“I do want to help.” I started. “So… what’s going on? Why doesn’t Rook want me to know?”

  “Mo—” Oleander began weakly.

  “Hush. I’m tired of both of you infantilizing her,” she said to him, waving away his concern with a manicured hand. In personality, she reminded me quite a bit of Wanda. “I overheard Aunt Aurea raging about you days after you arrived,” she continued, turning to face me. “You beat the mirror trick, pushed your way through even Aurea’s strongest spell to make it to her meeting on time—or at least that’s what Daegal told me.”

  “Daegal,” I repeated. “The snake?”

  “You can’t trust a word that snake says,” Oleander responded. “You know he’s Aurea’s familiar.”

  “Of course, of course,” Morgana answered. “But he’s also a huge gossip and he’s usually got his gossip right.” Then she turned to face me again. “Anyway, all signs seem to point to the fact that you’re powerful,” she shrugged. “And you seem moral… enough.” She turned to face Oleander. “And she’s already proved she’s willing to circumvent the powers that be. We need her, end of story.”

  With the revelation about my parentage fresh in my mind, the mirror fiasco made a lot more sense. The headmistress had been expecting a young, inexperienced witch, not a half-breed with powerful but unpredictable Fae abilities. If I’d been half-human, like I’d always assumed, I probably would have arrived sweaty and panicked like every other witch at the start of term.

  “I know,” Oleander sighed. “But Rook is going to be an unholy terror when he finds out.”

  “Let me handle Chesley,” Morgana said with a smirk, cracking her knuckles for emphasis. “If he tries anything, I’ll hex his pompous ass so it ends up around his ears.”

  I winced at the choice of words. Here was hoping that was metaphorical. I liked Rook’s ass. And his ears. And the rest of him, really, even if he didn’t feel the same way about me.

  “Calling him a ‘butthead’ would have a totally different meaning,” Oleander said on a laugh while Morgana joined him. Clearly, Rook was the most unpopular of their group.

  “Can you both stop talking in circles and tell me what the spell you mean?” I asked.

  Oleander cast an uneasy glance around the library. The nearest group of witches was several tables away, pointedly ignoring us. Or maybe just ignoring Morgana. For once, I wasn’t the only pariah at the table.

  He gathered up his stack of books with a muttered, “Not here. Let me check these out, and we’ll find a quiet place to talk about this.”

  “Don’t take long,” Morgana warned. “I want this done before her next class. Goddess knows I hate repeating myself.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “We’ll meet you by the usual spot.” Then she turned to me, extending a hand. Her smile was sharp and felt somehow illicit. “Welcome to the club, Depraysie. And don’t let Chesley bully you into leaving. I have a feeling you’re exactly what this investigation needs.”

  Investigation.

  Missing Fae.

  Sneaking around, trying to shake their respective tails. I had a moment to wonder just what I was getting myself into. But in the end, it didn’t really matter. Someone was in trouble, and I wanted to help. So, I took Morgana’s hand, offering her a smile of my own.

  “Happy to be your newest recruit.”

  ***

  “Four missing faeries?” I managed after a beat of silence. “And... no one noticed?”

  Suddenly the conversation I’d eavesdropped on between Rook and Professor Valserak made more sense. Rook had been trying to get Valserak to look into the disappearances without success. It also explained Oleander’s cryptic remark during our first day in class. The faeries were grouping together because some of their number had disappeared, and they were afraid they’d be next. There was strength in numbers.

  “Oh, they noticed alright,” Morgana said, nibbling the end of her jam-laden toast. “Aurea and Abraham did an obligatory investigation into the disappearances, but nothing came of it.”

  “Abraham?” I repeated, frowning.

  “Abraham Thorne,” Oleander filled in for me. “The headmaster?”

  “Don’t make me regret bringing you into this, Astrid,” Morgana said.

  “Hey, no one ever mentioned his first name!” I nearly yelled in defense.

  “Anyway,” Oleander said, frowning at Morgana who just shrugged back at him. “Their working theory is that the students dropped out without doing the proper paperwork, or otherwise ran away. Goddess forbid that they look for an answer that would require them to actually work toward a solution. If it had been one of the precious vampires or a witch in good standing, you can bet your ass they’d be turning every stone in this place to locate them. But since they’re Fae, and three out of the four were legacy staff, no one gave a damn.”

  “So Headmaster Thorne looked into it?” I asked, returning to that point because I was surprised to hear he hadn’t followed up. He’d seemed like a nice enough guy the day I’d met him. I hadn’t seen him since.

  “Looked into it is about all he did,” Oleander responded.

  “And just FYI,” Morgana said. “Since you don’t seem to know anything else, Headmaster Thorne is Chesley’s father and his sire, which sounds a little weird, but they’re vampires so whatever.”

  “Oh,” I answered, deciding to ignore her previous comment about me not knowing anything.

  She gave me a quick smile and then offered me the other half of her toast, and I all but snatched it out of her hand. I’d fallen into a routine over the past couple of weeks but being hungry was something I hadn’t gotten used to. I’d had three square meals a day when I lived in Haven Hollow. Being short one or two of them a day now was really messing with me. I’d always wondered how Oleander coped and figured he’d simply gotten used to it. Apparently, he’d been splitting breakfast with Morgana every morning since the start of term. Maybe even before that. According to him, he’d begun working in the summer, and met Morgana by chance, when he’d gotten turned around on his way back to the kitchens. He’d overheard Rook and Morgana conspiring in a dark hallway, and the rest was history. They’d gotten lucky. Oleander’s shortcut had made sneaking off a hell of a lot simpler.

  “I hate to play devil’s advocate here,” I started. “But... is there any chance Thorne and Grimsbane are right and the students just decided to leave on their own?”

  “No,” Oleander said grimly. “Shasta is my cousin. She was so excited to start school here, and then she just goes missing the week before classes are due to start? No. That’s foul play. And everyone I’ve talked to said it was odd that the others just picked up and left.”

  “Then everyone doubts what the headmistress said happened to them?” I asked.

  Oleander shook his head. “Mostly they all buy Aurea’s lies, but we know the truth. Those faeries didn’t wander off under their own power. We’re pretty sure they were kidnapped.”

  “Why?” I wondered aloud. “And by whom?”

  “Your guess is as good as ours,” Morgana said. “If we can figure that out, we’ve solved the mystery.”

  I ate my toast slowly, savoring every bite. It probably wasn’t the best thing I’d ever tasted, but at the moment I couldn’t think of anything I loved more than strawberry jam and crunchy white bread. So many questions buzzed around the inside of my head, but one was more pressing than the others.

  “I don’t mean this to sound offensive but... why do you care?” I took a breath as I faced Morgana. “I mean, I get why Oleander is trying to solve the mystery. He has a personal stake in this, but… you don’t. Why go on a hunt for the missing people?”

  The smile dropped off Morgana’s face, leaving it remote and a little tired. She looked older when she wasn’t exuding nonchalance or wicked sensuality. It was a reminder that she was older and more worldly than I was.

  “Because I know what it’s like to be ignored by the people who are meant to protect you,” she said in an icy whisper. “I wasn’t supposed to be in this position. That was Sienna’s job, but she killed herself, rather than become the hostage. She hated being confined to this place, forced to sneak past vampire guards to have even the barest hint of a life. You have no clue what it’s like. I haven’t had a lover in decades. How could I, with a phalanx of those bloodsuckers listening in? I’m a little better off than Chesley, I suppose, who’s confined to the night and the company of the Grimsbanes. I go out in the day sometimes and get my flirt on.”

  “Then… Rook doesn’t date either?” I asked.

  Morgana laughed like it was the best joke she’d heard all year. “No. He’s been celibate for even longer than I have. The only women in his circle would never bed him. He only took the position as Professor Valserak’s TA to get out of his dorm room and have a chance at interacting with people other than the Grimsbanes. I’d do it too but... ugh, I don’t want to pair up with any of those self-important bitches.”

  My heart performed an odd little flutter at that. If what Morgana was saying was true, it was possible that I’d been Rook’s first kiss in decades. Sure, he’d been an ass afterward, but he’d kissed me. That meant something, right? When he’d told me to leave before he could get any other ideas, I’d assumed he meant biting me. But with this knowledge at hand, I had a feeling he’d meant something different, something more carnal.

  His hot-and-cold routine was starting to make a little more sense now. If I had to guess, he’d been burned once too often by the witches in the centuries since he’d become a hostage. They would have tried to make him as miserable as possible. My flirting had probably just been salt in his wounds.

  I cleared my throat self-consciously and said, “The first pixie went missing near the start of last term, so you’ve been looking into this for about a year now, right? Do you have any solid leads?”

  “We’re pretty sure someone inside the castle is responsible, but we’ve suspected that from the start,” Morgana said. “Oleander’s secret shortcut has been a gift from the goddess. It would have taken Chesley and me a lot longer to explore the nooks and crannies of the place without it. We’d only cleared half of one wing. Now we’ve canvased ninety percent of the castle. There’s only the dungeons and the nearby towns left.”

  “This place has a dungeon?”

  “You better bet your dimpled ass,” Morgana answered.

  I frowned at her. “Thanks, but it’s not dimpled.”

  “That you know of.”

  “Anyway,” I started but she continued.

  “The dungeon is warded, and I’ve only just worked out how to get past the wards. If the missing students aren’t there, we’re in a definite pickle. Security is too tight to get out of the castle before the holidays. Only Oleander can make it, and he might be the next one to disappear if he goes out alone.”

  He looked at her and frowned. “Thanks for that.”

  She shrugged.

  I asked, “so, when do you plan to search the dungeon?”

  Morgana grinned. “Tonight, so you’re just in time. The work will be a lot easier split between two witches. I’ll order food from the kitchen around ten o’clock, so you have an excuse to come to my room. Then we’ll make our escape and meet the boys outside the dungeons.”

  “Right,” I started and didn’t look convinced. “On the note of ‘the boys’…”

  Morgana shook her head. “Leave Chesley to me.”

  “Don’t hex him,” I said. “It’s not worth alienating an ally.”

  And because you don’t want to see him hurt, my mind added traitorously. Because you are way, way too into this guy. William and Amos were right. You like vampires too much for your own good. Besides, he doesn’t even like you.

  He likes certain parts of you, my mind argued. If you could just be a normal witch, you could enjoy him without the romance.

  But I wasn’t a normal witch. And I did want romance. With Rook.

  Goddess, there was something seriously wrong with me.

  “No promises,” Morgana said with a carefree laugh. “See you tonight, Depraysie. Pack every potion and crystal you can. We’re going to need them.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Cute sweater,” Morgana said around a mouthful of brownie. “Where’d you get it?”

  Normally, a compliment from her would have made me beam with pride—because she looked like the poster child for the word ‘fashionable’. But I was too nervous to fully appreciate her comment.

  As to my sweater, I’d knitted and enchanted almost every sweater I owned and sold a few others to some of Wanda’s clients. The fact that Morgana couldn’t tell that it was homemade was a compliment of the highest order. Unfortunately, I couldn’t relax enough to take the compliment. The realization of what we were about to do was now fully sinking in. Morgana and I had just made our escape from her room.

  We were about to skulk around under the establishment’s nose to solve a case they didn’t care about. Or worse, that they were involved in. Morgana’s attitude toward the Thornes and Grimsbanes made sense, given her situation, but I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to this. Even if the non-vampires and witches were second-class citizens, surely, they’d look into the case more thoroughly, just in case the culprits decided to take their prized students next. The only reason I could think of for the lackluster attempts was chilling… Someone on staff stood to gain from the faeries’ deaths or disappearances, and they were dragging the investigation out in order to hide it. I really, really hoped I was just paranoid, but the quivering feeling in my gut told me I was onto something.

  Morgana was staring at me expectantly, and I scrambled to come up with an answer that would satisfy her. I eventually came up with, “Wanda’s Witchery. She has a limited stock of sweaters, so you’d have to give her advance notice if you want one.”

  And Wanda would have to send me yarn and one of her tags to sew into the sweater when it was done. I didn’t want my newfound ally to think I was vain, so I’d let her go on thinking Wanda was the brainchild behind my clothes. Which was half-true. Wanda had spent weeks designing pieces especially for me to show off at school. It was half charity and half marketing ploy to show off her wares at an elite private school, where many witches would be willing to mail in orders. What kind of surrogate daughter would I be if I didn’t play along?

  “I’ll have to look into that,” Morgana said, happily devouring the last of her triple fudge brownie. “And I’ll definitely have to order more pastries from the kitchen from now on. This is amazing stuff.”

  “I’ll tell Mads you approve,” I said dryly.

  Oleander had curled into a ball beside one of the statues that lined the dusty hall. Even his tall, gawky frame looked petite when contrasted with the larger-than-life statue of an angel kneeling in supplication. It leaned against a stone sword almost as tall as I was, eyes screwed shut and wings folded neatly against its back. Deep furrows had been carved into its side, its armor dinged and rent in places. The inscription read, Zaquiel, a Watcher, seeks penance.

  “We shouldn’t have brought her here,” Oleander muttered. “Rook is going to be so pissed.”

  Morgana rolled her eyes. “There will be time to make up with your boyfriend later, Ollie. Do you want to find your missing countrymen or not?”

  Oleander slid further down the wall, muttering sullenly. But it wasn’t an outright ‘no’, which I took as assent.

  Five minutes passed in silence, but for the gurgle of my stomach. Between work and preparing for this outing, I hadn’t had time to eat more than an apple for dinner. If we came out of this in one piece, I was ordering more brownies for Morgana and then I planned to eat every last one of them myself. I deserved chocolate. Speaking of, Goddess, I missed Libby’s brownies. The zombie housewife had spoiled me with her cooking.

  Footsteps came toward us, muffled by the layer of dust that coated the entire hallway. It seemed that the lower you went in the castle, the less care the cleaners took. They seemed to have given up entirely four floors down, leaving anything past the kitchens to molder.

  I tensed as Rook came into sight. Like the rest of us, he’d doffed the school uniform in favor of something darker and more casual. He looked younger than his four hundred years, wearing dark wash jeans and a black t-shirt. It had a black and white version of the Red Cross logo on the front, followed by the words, ‘Save a vampire, donate blood.’

  I couldn’t help but laugh at the joke. I could have sworn I’d heard Lorcan or one of my cousins saying something similar months ago. My laugh drew Rook’s eyes to where I sat, bulging backpack on my lap, trying not to grin up at him.

  Seeing me, he froze in place, dark eyes going wide, before wheeling around to fix his suddenly irate glare on Morgana. His lips lifted off his teeth, which were sharper than I’d ever seen them. Oleander was right. He was pissed, and I couldn’t understand why he’d decided to hate me personally. His distaste for witches? Totally understandable. But why did he seem to have a hate-erection for me specifically?

  “I told you ‘no’, Morgana,” he hissed. “She doesn’t belong here.”

  Morgana flipped her dark curtain of hair behind one shoulder and stared back at him, supremely unconcerned by the venom in his tone. “And I told you I needed help for this part of the mission. I’m not confident I can take on Aurea’s wards alone. So… Astrid’s the logical choice.”

  Rook’s teeth ground audibly. Lorcan would have been horrified by the damage he was doing to his molars. “Bullshit. You’re one of the most powerful witches in the line, and we all know it. It’s why Aurea chose you, instead of her own daughter. You were too much of a threat to her power.”

  “Your point?” she asked, inspecting her fingernails.

  “You can do it alone,” he snarled. “You’re just bringing Little Orphan Annie to annoy me.”

  “Hey!” I started, sick to death of his pet names for me.

  Morgana smirked and held up a hand at me to signal that she had this conversation under control. “I’ll admit annoying you is a perk,” she said to Rook. “But, unfortunately, I don’t have your confidence in my abilities. I want backup, just in case. So, the question now becomes: are you going to use up what little time we have bitching about this, or do you want to accomplish something tonight?”