Through the tether, she felt Zara’s fierce pride. Her determination matching Ramona’s own.
“Tonight,” Zara agreed.
Ramona stared out at the corrupted stones, at the spreading darkness, and felt something shift inside her. Not hope, exactly. Not yet. But something close to it.
What could she have been without the curse? What could she be now, if they broke it?
“We should get back,” Zara said quietly. “Tell the others the timeline just moved up. We have a lot to prepare for tonight.”
Ramona nodded. Turned away from the convergence point.
The fox followed at her heels, and Zara’s hand found hers, warm and steady.
Tonight they’d break into Thornwood. Tonight she’d find answers. She was more determined than ever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“This might beone of our worst ideas,” Ramona said for the third time that evening.
“You’ve mentioned that,” Zara replied with the same calm efficiency she brought to everything. “Multiple times.”
“I’m just saying?—”
“You’re spiraling.” Zara’s hand found Ramona’s knee and squeezed gently as they sat in the car just outside of campus. “We have a plan. We have the key. We’ve studied the guard schedules. This is going to work.”
Ramona stared out the window at the streetlights. It was past eleven — late enough that Thornwood’s campus should be mostly empty. Just a skeleton security crew doing rounds. Faculty long gone for the weekend.
But still.
“What if someone recognizes me?”
“They won’t.”
Ramona fidgeted with her skirt hem, tugging at her tights. “What if the wards reject me even with the key?”
“They won’t.”
“What if?—”
“Ramona.” Zara’s voice was firm but gentle. “Breathe.”
Ramona tried. Failed. Tried again. Her chest felt too tight, her hands too shaky. They were about to break into Thornwood Academy — the place that had expelled her, the place where everyone knew her face, knew what she’d done, knew exactly why she shouldn’t be there. “I need a disguise,” she said suddenly.
Zara glanced at her. “A what?”
“A disguise. Something so people don’t recognize me.” Ramona was already digging through her bag, the one she’d packed with “just in case” items. “I brought… Hold on.” She pulled out sunglasses. Large, dark sunglasses that covered half her face.
“Ramona—”
Then a hat. A wide-brimmed hat she’d grabbed from the back of her closet.
“Ramona, you don’t need?—”
And finally, a scarf. A large, patterned scarf that she immediately wrapped around her lower face, covering her nose and mouth. She adjusted the sunglasses. Tilted the hat. Checked her reflection in the passenger-side mirror. “There,” she said. “Perfect.”
Zara was staring at Ramona with an expression that was carefully, deliberately neutral.
“What?” Ramona asked.
