Someone dropped down beside me. Quinn. His hand dropped onto my shoulder, warm and steadying. Not even he could stop the cold leaking into my heart as I registered the significance of the names.
“That rats wrote these,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Is it like some rat version of a dating website?”
“I recognize these names.” I touched the edge of ‘Alice Parker.’ “I’ve read them in my research about the Salem witch trials. These are the names of the victims. The women who were burned as witches. I think, somehow, but I don’t understand it, theyarethe rats.”
A voice from behind us coughed. “Four men, too.”
I whirled around to see Zehra raise her head and wipe a strand of tangled hair from her eyes. In the flickering candlelight, her dark features blended into the gloom, but I could never mistake those vivid eyes or the warmth and defiance in that voice for one of the shadows.
“You’re alive!” I rushed over to her and wrapped her in a hug. She clung to me, coughing, her body brittle and far too thin.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make our meeting,” she croaked.
“Ssssh, don’t talk.” I squeezed her. “I’m just so glad you’re here to correct my history failings.”
“Indeed – get it right. Four men were killed as witches, too. Giles Covey was pressed to death.” She coughed again. “Rebecca Nurse was supposedly executed, but then she showed up at Parris’ home a few years later.”
“That’s fascinating, but not relevant right now.” I turned to Greg. “Did you see the rats write on the walls?”
He shook his head. “I think that was already here when they tied me up, but the rats were determined we notice it. Do you think it has something to do with the god eating people’s souls?”
I stared at him in shock.He’s not supposed to know about the god—
“Greg and I have had plenty of time to talk,” Zehra said. “I told him everything. Honestly, I don’t understand why you didn’t, especially after he was nearly sacrificed himself.”
“I’ll explain later.” I tugged at the bindings around her wrists.
“How did you find us?” Greg asked.
“The rats led me here. I think they wanted us to know what the teachers were discussing tonight.” Above our heads, the scritching started again. King Rat leaped down from the rafters and stood on my shoulder. Zehra jumped, but to her credit, she didn’t scream.
I reached up to give King Rat a scratch behind the ears, but he turned his head toward me and bared his teeth in a maniacal grin, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to touch him. “I think they’ve been helping me all along. We’ve got a lot to catch up on. First, let’s get you out of here.”
“There’s no point.” Zehra pulled herself up, hugging her knees to her chest. “If everything you told me is true, you lose your one advantage by taking us with you. Right now you can sneak around anywhere because you’re a ghost. But if I’m gone, Ms. West will search the school and find us both.”
“Then we’ll all go,” I said. “We’ll sneak through the forest and head for a large foreign city where we can get lost. Trey and I did it before. He cut a sigil out of the rock and took it with him, and he could walk outside the boundary. We could all run to safety.”
I didn’t intend to leave school. Icouldn’t.But they didn’t need to know that.
“If you leave Derleth, you can’t come back.” Zehra’s chest heaved from the effort of crossing her arms and glaring at me in defiance. “You might be outside the walls, but you won’t be free, because they’ll never stop chasing you. Do that if you want, but I’m not going with you. I’m staying right here. This is our one chance to save my brother, and I’m not letting you waste it.”
I glanced over at Greg, and he nodded. “Go. Pretend you never came here. West has made it clear we’re more valuable to her alive right now.”
“But why? What has she done to you?”
Greg shook his head. “There’s too much to tell, and you need to go. Zehra and I will look after each other.”
“I can’t leave you here to rot.”
“We’ll be fine – we’re being fed and watered.” Greg held up a battered paperback titledAt The Mountains of Madness. “West has even provided entertainment of a sort.”
Zehra rolled her eyes. “That author can’t write for shit. So many big words. So much racism. What I wouldn’t give for a copy ofVogue.”
The rats chittered. The Rat King advanced, standing on his hind legs and tugging on my sleeve.
Zehra coughed. “I think that’s your cue to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave you.” Not when her skin on mine was so cold and clammy.
