“Nope,” Archie replied. “What’s going on?”
Beth’s face was pale in the moonlight. “An emergency.”
“Shan’s gonna leave!” Tiff burst out. “First thing in the morning!”
“What?” Finley exclaimed. “Are you sure?”
Tiff nodded, curls bouncing. “He and Leonie were acting really weird at the campfire tonight. So when they sent us off to bed, I shifted and crept back to eavesdrop. Nobody notices me when I’m a weasel. Well, not unless I run up their leg.”
“Get to the point already, Tiff,” Estelle said. She turned to the boys. “Tiff heard Leonie chewing out Shan. She as good as told him that she knows they’re mates.”
“Leonie and Shan are mates?” Spencer said incredulously. He paused. “Actually, that explains a lot.”
“We’ve known all along,” Finley said to the basilisk shifter. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier. You too, Tiff. We shouldn’t have excluded either of you.”
“I wish you’d excludedme,” Ignatius muttered.
Tiff waved Finley’s apology away. “It’s okay. Though itwaspretty stupid. If I’d known, I would have helped. Anyway, Leonie told Shan he can either come clean, or push off. She basically ordered him to meet her at her cabin tonight. But he didn’t!”
“How do you know?” Archie asked.
“I’ve been tracking them both with my pegasus ability all evening,” Beth said. She twisted the end of her braid. “Shan hasn’t gone anywhere near Leonie’s cabin. I think he went to see Director Zephyr instead.”
“And there’s only one reason he’d dothat,” Estelle said. “Rufus, did you manage to sneak a look into his room?”
Rufus nodded.
“Rufus says he’s still there, at least for now,” Finley relayed for those who couldn’t hear the griffin shifter’s telepathy. “But he’s got his suit out of the office. It’s hanging from the curtain rod.”
Spencer was looking lost. “Suit? What suit? Why would Shan have a suit?”
“Because he’s not really a counselor,” Estelle said impatiently. “He’s a secret agent. That’s why he came to camp in the first place.”
“I have questions,” Spencer said. “Starting with: can someone please explain what’s going on?”
Ig heaved a sigh. “Do you want the long version or the short one?”
“Give him the shortest version, Ig,” Beth said. “We don’t have time for anything else.”
“Fine.” Ig rolled his eyes, turning to Spencer. “Basically, you’re surrounded by idiots. Apart from me, obviously. And possibly Leonie. Though the jury’s still out on that one.”
“We need to figure out how to keep Shan from leaving,” Estelle said. “That’s the important thing.”
Finley’s forehead furrowed in thought. “I don’t think he’d leave if he was still worried about the ghost. He must have decided there’s no threat to the camp.”
“Then we just gotta change his mind,” Archie said. “Estelle, can you get the unicorns to help?”
Estelle shook her head. “No good. Can’t get in touch in time. Flash hasn’t been answering my text messages for a while. Either she’s run out of battery packs, or her parents confiscated her cellphone again.”
“And now I have even more questions,” Spencer said to no one in particular.
Beth drew in a deep breath, setting her shoulders. “We haven’t got time to figure out a different way to fake the ghost sightings. We’ll just have to lie again.”
Tiff’s face fell. “You’ve been faking the ghost sightings?”
“I’m afraid so,” Finley said. “We made up the whole thing to force Shan to come back to camp. There isn’t really a ghost.”
Rufus fidgeted.
