It was the smallest, darkest hours of the tropical night when the matatu finally bumped to a halt at the end of the school’s drive. The driver clearly couldn’t wait to get back home, and Cassie was just as eager to get into the school unseen. She emptied the contents of her wallet into his hands and dragged the half-conscious Ranjit quickly from the vehicle. As she listened to the grinding engine fade and vanish into the night, she slumped on to the driveway, Ranjit in her arms.
‘Come on. It’ll be dawn soon,’ she murmured. ‘We need to get you inside.’
It still wasn’t easy, but at least he was able to stumble limply down the drive and across the grass, sending a family of warthogs stampeding in fright into the bush. He clearly still wasn’t aware of where they were, Cassie thought thankfully. The side door they came up to was alarmed, but after the day she’d just had, it seemed the easiest of tasks to propel her fading power into the mechanism and disable the lock. The sky outside was beginning to grey with the sunrise as she hooked her hands under Ranjit’s armpits and helped him up the stairway and along the passage to her room. She opened the door, staggered inside, and helped Ranjit to lie across the bed. Closing the door behind them quietly, she sighed with a rush of relief. Good timing, she told herself as she heard the first stirrings of Academy life. If anyone had woken up a moment earlier, they’d have caught her and Ranjit. And she’d have had even more explaining to do.
Cassie bent over, catching her breath. Not for long, though. There wasn’t really any time to do anything as prosaic as properly recovering. Still, she stood over Ranjit for a moment, caressing his face. So she finally had him in her bed. The circumstances could have been better, she thought wryly, as tears threatened to choke her throat.
Clenching her fists, Cassie pressed her eyes shut and controlled herself. There was no point in putting this off. She was not looking forward to explaining herself to Sir Alric, but she hadn’t a choice. She’d done all she could for Ranjit; now, much as she hated to admit it, they both needed Darke’s help to try and put things right.
She might as well get it over with.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cassie took a deep breath and held it in her lungs for a few seconds, but there was no going back now. She sighed hard, raised her fist and knocked loudly on Sir Alric’s door.
He opened it himself. ‘Cassie! What on earth—’
His eyes were wide, and he seemed stunned as he looked her up and down. No wonder, she thought ruefully. What a sight she must look: bruised, bloody, coated in dust, and gaunt from spirit-hunger.
‘Sir Alric.’
Darke shook himself. He reached out and took her arm, pulling her into his office and almost pushing her bodily into an armchair.
‘What’s happened?’
Cassie felt suddenly dizzy, and very sick. She bent her head into her hands, waiting for the tide of nausea to pass. When she glanced up, he was holding a glass of water in one hand, and a phone in the other.
‘Yes,’ he was saying into it as she shakily took the water. ‘My office at once, please, Miriam. No, you’re not in trouble. It’s just a message I was asked to pass on.’
Sir Alric hung up and turned to his desk, taking a vial from a drawer and mixing its contents into a crystal tumbler of water. ‘Miss Bell, I hope you have a good explanation for all of this.’
‘I have … an explanation,’ she mumbled.
‘Miriam McEwen will be here directly. You know her from your fencing classes, I believe; she’s physically strong and she does not have a Few roommate at present. She’s up early as she’s on the rowing team, but she’ll just have to miss training today. When she arrives she’ll take this drink, and you will feed from her. No argument; I’m not presently interested in your moral scruples. Now, start talking. You have ten minutes.’
Cassie’s stomach lurched, but she had no option. Beginning with her meeting with Katerina near the hunting lodge, she told him everything – haltingly, her voice occasionally dropping to a whisper, but she left nothing out. When she reached the part about breaking into his office the previous night, her throat dried up altogether, and she had to knock back the rest of the water before she could continue. The confession was so painful she had to pause to regain her breath; she remembered that she had to explain about Marat, too, and his odd behaviour. That would have to wait – and besides, it was the only part of the tale that didn’t quite make sense. She’d let the rest sink in first.
Sir Alric had gone very still, and his face was deathly pale. Cassie’s heart felt like a shrivelled thing in her chest. For long moments, she thought she was going to get away with it. She thought, very fleetingly, that he was too shocked to speak.
And then he exploded.
‘I have striven for years to keep those artefacts out of the wrong hands. Years! And now you, Cassie Bell, have just handed them over.’
‘I’m sorry. I … I had no choice. I—’
‘You always have a choice! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? No! No, you obviously don’t, because no one with even a solitary brain cell would do something so stupid. You wanted your boyfriend back, so you’ve handed over all us Few to get him. Every damned one of us, Cassie!’
She had never, never seen him lose his temper like this. Crushed into silence, she waited for him to yell again, to break the awful tension in the air.
He didn’t. All she could hear was his furious breathing.