Prologue
Fox
Time and space swirl around my ears, and then I’m out by the black lake, its waters flat and still like an ominous mirror reflecting the stormy sky above me. I peer across its merciless depths, wondering what horrors lie waiting in the waters, and it’s then that it strikes me – something about this isn’t right.
There’s nothing here.
No indication of a trial. No students. No spectators. Just an emptiness on the sandy shores of the lake and its menacing waters.
I take a step forward, scanning the skies thick with thunderclouds, scanning the landscape snarled with undergrowth, out in the direction of the academy, but it’s too far away. I see nothing but endless landscape and the gnarled forest right at the horizon.
I don’t understand. I don’t understand how this can be.
I scratch my fingers over my beard and then spin my father’s ring on my little finger, round and round, as the thoughts in my head churn just as quickly.
Veronica.
Did she know? Did she suspect? But why the lie, and what does it mean for Briony and the others?
I take a step closer to the water’s edge. I have to be sure. I have to be one hundred percent convinced that Veronica has misled me before I leave this place, because Briony needs me, and if the trial is here, I want to be here too – waiting for her, watching her, ready to step in if I have to.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s something I’ve missed in the waters. Maybe I’m just far earlier than I predicted.
Except I know, right down deep in the pit of my stomach, that I’m not wrong – that Veronica has once again fooled me.
I whip my cloak around my body, ready to displace immediately back to the academy to find Veronica, to find Briony, to find the others and decipher what the hell is going on.
But before I have the chance, there’s a strange disturbance in the air. A wind sweeps across the black lake and waves rise from nowhere, crashing against the shore and forcing me backward, the cold spray hitting my face.
And then she’s there, in front of me – Veronica.
“I knew this is where you’d be, Fox darling,” she says, the gloomy lake standing behind her. “I knew the girl meant too much to you and you wouldn’t part with that treasured information about her powers so easily, without a cause, without a reason. What was that reason, I wonder?”
She tilts her head to one side, waiting for my answer. I don’t give her one. I simply scowl back at her.
“Did you hope to trap me, darling?” She giggles like a schoolgirl.
“Once again, Veronica, you’re deranged and deluded,” I reply.
“Are you sure, Fox darling? Because I’ve been watching you. I’ve been watching your little girl. I’ve been watching all of them,and I suspect something is brewing – although stars know what it is.”
I ignore her once again. I need to understand why she fed me this false information and what it means for Briony.
“Why did you lie to me, Veronica? Why tell me the trial was at the lake? Where is it really?”
“And why are you here, Fox, may I ask? Do you have permission to be here? Why aren’t you with the other teachers back at the academy? You’re not meant to step in to help the students this time. You and I both know that. They’re on their own. There is no reasonable explanation for your presence.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I say, ignoring hers.
“No, I didn’t. And you haven’t answered mine – perhaps because we both already know the answers.” She smiles at me. “Never mind, darling. You know you’ll have to work much, much harder in order to fool me. And now…” She smirks. “Well, now I have the upper hand.”
I take a step toward her, raising my hand, ready to strike. “What do you mean, upper hand?” I demand.
“Oh,” she says, “well, whatever little plan this was that you were concocting – it’s backfired. Massively. Tremendously. Spectacularly. Because now, Fox, darling, I have her.”
“Have who?” I spit, something sour in my stomach already telling me the answer.
“Your little girl, of course. The one you seem to care so much about. The one you have cast me aside for.”
