DECLAN
Grasping the desk, I steadied myself as my stomach flip-flopped. God, I hated that. It was only the third time anyone had ever teleported me in my life, but each time was awful. Veronica was on her hands and knees, eyes clenched shut and dry heaving.
“Are you good?” I whispered.
She closed her mouth and wiped the back of her hands across her eyes before nodding.
“Yeah. I’m all right. That was?—”
“Fucking awful, yeah,” I said, walking over to help her up. “Where are we?”
“This is Balthazar’s classroom,” she said, her voice low, almost reverent. She pointed to a desk toward the center of the room. “That’s…that’s where I usually sit.”
“Give me a second.” I moved around the room, eyeing everything, looking for any signs of what might have gone down here. “Lock that door if it’s not already,” I added.
“You know this place is filled with witches, right?” Veronica said as she crossed to the door. “They can open a locked door pretty easily.”
I turned to give her an exasperated look. “Thank you, Miss Smart-ass. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
She grinned at my sarcasm, but locked the door as I asked.
The room looked to have been fairly organized prior to the murder, and most items were where you’d think they would be. No books had been pulled from the shelves, the desktop didn’t appear to have been gone through, notepads, scrolls, and pens all perfectly organized. I pulled open the drawers of the desk, finding them unlocked, but there was nothing that might give me an idea as to what or who might have killed the man. The drawers held nothing but more books, journals, and a folded set of school robes.
“We need to see Wendy’s room,” I said, closing the drawer. “Is it safe to go yet?”
She looked at her watch and shook her head. “We need to wait another thirty minutes at least. “Dinner should have ended. People will still be milling around. At least, they normally are.” She shrugged helplessly. “Things may be a little different since the founder and head instructor waskilledhere last night.”
“We’ll wait,” I said. “You’re probably right that standard operating procedure may have changed, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Half an hour later, I eased the door open, cracking it the barest sliver, and peeked out into the hallway. There was nothing in sight. Not that I could see, anyway. This was incredibly dangerous, and I was even more stressed out that Veronica washere with me. Even in the best of situations, this would have been difficult, but the only way to investigate a crime was to get the full picture, and there was no better way to do that than to see the scene.
“All clear,” I whispered, then turned to look at her. “Do you have any spells or magic that could help us get to Wendy’s room undetected?”
My biggest fear was to round a corner and run square into a powerful witch.
“Uh…” She bit her lower lip, and I recalled all her talk of being a mediocre student. “Invisibility iswaytoo advanced for me. I could create some diversions, though. One thing I’m pretty decent at is abiogenesis spells.”
“What?”
“Making artificial life from nothing, basically. Some people can summon big animals or even magical creatures for a brief time. I can do birds and stuff like squirrels.”
I stifled a sigh. We’d have to do this the old-fashioned way. I doubted a conjured chipmunk would help us tonight.
“All right. Let’s go,” I said, stepping out into the hall.
Veronica stayed right beside me, moving faster and even quieter than I did as she moved to lead. I kept my eyes moving, casting around foranysign of movement. Thankfully, it looked like the students were all in their rooms, and if the professors were out and about patrolling the halls, they weren’t near us.
She ushered me along a few different corridors, pausing only once when we heard voices, but those ended up being students talking behind their closed and locked doors.
When we finally arrived at the door of Wendy’s room, I was wound tight enough that I thought I might burst apart. I imagined springs and gears flying from my skull like a busted watch.
Veronica inspected the door, most likely checking to see if there was an enchantment on the frame to alert the teachers if someone entered. Finding nothing, she opened the door.
Rather than the clean and tidy classroom we’d teleported into, this looked more like what it was, the scene of a crime.
Outside ominous dark clouds rolled by, tiny pellets of ice pattering gently against the whole windowpane but sprayed inside the broken one.
Walking over, I glanced down at the ground. A small sheen of water showed on the floor, along with some slivers and chunks of glass.
