Prescott flicked Clarence’s ear and chuckled as Clarence scurried away, one hand clasped to his head. Then he slapped his hands on my desk and looked me in the eyes. “You beat my boy, here.” He jerked his head toward Rush, who was sauntering down the aisle toward the stacks of papers at the front. “I’ll allow it only because this idiot has been barely keeping up with ourreading lately. Maybe this will wake him up.” He quirked his brows at us before heading back to his seat.
With Prescott, I never knew if he was being mean or being nice. His words felt like a threat, but in a way, they also felt like a compliment. I decided to take them as the latter.
That night, however, I found Scarlett rummaging through my things in my room.
“Hey!” I shouted, storming into the room.
Scarlett dropped the book in her hands, which fell softly onto my bed. In her hand was one of Rush’s folded notes. My heart skipped.
“That’s mine.” I made to snatch it from her, but she jerked her arm away.
“Looks like it belongs to Rush.”
She knew hishandwriting? Then again, so did I, but it was because he’d been sending me notes for weeks. In his last note, Rush had said, in his cryptic way, we should meet at the lair to finally hash out everything we’d learned and make a concrete plan for how to ensure I had a chance at winning the final race. If Scarlett had read that note, I doubted she understood whattime to make a map of tonight’s racemeant. Map, of course, meant plan. And we were meeting tonight, obviously, just before dawn, as before. My heart pounded, not only because of the note she held and the secrets it possessed, but because I had been waiting to meet with Rush for weeks, to finally talk in person about all we’d learned about magic, which to be fair wasn’t a lot. But it was more than we’d had six weeks ago.
“I found that book in the library,” I said with a shrug. “If it has his notes in it, it’s because he left them there.”
Scarletthumphedand eyed the scrap of paper. She tilted her head as she read one of the lines. “‘Tonight’s race.’ What does that mean, bottomdweller? There isn’t a night race tonight.”
I lifted my hands at my sides. “I don’t know. How do you even know that’s Rush’s? It could be years old, stuffed in there a decade ago by some former student.”
At the use of his nickname, Scarlett tensed almost imperceptibly. She crinkled the note and stormed from the room. “We’ll just see about that.”
I grabbed the book, grateful she hadn’t taken it. If she thought the note was the valuable thing, she was missing the true treasure.
Eager to spill my theories and plans to Rush, I went to bed in my uniform skirt and shirt, keeping the cover pulled up to my chin so Vanya wouldn’t ask questions.
But I never got the chance to sneak out of my room.
As I was going back over my mental notes about dragonfire, the door to our dorm slipped quietly open. When I sat up on my elbow, I yelped. Luther stormed toward me, a pistol aimed at my chest.
CHAPTER 32
Icrashed to the floor, my knees smarting on the hardwood. Panic filled my mind as I scrambled to my feet, legs tangling in my sheet as voices hissed at me through the darkness.
“Get up.”
Vanya was sitting upright in bed, hands pressed to her mouth, in the faint moonlight streaming through the window.
Luther and another third year were standing over me, barking orders at me. Holding my arm with a firm grip, Luther dragged me from the room, barefoot. As my mind accepted the fact that my family wasn’t in danger and I was not actually being attacked, anger set in. A boy was hustling me along, half shoving me, half leading me.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked as we spilled into the hall. Scarlett stood there, arms crossed, a satisfied grin on her face.
“You’re out,” Luther said. “We found out who you are. And we aren’t letting a toxic little bottomdweller spread your rot here. Should have done this ages ago.”
A few faces popped from doorways to watch the miserable procession.
“But I’m bonded,” I grunted, stumbling along beside Luther until we reached the stairs.
“We’ll see about that,” Scarlett said.
“You first,” Luther said, shoving me in the back.
“Where are we going?” I demanded, whirling on him at the bottom of the stairs.
He spun my shoulder toward the far wall and pointed at the exit. “Out.”
The other boy, whose name I didn’t know, opened the door and preceded me into the cool night. The stones of the courtyard were cold under my feet, and the air held the smell of rain.
