by Marian Gray
The pair of them shot me a quizzical glance before we progressed. For a second, I didn’t understand it, then it all clicked together. I hadn’t had a session with Dr. Raby since a month before my finals. I was nearing three months without an oil injection.
The valve had shrunk. I was snuffed.
The Stiziology department was L-shaped with small hallways streaming off to office doors and one guard posted near the main entrance. We listened for his footsteps before entering.
But heard silence instead. He wasn’t patrolling as he should have been.
Idris pointed on the map where Professor Claassen’s office was located, and the two of us nodded.
With silent steps, we padded down the hall. Our shoulders grazed the wood paneling of the walls as we trailed single file, doing our best to stay in the shadows. Fireflies drifted lazily down the center, lighting the path with their twinkling lights. When we neared the crook in the hallway, Ross broke off, swatting the bugs away.
She slipped into a small nook stationed in the corner of the hall that served as a large oak tree’s home. Shrouded in darkness and protected from any prying light by the trunk, nobody would have known she was there unless they were looking.
It was unsettling being in the dark wing. I’d only ever been here during the day and the place was always bustling. Usually professors stuck their heads out of their offices and shouted for silence, claiming that it was so loud they couldn’t even think. This was where the stizio-focused upperclassman congregated, it was a haven away from the white hands, and at night it was an empty, eerie windowless hall.
I followed Idris down the slender passage using the fireflies as a guiding light. The sudden flap of wings and chirp from above made my heart stop. I was so on edge I could feel my blood beat through my entire body. It was an all-consuming throb that drummed the arrival of fear.
If we were caught, we would be placed on immediate suspension until they investigated and decided whether to expel us.
Professor Claassen’s office was the last on the right. Idris performed a simple unlocking push upon the doorknob and we slipped in.
Neither one of us had ever been within Claassen’s office. We stood silent and unmoving as our eyes roamed over every inch the bloomed to life beneath the fireflies’ glow. Idris turned to me. Despite the dim light, I could see the worry in his eyes. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can pull that he won’t notice is broken or missing.”
The space was like a sanctuary to organic material. Glass terraria hung from the ceiling in an array of different shapes and sizes. The little orbs housed the succulents, while the large geometrical shapes tended to home the leafy plants.
His desk was pushed to the wall closest to the door, and an island sat in the middle with work materials strewn across the surface. On the far end, I noticed a long counter with the curtain hiding its undersides. Shelves upon shelves of terra-cotta potted plants lined the black wall. To the right stood a formidable army of cabinets with some of its doors left wide open. I spotted copious amounts of glass jars in various colors with translucent liquids resting in their bellies.
“Where do we start?” I asked. We were looking for anything and everything that could tie Professor Claassen to the Hand Collector or absolve him.
“Let’s start on one side and work our way around the room. We don’t have very long. The birds may help hide whatever noise we make, but we need to move fast and quietly. I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary.”
Idris started with Professor Claassen’s desk, opening and closing drawers as carefully as possible. I moved to the cabinetry, pulling on the small brass knobs. The first was stuffed with parchment. Sheet upon sheet laid on top of one another, unlabeled and disorganized. The next cabinet housed thin drawers with all sorts of colorful insects pinned in place. Beneath each tiny bug was its common name and Latin binomial name. They were all used to derive inks. The third cabinet gave me a punch in the gut.
“I think I have something here,” I whispered to Idris who is still deep in Professor Claassen’s desk drawers.
“What is it?” He glanced up.
“You need to come see this for yourself.” I stepped back, taking it all in as Idris joined me at my side.
Stretched in shadow boxes and hanging from hooks was skin. One specimen was even a full hand, belonging to man from Egypt and dated around 1630.There was skin samples from an unknown Nordic mummy that held trace pigments of blue and black ink. The skin on the hooks looked to still be somewhat fresh, hung there to dry. Idris pulled out the first drawer beneath the small skin shrine and an array of medical scalpels and knives gleamed before us, polished bright.
“What do you think this means?”
He pulled out another drawer filled with needles, both ancient and modern alike. “He does specialize in stiziology, But I don’t know enough about the practice or the research to rule this out of the ordinary or not.”
“Regardless, it demonstrates that he has the tools and the know-how. As well as an odd fascination for tattooed skin. Much like the Hand Collector, no?“
He nodded, closing the doors to the cabinet. But he shut them a little too hard. The wooden frame knocked against the wall, releasing a loud pound. We both stilled, waiting to hear footsteps or see Ross’s warning sign.
But nothing came.
Instead, one of Professor Claassen’s terra-cotta plants fell from the shelving overhead. The clay smashed into several pieces, and the soil scattered across the floor.
Idris looked at me, eyes wide. His arm stretched out and he pulled the essences from the terra-cotta and soil, leaving only the organic material. Just as he was about to push them in some innocuous way, a glowing red butterfly fluttered into the room.
Ross’s warning. Patrol was coming.
Idris grabbed my arm, and we dashed to the back of the room sliding under the curtained counter. The thin linen fluttered from our movements.
“You need to pull the rest of it,” Idris told me. “You need to pull it before he gets here.”
I nodded. It was the only way to clean up the mess from here.
Despite the icy trickle of impending doom running down my neck and back, I held out my hand, summoning the essences. I could feel a gentle tug, but nothing came to me.
“Hurry, Zuri,” Idris pleaded. His forehead dripped with sweat. I didn’t know if it was from fear of the discomfort from holding essences, as holding was something very difficult for even the best hands to do.
I focused. I mustered all the strength I had and attempted to pull once again. But as I reached for them, it felt as though they weighed a ton. It was impossible. Without the oils to support me, the bonds were too strong for me to break. I couldn’t lift them.
“What’s wrong?” Idris asked just as the office door opened.
We both fell silent, sliding back beneath the counter as far as possible until our backs hit the wall. Idris touched my wrist before sliding his hand down to mine and holding on tight for dear life.
Black leather boots tapped along the wooden floor. I couldn’t see the agent’s face, but through the tiny slit in the burgundy linen cloth I saw the gray uniform and polished silver buttons.
His footsteps continued until they abruptly stopped, crushing something beneath his toe that was on the floor. It was the plant I had failed to pull.
Idris’s grip on my hand tightened. My palms began to sweat.
The agent crouched down, and I watched as his white tattooed hands scooped up the organic material. He examined it, rubbing the leaves in between his fingers.
“I know you’re here,” a deep baritone voice said. “Come out and you will only suffer suspension. If you resist, we have been authorized to use whatever force necessary to make you comply.”
We had no way out of here, and the thought made me nauseous. Terror mixed with my apparent vulnerability built a demanding cry in my chest that I suppressed. I turned my head, meeting Idris’s gaze. He was our only way out of
here. My hands were snuffed. I hoped he could see the desperation that marked my eyes.
He gave my hand a gentle squeeze, then nodded toward the door.
We were going to make a run for it.
He raised his other hand and held up five fingers. One bent inward towards his palm, initiating the countdown. I had no idea what he had planned, but it was obvious what he wanted me to do.
Three… Two... One.
Idris stretched out his arm, despite the clear discomfort that he was already in from holding onto essences, he pulled even more. The chains holding the terraria in the air glowed a bright red before disintegrating and snapping.
A cascade of glass fell from the ceiling and shattered all around us. The guard held up an arm to cover his head, and the pair of us slid out from beneath the counter. Idris’s arm stretched out, and he muttered several syllables, unleashing thousands of bright white sparks that ended in a flurry of smoke.
We sprinted across the glass covered floors, shoving the Sightless Sons agent into a nearby cabinet. We darted our way down into the main hall, and Ross joined at my side. The three of us ran for our lives.
Even when Idris broke off to go to his own cluster, we didn’t stop to say goodbye. I heard several shouts for us to halt, but I refused to stop.
It wasn’t until I reached our pixie door that I even allowed my steps to slow. In a huff, I gave the grumpy pixie our password as I struggled to catch my breath. He allowed us passage through the door and as soon as we entered the common room, a calm settled on both of us. It were as though we had reached sanctuary.
Without saying a word, we wrapped her arms around one another. Both of us were overflowing with a flurry of emotion.
“I can’t believe we made it out,” Ross said.
“I know. Neither can I. Idris saved me back there in that office.”
“What happened?”
“The place was covered in potted plants,” I explained as we picked ourselves up and padded to our chamber, still lost in the haze of the chase. “We knocked one over by accident.”
“Did you find anything of interest?” Ross asked.
My hand gripped the knob to our chamber and pulled. “Oh, you have no idea. Professor Claassen is a creepy bastard.”
Ross’s face went white, and her eyes were as wide as moons. Her jaw unhinged, leaving her mouth agape.
“What’s wrong?”
Her arm lifted with her index finger pointed.
I turned around, and the scene within the chamber unfolded like a nightmare. Amber and Kayla lay strewn across the floor. Their unconscious bodies cast in the moonlight at the foot of the giant bonsai. Dark red stubs now rested where hands had once been.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ross and I sat in Chancellor Day’s office once again. The dame herself was perched behind the desk with her legs crossed and a royal purple robe wrapped around her thin frame. I had never noticed the crow’s feet around her eyes, but the angle of the firelight flamed them to life. She looked older than usual, worn and weary.
“It’s very important that you two say little more than necessary once the sons arrive,” she told us. “I don’t think either one of you were involved in this, but you were out of your chamber past curfew. There will be questions.”
“Are you going to expel us?” I asked her. The question weighted too heavily on my mind to keep buckled behind my lips.
Her face softened. “No, I would never let something like that happen. The university administration wasn’t the one to impose the curfew—that was the sons doing. I think it’s silly.”
“But you can’t deny the reasoning behind it,” Nicholas Adder said. He rested in an armchair that stood in one corner of the room. “These attacks are all occurring at night. What better way to keep the students safe than by ensuring they are all in bed and locked safely behind their cluster door?”
“Well, obviously, it doesn’t work. Lady Ebenmore and Ms. Monaghan aren’t the two without hands. It’s the two women that followed the rules and stayed in. If the pair had been there, the Hand Collector might have taken their hands as well.”
“I doubt it. Zuri is too important to the blackhand initiative. The Hand Collector wouldn’t touch her.”
I stared at him. It was odd that he seemed to know what was going on in the Hand Collector’s mind.
“Do you still believe the collector to be a blackhand then?” Chancellor Day asked. “Even though these two students were blackhands.”
“Yes. Both blackhands and whitehands have been killed now. I don’t think this psycho is selecting his victims just based on the color of the ink in their hands. I think these two girls were chopped as a defensive measure, not offensive.”
A hard knock rapped on the door. Chancellor Day sighed, annoyance beat on her breath. “Come in,” she said with a light and airy tone that betrayed her true feelings.
Chief Inspector Cowell entered, flanked by a cast of sons and local officers. There were six of them in total. “Good Evening—or should I say, morning—Luella.”
“Hello, Cowell.” Her voice was monotone.
“Lord Adder.” Chief Inspector Cowell nodded towards Adder, holding his cap to his chest like a mother with her newborn baby. “Happy to see your face here instead of Hawthorn’s.”
“Hawthorne’s a bit too old for these early morning emergencies,” Adder replied.
Cowell and his drove took their places in the office with Chief Inspector Cowell choosing to sit on the edge of Chancellor’s Day’s grand executive desk. He looked at Ross and I. His salt-and-pepper hair been parted and combed neatly. There was an amused twinkle in the darkest part of his eye. “Lady Zuri Ebenmore and Ross Monaghan.”
“Chief Inspector Cowell,” I replied. Ross sat silently at my side, scared stiff.
“I guess I’ll just begin this interrogation by asking one question on everybody’s mind. What were the pair of you doing out of your cluster past curfew?”
My mind fumbled to come up with an answer. I couldn’t think of anything to say that was both plausible and convincing. Everything that my thoughts spewed led down a track of questions that I wasn’t prepared to answer.
“I couldn’t sleep. So it was Zuri’s idea that we get out of the chamber and walk around to quiet my mind,” Ross answered.
Cowell cocked an eyebrow. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”
“Because I still have nightmares about finding Harley Wilson.”
“Isn’t that touching,” Cowell commented. “So, Miss Monaghan couldn’t sleep due to night terrors and Lady Ebenmore suggested that they leave the cluster, despite it being past curfew, correct?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
“You do understand that being out past curfew is an automatic suspension, right Lady Ebenmore?” Inspector Cowell asked.
“Which will not be levied,” Adder was quick to say. “You can instill it all you want, but the university refuses to enforce arbitrary rules not set forth by the university itself.”
I was taken aback by Adder’s fiery dismissal. Wasn’t he just telling Chancellor Day that these rules were necessary a few moments ago.
Irritation stiffened Cowell’s face. “Need I remind you, the party has specifically given the agency authority over the university.”
“Yes, but you’re not here on the party’s directive. You accepted our request or your assistance before the party’s directive could be processed and administered,” Adder said. It was obvious by the little smirk on his lips that the invitation was made in order to subvert the party’s power. “We did not ask you to rewrite our rules and banish our pupils.”
Chief inspector Cowell tutted his disapproval. “You’re playing favorites, Lord Adder. Did you not suspend two white hands last week for this very offense?”
“Chief inspector Cowell.” Chancellor Day stepped in. “I think we can all agree that the circumstances of the situation are drastically different than the incident from last week. If Lady Zuri Ebenmore and Miss Monagha
n had decided to remain, who knows if both of them would still have their hands? As Chancellor of the University and Lord Adder acting as sole representative for the board, we both request that you forgo judgment.”
Cowell glanced at the two of them. “Disappointing,” he said, shaking his head. “In order to maintain friendly relations with the school, I’ll permit your request.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The weight of it all lifted from my shoulders. Ross and I weren’t being pegged with the crime, nor would we be punished for breaking curfew. It was a dream come true.
Shouts echoed from outside the office. We all stopped and listened. The voices were yelling at each other, growing louder in volume until they reached Chancellor Day’s door.
Without warning one of the sons burst through. The door swung open, slamming into the door stop so hard, it rattled on its hinges. He held Idris in cuffs with both Professor Saviano and Professor Claassen barking at his heels.
“Chief inspector Cowell,” the agent began, “I found this student out past curfew, having broken and entered into Professor Claassen’s office.”
Cowell’s brow touched his hairline. “Idris Young?”
“I want him expelled,” Professor Claassen roared.
“Which is absolutely ridiculous, because there’s no proof that was Idris who did it,” Professor Saviano countered.
Chancellor Day held up her ink-mixed hands, calling for silence. And everyone obeyed. “Have you so little respect for my office that you believe you are entitled to enter whenever you see fit?” She scolded the lowly son.
The agent’s jaw bobbled. His eyes hopped between Chief Inspector Cowell and Chancellor Day, unsure of what to say and waiting for either one of them to fill the void. “I apologize. I was simply taking the perpetrator directly to my lead.”
“Chancellor Day, I implore you. Mr. Young has gotten away with every little grievance since he arrived here. Now we have caught him red-handed, breaking into my office for who knows what, and I demand action be taken. I want consequences,” Professor Claassen said.
