Charmfall

She sighed. “I’ll call him,” she promised. “But I’m not calling it defeat. How about ‘temporary not-knowingness’?”

“Whatever gets you through the night, Scout.”

* * *

She updated Daniel, and he invited us into the Enclave to work on the magical problem.

When we emerged from her room to head out into the tunnels, the suite was empty; Amie and Lesley were probably both at parents’ night.

The school was equally empty. We could hear the sounds of chatting and music as we walked through the buildings, but we never actually saw the party. We walked silently to the basement door and through the giant metal one, then pulled it shut behind us.

We made it only twenty yards before we stopped short, hearts suddenly pounding.

The tall girl who’d been at the bridge with Sebastian stood in the middle of the tunnel. She wore jeans, knee-high boots, and a long-sleeved top, and she bobbed to the sound of music we could hear faintly from her white earbuds. She had no flashlight, and had apparently been skulking in the dark waiting for us to arrive.

I swallowed down fear, and both Scout and I held up our flashlights like baseball bats. They were the only weapons we had. “Don’t come one step closer.”

She pulled out her earbuds, stuck them in a jeans pocket, and held up her hands. “I’m not going to.”

“Then why are you in our tunnels?”

“It’s nice to meet you, too. I’m Kiara. Sebastian sent me.”

Scout’s eyes narrowed. “To do what?”

“To keep an eye on the door and make sure none of Jeremiah’s Reapers get into the school tonight.”

You could have pushed me over with a feather.

“Could you say that again?” I asked, and Kiara smiled a little.

“You made a deal on the bridge,” she said. “You agreed to help Sebastian’s cousin without turning her over to Jeremiah. In return, we agreed to keep him out of your hair.” She shrugged. “At least as much as we can without giving ourselves up.”

“You aren’t fans of his, either?” I wondered.

“Let’s just say we have different opinions about how the Dark Elite should operate.”

She seemed sincere to me, but Scout wasn’t so easily persuaded. “How do we know you aren’t just making this up? That you won’t sneak into the school as soon as we walk away?”

Kiara shrugged. “You don’t. But I could have waited for you to leave and snuck in without your knowing it. Sebastian trusts you, or at least he trusts her.” She gestured toward me. “And I trust Sebastian.”

“What will you do if Jeremiah’s Reapers show up?” I wondered. “Won’t they be suspicious if you don’t let them into the school?”

Her eyes sparkled a little. She looked even prettier when she did it, but a little scarier, too. “You let me worry about that.”

Scout and I looked at each other for a moment, silently debating what to do.

“Could you excuse us for a minute?” Scout asked. Without waiting for Kiara to answer, she grabbed my hand and pulled me down the tunnel and around the corner.

“Crap on toast. Could these people just give us a break for, like, a couple of days?”

“Apparently not,” I said. “What do you want to do?”

Scout scratched her head and looked really confused. “I don’t know. I mean, can we just leave her here? In the tunnels right by the school?”

“She didn’t have to tell us she was here. She made a good point.”

“Yeah, but maybe that’s just some kind of ploy so she can walk right in.”

Maybe, but I doubted it. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Sebastian had multiple motives in helping us out—like getting his own magic back—but this didn’t seem like the kind of thing he’d waste effort on.

“How about this,” I suggested. “Let’s trust her for now, and as soon as we get to the Enclave, we tell Daniel. Maybe he knows more about this movement of underground Reapers or something, and if it’s really stinky he can send us back out or call Foley and give her a heads-up.”

Scout pointed at the tunnel. “Technically, wouldn’t they be underground-underground Reapers?”

“Not the point. Is that okay with you? And I don’t think we have a better option,” I added when she didn’t respond.

“Fine, fine. But let’s add this to the list of things you get to explain to Daniel.”

“Why do I have to explain it?”

“Because you got us mixed up in this Reaper mess.”

I rolled my eyes and walked back to where we’d left Kiara. Scout eventually followed me.

“You know,” I told her, “technically the brat pack got me wrapped up in this Reaper mess, since they’re the ones who locked me in the City Room. Can’t we just blame it on them?”

She nodded. “You’re right. We should blame it on them. That just feels good.”

Or at least as good as it was going to get tonight.

* * *

We made Kiara swear on her iPod that she meant no harm to the school. I’m sure that probably didn’t have much impact on whether she’d wreak havoc or not, but it seemed to make Scout feel better.

Meeting Kiara in the tunnel gave the night a weird vibe, and that vibe continued when we got to the Enclave. Katie and Smith were absent, and they weren’t the only ones. Jason hadn’t shown up.

Apparently noticing the same thing, Scout squeezed my hand when we walked inside.

While we might have been missing an Adept, we had a ton more stuff. The room was full of goodies pulled directly from the shelves at Gaslight Goods. Candles. Icons. Salts in every color. Squares of velvet and silk. Herbs in tiny glass jars. The empty Gaslight Goods bags were scattered on the floor where they’d been emptied.

“Kite must really want his customers back,” Scout said, grinning wildly.

“He’s spending money to make money,” I suggested.

“I guess so.” She started darting around the room from pile to pile, checking out all the stuff Kite had left. “Oh, my God, it’s like those books where you fall asleep in a museum and you get to use all the cool stuff while you’re asleep except I’m actually awake.”

She bubbled on for ten more minutes. And when she was done with her inspection, she threw her messenger bag on the table, pointed at Jill, Jamie, and Paul, and put them to work mixing ingredients and writing out that weird hieroglyphic math on a dry-erase board Kite had also donated.

As far as I could tell, cat plus monkey equaled water bottle.

“And so we begin,” she said, and sat down at a table. Full of energy and ready to work, she immediately pulled out a notebook and started writing.

* * *

Two hours later things had gone completely downhill.

Scout wasn’t any closer to a solution than she had been when we arrived, even with all the goodies, and the Enclave looked like a wreck. There were balled up pieces of paper everywhere, open books, and the dry-erase board was covered on both sides. She seemed completely flustered by the set of materials Fayden had bought, and couldn’t figure out how to reverse-engineer whatever magic Fayden had worked.

I tried to help when I could, but since I was the least experienced Adept, there wasn’t a lot I could do.

We took a break when Daniel brought in turkey sandwiches, veggie sandwiches with extra hummus, and drinks for a late-night supper. Since I hadn’t eaten much at dinner, I pretty much scarfed it down. Scout ate more slowly, picking at her own sammie as she stared hopelessly at the clutter around her. I knew she was frustrated, and I hated that I couldn’t do anything. But I didn’t get the magical math, so I had no idea how to help. It was also getting late. We were all tired, and irritable, and missing our magic. That was a pretty bad combination.

Scout, finished with her sandwich, suddenly threw a dry-erase marker across the room.

The Enclave went silent.

“Scout?” Daniel asked.

“I’m just . . . I am so mad. Who does she think she is, that she has the right to do this? To control who has and doesn’t have magic, and when they get to use it? How is that possibly fair?”

“Hey, we’re all in the same boat,” Paul said. “It’s not like you’re the only one with troubles.”

“Oh, I am well aware of that, Paul. Well aware.” Her voice was snippy and tired, and from the way they glared at each other across the room, this conversation wasn’t going to end well. It seemed most likely to end at the First Immanuel recovery room—as had the last Adepts who’d gotten snippy with one another.

“Hey, hey,” Daniel said. “Everybody bring it down a notch.”

“How am I supposed to bring it down when I am the only one here working on this? I’m trying to reverse engineer magic I haven’t even seen. I don’t even know where she is, much less what she’s managed to make!”

“We’re all trying,” Daniel said. “All of us. You know what? Let’s call it a night. We’re all tired and we’re all stressed out. We can reconvene tomorrow night after classes. We’ll leave all the experiments right where they are, and you can come right back to them.”

“Tomorrow is the dance,” Michael said. “We can’t miss Sneak.”

“I forgot about Sneak,” Daniel said. “I know you all have lives and things to do. This situation isn’t great, but until Fayden makes another move, it’s not crucial. Let’s just all get some sleep, and maybe we’ll have some sort of brainstorm tomorrow. I’ll talk to the Council and see if they have any leads on Fayden, maybe where she is. We’ll figure this out,” he promised.

If only the rest of us could be so sure.

* * *

We’d closed the door on the Enclave only when Jason emerged from the tunnels in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He looked uncomfortable, and he wasn’t the only one. Seeing him was like a punch in the gut. What was I supposed to say? Supposed to feel? Glad to see him? Angry that I was only just seeing him now?

“Hey,” Michael said.

Jason nodded.

“Michael,” Scout said, “why don’t we go talk about . . . the . . . color of your tuxedo for the dance.”

“I have to wear a tuxedo?” he whined, but followed along when Scout dragged him down the hall.

“How are you?” Jason asked.

“I’m fine.” It was a lie, but what was I supposed to say?

“I wanted to talk to you about all this.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said. “It wasn’t my intention.”

He nodded. “I know. It’s just—we’ve come into this world differently. You see things differently than I do, and differently than my family does. I don’t know. I’m just really confused right now, and my family is putting all this pressure on me. I just needed you to be on my side.”

“I am on your side,” I said. “But sometimes right and wrong aren’t as clear as we want them to be. If you can’t trust me right now, I understand. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. It’s just that sometimes I have to trust myself. And this is one of those times.”

He nodded. “I know.”

We stood there in silence for another few minutes, and it felt like we hadn’t known each other at all. And I guessed we definitely weren’t going to the dance together.

“Well,” he finally said, “it’s late. I should get going.”

I couldn’t do anything but nod and watch as he walked away.

I met Scout a couple of tunnels up, and at her questioning eyes, shook my head. She strode toward me and gave me a hug.

“He’ll come around,” she whispered. “He’ll come around, or he won’t. And if he doesn’t, it’s his loss.”

“Thanks,” I said.

We walked quietly back to St. Sophia’s, and approached the door to the school expecting to see Kiara. But she was gone. She’d been replaced . . . by Sebastian.

He was sitting on the floor, his back to the door. He stood up as we approached.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Guarding the school. Kiara has a paper due, so it was my turn. How are . . . plans?” he carefully asked.

“They’re fine,” Scout said, “which is all you need to know.”

At her snippy tone, Sebastian looked at me. I shrugged. “We’re working on it.”

“You won’t hurt her?”

“We don’t plan on it,” Scout said. “And the odds go up a lot if we can get our work done without Reaper intervention.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“And we appreciate it,” I added, earning me an elbow jab from Scout.

“I’m standing right here,” he dryly said.

“He doesn’t have to be standing here,” I pointed out. “And I’m not taking anyone’s side, but right now both sides need all the friends we can get and all the sleep we can get, too, ’cause I’m really tired. So can we all be happy and just go to bed, please?”

Scout’s lip was still curled, but she nodded. “Fine. But if he destroys the school while we sleep, I’m blaming you.”

“I accept that blame,” I said, and waited until Sebastian moved over a little to unlock and open the vault door. Scout scooted inside, but I glanced back at Sebastian.

“If this is all a ploy—” I began, but he reached out and touched my chin.

“I told you we’d make a good team, and we do. Someday, maybe you can do a favor for me.”