“Right on time,” Rush said to her. “But where are the others?”
She waved his comment away. “On their way. I told them to wait a minute so it didn’t look like they were following me. Wouldn’t want others knowing about the secret entrance, would we?”
Rush smirked. “Smart.”
A few minutes later, Clarence and Prescott strolled in, their eyes arcing around the room at the layered tapestries.
“Burning gods,” said Prescott, eyes landing on me.
Clarence craned his neck as he looked around. “You weren’t kidding. Ari, it’s nice to see you.”
“I explained that I needed their help, but I kept the details slim,” Rush said. To Prescott’s scoff, he added, “And you both played your part swimmingly so far. Prescott here found us our train. And Clarence cleverly replaced the school’s guards’ schedules on his father’s desk with a set we created. We’ll have a half hour without anyone watching the lair tonight.” He clapped and lifted his hands toward his friends.
“And are you going to tell us what this is for now?” Prescott asked.
“We’re stealing her dragon back,” Rush replied casually. At Clarence’s intake of breath, he added, “It comes with…risks.”
“You and risk? No.” Prescott snorted. “What’ve you got?”
Hands in his pockets, newsboy cap on, wool suit visible beneath his overcoat, Rush Covington looked every bit the gangster. “Only sit down if you don’t mind getting expelled from this school.”
“Saints,” hissed Clarence, raking a hand through his hair.
Prescott sat down immediately. Vanya covered a grin, and I was fairly certain her cheeks flared a shade pinker. Clarence looked at each one of us before glancing back at the door.
“What?” Prescott said. “Afraid of what daddy will say if his own son is expelled?”
Clarence chewed his lip and took a seat on the edge of a velvet wing-backed chair.
“Excellent,” Rush said, a wide grin cracking his face. He walked to the center of the circle and faced me. “We need you to help break Ari’s dragon out of his confinement, and this is how we’re going to do it.”
CHAPTER 40
When we emerged two hours later, my adrenaline beat back the sting of the air as we stepped once more onto the snowy grounds.
Rounds of questions. Rounds of rebuttals. Rounds of refining the plan. Finally, we’d settled on something that might work—had to work. We had until dawn.
“How’d you find out about the train?” I asked Prescott as we headed toward the lair. Our window for leaving the school was slim, and we had no time to lose. Inside, I hadn’t had a chance to hash through the details of the past few weeks, and I was bursting to know how it had all come together.
“A few trains never make their way onto the official schedule,” Prescott said with a wink. He’d fallen into step beside Vanya rather comfortably. “If a track is set as empty, but there are no other trains scheduled to run on that track, then there’s likely anunofficialtransport taking place. Like tonight, on the track from one of his father’s warehouses up to the junction at Millford, between the hours of nine p.m. and midnight. A track usually busy with transports from Treston to the cities in the Nevrons.”
“But every night this week and last, there has also been the same empty track,” Rush added. “My father assumed someone could figure out what he was doing, so he built in several decoy options. If it hadn’t been for your friend, Bev, we’d never have narrowed it down.” He offered me a firm nod.
Prescott clapped and let out a loud laugh. “That was pure genius, Miro—Mireaux—whatever your name is.” He chuckled again, but Vanya whacked him with the back of her hand.
“Ari,” I said, smiling at him.
He wrapped an arm around Vanya and tipped her against his side.
My face lit up. This felt like it would work, even though it was also half-mad to attempt to steal my dragon back from the most powerful man in the country. I turned to Clarence, who hadn’t said much all evening. “And how’d you get Logan’s permission to mix more wintercress salve?”
He looked at his feet. “I’ve been mixing more all year, with Logan’s permission. My mother is ill, you see.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” I said, tucking my coat closer against my body. I was dressed as a newsboy again, considering if this went south, I needed to be able to slip away into the city, undetected, hopefully. None of us wore our riding uniform tonight, not wanting to look like we were heading out.
“Not many people do. Father doesn’t speak of it. And she looks well enough when she comes to functions here. It’s inside her, you see. It’s…well, the wintercress takes away the pain.”
Rush grabbed Clarence’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sorry.”
