“Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”
“I hope things go the way you plan tonight. I think everyone has the right to know about this.”
“Me too.”
I moved to embrace Quinn, but it was too much emotion for him right now. He shoved his hands in his pockets and took off along the line of cabins. I followed him to the cabin on the end, which was the largest and most lavish. “The King’s suite,” he sighed as he pulled a key from his pocket and slid open the door. “Trey, Ayaz, and I had this pod every year. No one else was allowed inside unless they…”
“…unless they were a girl who put out,” I finished. “I get it. You were playboys. Whatever. No judgment.”
“Right.” Quinn cleared his throat. “You should be thanking us for our playboy ways. Us hogging the cabin meant we’re the only ones who know aboutthis.”
With a flourish, Quinn shoved aside one of the beds, revealing the bare floorboards beneath. He got down on his knees and started to lift the boards one-by-one. “Ayaz discovered this in the old cabin. When he made the designs he made sure we still had access to it.”
Quinn lifted another board, revealing a large, dark hole. Stone steps led down into the darkness. On the wall of the staircase was carved a large, familiar sigil. Another of Parris’ tunnels, leading down into fuck-knows-where.
I held out my hand. A flame danced on my fingers, ready to light the way. Quinn recoiled from it for a moment, his eyes wide. That old fear still flowed through him.
I descended the steps with Quinn behind me. After a time, the tunnel flattened out. We were walking under the forest, back toward the school. Like the other tunnel, this one appeared to have no other deviations – it only went in one direction. I hoped like hell it was back into the school and not somewhere—
Something pinched my ass. I leaped forward, choking back a scream. Behind me, Quinn sniggered.
“Not funny,” I muttered, rubbing the spot where he’d pinched me.
“Totally funny,” Quinn retorted with that irresistible smile in his voice. That angry, bitter guy from earlier had vanished again, and I was stuck with the old, irresponsible Quinn. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
After what felt like hours, the architecture of the tunnel changed. We went up a short flight of stairs, and instead of bare rock walls, we now walked between dressed stone.We’re inside the school.
The tunnel took a right angle and descended up a sharp staircase. One wall remained cold, worked stone while the other became wood panels. On the other side, I could make out voices, too faint to hear what they were saying.
“Keep going,” Quinn whispered behind me. “We have another floor to go.”
My thighs burned from the circuitous walk. The stairs grew steep and uneven, and I tripped over my feet every few steps. We took another right-angle turn and found ourselves in a low tunnel – dressed stone on both sides, with a small drainage ditch running along the middle of the ground.
At the end of the tunnel, we climbed another set of narrow steps and entered a low passage running at a ninety-degree angle to the last. I placed my hand on the worked stone, steadying myself as we stepped over discarded bricks and construction debris until we came to a slightly-wider space with wood paneling and what looked like a spring mechanism rusted over with age.
I knelt and pressed my ear to the panel, flicking out the light. I might’ve imagined it, but I swear I heard Quinn sigh with relief. Faint murmurs were all I could discern from the other side. Many voices, all talking over each other, but far too low for me to hear through the wall.
Quinn squeezed in beside me. “I can’t hear anything,” I whispered.
“We’ll fix that.” Quinn reached up and with a click that reverberated down the silent passage like a gunshot, he cracked open the panel.
My heart hammered in my chest. Now the panel swung out into the room beyond, gifting us with an inch-wide crack of light. I mouthed “shut the door” to Quinn. He grinned and shook his head, shuffling a foot backward so I could see into the room.
I peered out of the crack. From what I could make out, the panel we sat behind was low in the corner of the room. A potted plant or hanging basket of some description stood in front of it. Through the foliage, I could make out features of a large space paneled in dark wood. A fire roared at the hearth. Men and women sat or stood around the space, talking in small groups while they guzzled booze from long-stemmed crystal wine glasses or whisky tumblers. Gold and diamond jewelry glittered from the necks and ears of the women, and the men wore dark tailored suits that looked like they’d been designed by Courtney’s mother, which of course they probably were.
Leaning against the mantelpiece, sipping from a glass and scrutinizing the room like Mufasa surveying his domain, was Vincent Bloomberg.
He looked even older than last time I saw him, despite the fact he’d tried to hide it by dying his greying hair jet black. Skin puckered around his mouth, and lines crisscrossed the corners of his eyes. His hand clutching the glass was dotted with liver spots.
“We should call this meeting to order,” he said in a bored voice. “We have a lot to discuss and only limited time before the performance.”
“Why do we need to sit through another one of these amateur productions?” Nancy’s father, Donald, said with a yawn. “I think I might stay behind, peruse the liquor cabinet…”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Vincent swiped the glass from Donald’s hand and tossed it into the fire. “You’re going sit in that freezing auditorium with the rest of us and be bored out of your skull for three hours, because we need our offspring to toe the line. If we don’t pretend to take an interest in their pointless activities, they may decide to make friends with the sacrifices instead.”
“Friends, indeed. We all know whose children are responsible for the mess we’re in,” a female voice tsked. It took me a moment to identify Gloria Haynes, for she wore a thick black veil over her face. “Falling in love with a sacrifice. It’s never happened in all the years of Derleth Academy—”
“Hazel Waite was an issue before my idiot son was involved,” Vincent said. “I dealt with her.”
