in different schools from their parents so neither get distracted, but I guess they made an exception when the other school closed.”
“Maybe that has something to do with it.” I can’t help but look down at Dannika and feel angry. Really freaking angry. “Like maybe there’s something to Nurse Oshae and her daughter both being here?”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “Nurse Oshae is well liked. She’s been here a long time.”
“You’re probably right.” I’m grasping at straws, trying to make connections that aren’t there. That’s not going to help anything. “So now what?”
“As you said, the first thing is to heal Dannika.” He lays his hand on mine. “Then we find Myra.”
I know I should move my hand. I’m with Caleb, and I’m sure this would look weird if he walked in. But I don’t want to. I feel the same calming feeling wash over me I felt earlier. Is Erick using magic on me? I don’t think so. I don’t see any of the sparks around him I usually see when he uses magic. He just has a calming presence, I suppose. Some people are like that. I often felt something similar from Mom. She could comfort me or calm me with just a touch. That’s all he’s doing, comforting a friend in her time of need.
Ella bursts into the room, Caleb right behind her, and I yank my hand away from Erick like it burned me. Caleb doesn’t even seem to notice.
“I have it,” Ella says excitedly.
“You have the antidote?” I ask. “Already?”
“Yes.” She practically dances the rest of the way into the room and over to the work station. “There were very few poisons in the book that could be what we are seeing here, and all the possibilities could be counteracted the same way: with atropine.”
“What’s atropine?” I ask.
She pulls out a small bottle of white powder. “It’s actually a poison itself,” she says. “Made from deadly nightshade. But for a poison like this, it can counteract the effects.”
“The antidote for poison is poison?” I ask. “Are you sure this is safe? You said that book was from medieval times.”
“Atropine is actually still used today in the human realm as a healing drug,” she says as she measures the powder out and mixes it with water. “It will work. Trust me.”
I take a deep breath and nod. Gods, I hope she’s right.
“Hold her up,” Ella tells Erick.
He lifts Dannika, tilting her head, and Ella pours the liquid down Dannika’s throat. We all hold our breath as we wait for something, anything, to happen.
Finally, Dannika coughs, spits, and takes a deep breath. We all exhale at the same time.
“Ugh, what is that crap?” she asks, sticking her tongue out.
“The crap that saved your life,” I say, happy tears springing to my eyes. “How do you feel?”
She turns her head, stretching her neck. “Better,” she muses. “Not as stiff as before.”
I touch her cheek, feeling the suppleness returning. The tears spill over, relief making me feel light as air.
“You did it, Ella,” I say. “You saved her.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Ella rests her hand on my shoulder. “You pursued this like a dog after a bone and wouldn’t let go. We should have listened to you earlier.”
“Well, don’t just stand here,” Caleb says. “Get that stuff down to the infirmary and help the others!”
“Right,” Ella says.
She leaves the room at a dead run, and Erick follows her out.
I turn back to Dannika, sitting beside her. “Really, how do you feel?”
“Like shit,” she says. “But alive. I can feel it working.” She squeezes my hand tightly. “Thank you.”
I hug her, and we’re quiet for a moment. We still have to save the others and find Myra. And we never found out who was causing the attacks or who tried to kill me in the trials. But right now, I just want to enjoy this moment.
“Imogen!” Erick says, bursting back through the door. “Come quick.”
He’s out of breath, panting. I can tell he ran the whole way here.
“What happened?” I ask, jumping up in alarm.
“We found Myra,” he says.
“What?” I ask. “Where?”
“Her room. But there’s a problem.”
I�
�m already on my way to the door. “A problem?”
“Yeah,” Erick says, voice dropping. “She’s…dead.”
Twenty
“Out of my way!” I demand. Erick and I push through the crowd of students who have gathered outside of Myra’s room.
“Whoa. Back up there,” two professors acting as guards at Myra’s door tell me.
“Let me in,” I say. “I have to know what happened.”
“Just go back to your rooms,” one says. “There’s nothing to see here.”
A lie, obviously. I understand they don’t want to upset the other students, but I’m not having it.
“You have to let me in,” I insist.
“We have information,” Erick says in nearly a whisper to one of the guards.
The guard exchanges a glance with the other one, then says, “Wait here a moment.”
He slips into the room, and then comes back out with Damon.
“Mr. Clawfire,” Erick says. “We need to speak with you about Myra.”
Damon, his face drawn and tired, looks at me. “You have something to do with this?”
“I think we should go inside and talk,” I say.
Damon hesitates, then nods to the guards to let us in.
We enter the room, and the first thing we hear are the wails of Nurse Oshae, Myra’s mother. “Oh, my sweet girl! Why? Why?”
Then I see Myra. She looks like a wooden statue, just like the dead boy in the infirmary. Her face is peaceful, though, and her hair has turned into soft moss that grows down around her shoulders. In her hand is an empty vial.
“She did this to herself,” I whisper.
Damon pulls my arm, and we go into an adjoining room. “So what do you know about it?” he asks.
“She was the one poisoning the students,” I say. “I caught her in the kitchen. Or, well, I should say the cook caught her. She had a book with her. Secretum terrare or something.”
“Secretum alter ab terrae,” Erick says.
“Secrets of the Earth?” Damon asks.
I nod. “That’s it. Anyway, she had poisoned the cheese at the party. That’s how Dannika got the illness. I confronted Myra about it, but she destroyed the book and got away from me. I told Ella about it, and she was able to figure out the antidote. We were on our way to tell Headmistress Shadowburn everything when we heard about this.”
“She seems to have succumbed to the illness in a matter of minutes,” Damon says, rubbing his forehead. “She must have given herself a concentrated dose.”
“Do you have any idea why she would do this?” I ask.
Damon shakes his head. “No. And I doubt we’ll discover the motive. Can’t learn much from a dead person.”
I scoff and cross my arms. “See, Erick. This is what I mean. That fatalist attitude. There’s plenty we can learn. You can go through her things. Talk to her mother. What about people at her other school?”
“I’ll not put her mother through more trauma,” Damon says harshly.
“Well, it doesn’t have to be now. It can be—”
“And violating her personal things won’t bring her back.”
“Violating?” I ask, confused.
“The possessions of the dead are considered sacred,” Erick says.
“We can continue investigating in a respectful manner,” I try to explain, but Damon just shakes his head.
“A cure has been found, and the killer is dead,” he says firmly. “Justice has been served. We should just let this go so life can get back to normal.”
“Normal?” How can anyone go back to normal—whatever that is—after this? There are still so many unanswered questions.
“I must keep her with me,” I hear Nurse Oshae say.
I look back into the room, seeing someone draping a blue silk cloth over Myra. Two men lift her and carry her from the room. Nurse Oshae, her face still drenched with tears, follows closely behind.
The students who were still standing outside move to the sides as Myra’s body is carried down the hall. It’s still midday, but the sun seems to dim. Several sprites—wee folk even smaller than pixies—appear and illuminate the blue cloth, following it like a funeral procession. Everyone is silent, bowing their head as the men carry Myra past.
I suppose this is part of the Fae funeral tradition, so I stay quiet, but I do not close my eyes. I’m missing something, and I don’t want to miss more.
After the men take Myra around a corner, everyone follows them except for Erick, Damon, and me.
“We can’t let this end here,” I insist. “We still don’t know why she did it. What if she wasn’t acting alone? What if more foods are still poisoned? What if she was connected to the attacks on Ohdows?”
“That is quite enough,” Damon says. “I will have all the food on campus destroyed, though I am sure I will get an earful from Mistress Cook about it. As for the rest of it, let it go.”
“But—”
He walks away.
I stomp my foot angrily before turning to Erick. “So, that’s it? What do you think?”
He shrugs, looking away sheepishly. “I…I think you should let it go.”
“What?” I ask, aghast. “I’ve been right before. Why won’t anyone listen to me now?”
“This is…it’s just our way,” he says. “You know we are immortal, right?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Well, we don’t deal with death very often. Or very well,” he explains. “Death is something we don’t try to understand. It is something we try to avoid at all costs.”
“So suicide doesn’t happen very often, I suppose.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Then doesn’t that give us more reason to keep investigating?” I ask. “Why would she go to such extremes just because I caught her in the kitchen? I didn’t actually have any evidence yet that she was behind the poisonings. She could have denied it. Destroyed the evidence. She could have run away. Her death is just as much as mystery as the others. We need to find out what happened.”
“Just drop it, Imogen,” he says. “As Mr. Clawfire said, you found the killer and stopped the illness. Dannika is safe. Let it be enough for you.”
Erick doesn’t wait for my answer. He turns and starts down the hall, his shoulders drooping like he is carrying a heavy weight. I can tell it isn’t easy for him to walk away from this, but he feels he has to.
I don’t want to ignore this. I want to find out what happened. But what can I do? I’m completely alone in this. I stuff my feelings deep inside, heading back to my room with a heavy heart.
“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Imogen! Happy birthday to you!”
My face is red hot as my friends and many of my classmates walk across the cafeteria toward me holding a birthday cake with nineteen candles.
“Guys, what is all this?” I ask.
“Uh-oh,” Driftblossom squeaks. “Did we get it all wrong? I don’t actually know human birthday rituals.”
“It’s fine,” I assure her, standing up to admire the cake Ella and Dannika are holding. It’s round with white frosting and blue roses with my name in the middle of it. It’s so sickly sweet to look at, and I can’t wait to stuff my face with it. “I’m just surprised is all.”
“Well, this is your first birthday in Fae,” Ella says. “We had to make sure it was special.”
Caleb comes over and gives me a hug. “Make a wish,” he whispers in my ear.
I know he is being extra sweet since the Winter’s End Ball was yesterday, the last night of winter, and I couldn’t go with him. I wonder if this whole thing was his idea to make it up to me.
“I can’t imagine anything else I need,” I say, smiling. “I have so many friends and finally—finally—have a place in the world.”
I look from Ella to Dannika to Driftblossom to Caleb…and then to Erick. After all the fighting, I feel lucky to count him among my friends. He is a good person to have at my side.
“But wha
t do you want?” Dannika asks.
I press my lips into a thin line. I want to find out why Myra did what she did. I want to find out who was behind the attacks on Ohdows. I want to know who sent the lionwasps after me. I want to be accepted by Caleb’s court. I want to bring Mom to Fae. I want to find my dad…
The list goes on.
But that isn’t what everyone wants to hear. They want me to be happy today.
“I want…to eat this cake!” I exclaim, rubbing my stomach.
Everyone cheers as I lean in and blow out the candles. Ella and Dannika make quick work of slicing it and handing pieces around. Everyone is laughing and having such a good time.
I want to be happy, too.
In many ways, I am. I meant what I said about having friends and a home. But so much of me is still unsettled. I envy the way the Fae, and even the halflings who are used to Fae ways, are able to just move past the horrible events of the last year. But I’m human. Still far too human. I can’t forget, and I can’t move on. I try to act like everything is okay so I don’t bring everyone else down, but deep inside, I refuse to forget, and I refuse to quit.
I will find out the truth, no matter what.
Twenty-One
Just a few short weeks later, freshman year is over. Everything seems to be back to normal. There are end-of-the-year parties and a graduation ceremony for the fifth-year students. It dawns on me that I’ll be heading back home soon.
No, not home.
I’ll be heading back to the human realm for a couple of months. Back to Mom.
“What will you do with yourself when you get there?” Dannika asks as she brushes her long hair. She is completely back to her old self.
“I have no idea,” I say, realizing it’s true. “I don’t really have a ‘home’ to go back to, and I have no idea what Mom has been up to. I’ll just have to wait and see what she has planned.”
“I wish I could go with you,” she says wistfully. “If only to see the look on your face when you go back.”
