“We will send someone to the university and surrounding haunts. What was she wearing when she left?”
Miss Hale told him and then demanded that she be called back, no matter what the hour, if and when they found her friend. The inspector, wary of her showing up in a nightgown, agreed reluctantly.
“Simpson,” Inspector Green called into the next room, where Simpson stood next to a ruffian in handcuffs. “We need to get a couple men over to the university.”
“Why, sir?” Simpson asked.
Irritated at Simpson’s time-wasting question, he barked, “What do you mean, ‘why,’ Simpson? Just get someone over there. Saffron Everleigh is missing. She had a meeting with Dr. Berking and didn’t return home.”
His eyes widened in understanding. “Berking, sir?”
“Yes, Simpson, get on it! You go, since you have so many damn questions!”
The sergeant immediately took off down the corridor, tripping over his own feet. Inspector Green pinched the sharp ache between his brows. The boy had as much coordination as a newborn foal, but he’d been following him around long enough to know how not to mess this up. Hopefully.
Saffron stirred. She was unaware of anything except the extraordinary pain shooting through her spine into the base of her back, and a rising nausea with which she was too familiar. There was a singular thought in her mind: that she not be sick all over herself. It was coming, if the watering in her mouth was any indication.
Her eyes fluttered open to see a ceiling lined with shadows. Sweat broke out on her brow. She tried to lift her arms, to rollover to her side, but found that her arms were too heavy, like they’d been filled with cool sand. It was bad enough, memory flooding back to her, that she’d gotten herself in this stupid mess, but dying choking on her own vomit would be a particularly gruesome way to die.
Just as the wave of nausea overtook her, she threw all her strength into moving her body, and she rolled just enough.
She panted and moved her head away from her vomit. The office was quiet but for her panting and illuminated only by the hazy orange-gold glow of the lamps in the Quad. She was alone. Hopefully that meant that Berking and Blake thought the job was done and had fled. Relief made her body feel even heavier, like her limbs were sinking into the floor.
She squinted down at her arms and saw streaks on her hands. The paralysis had already begun, which explained why she was flopping around. With grunts of effort, she tried to roll to her other side, which proved too much for her equilibrium. She sputtered and spat, acid burning her throat and nose.
When she finally managed to reposition herself, she saw Alexander lying faceup on the floor a few feet away. She gasped.
“Alexander,” she croaked. “Alexander, wake up!”
He didn’t move. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Saffron put her face toward the ceiling again, taking gulping breaths against the new wave of feeling coming over her, not of nausea, but of fear and guilt. Maybe Berking and Blake had forced him to drink a lethal dose of xolotl. Or maybe they’d used the solution they’d mentioned on him after all, and he’d fallen into a coma like Mrs. Henry.
“Alexander!” she cried, louder. “Alexander, please wake up!”
She forced herself to concentrate on movement. If she could move, she could see if he was alive, maybe somehow crawl her way to help.
She gave herself a great internal push and moved forward just a few inches. Alexander was about an arm’s length away, but her own arms were now underneath her, and her legs were useless below her knees. And she was exhausted. Cursing, she tried to inch her way over to him, but barely moved.
One particularly bad attempt left her in a fit of panicked giggles. Tears streamed down her face as the stress of the situation overtook her, and she let herself cry until she had only determination left over. It was no use lying where she was. Any moment Alexander would wake up, she assured herself.
It took her long minutes of concerted effort, each movement making her muscles in her torso, back, and neck burn. She had even less control over her arms or legs, but she managed to inch her way to Alexander. She pressed her head against his chest. The sound of her own labored breathing and thundering heart was loud in her ears, making it impossible to hear his heartbeat, if it was there. Her breath froze in her lungs when her eyes moved from his chest to his neck. Threading blue lines reached toward his face from his collar.
His entire body was paralyzed? What if the blue lines didn’t recede or there was lasting damage?
“Alexander,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t tried to—”
Alexander’s eye, still closed, twitched. Saffron gasped and called louder in his ear, “Alexander, if you can hear me, I’m here. Please wake up!”
Hoping she hadn’t imagined it, she leaned against his chest, waiting for him to move. Her eyelids, heavy from all her exertions and illness, closed.
With every step across the wet green, Simpson begrudged the inspector sending him off to tap on dark, locked doors at theuniversity. To be honest, he hadn’t wanted to hang around the station either; it was currently overrun with criminals from the mass arrest earlier, and endless sleep-deprived officers ready to snap at a lesser officer without call. Even Inspector Green had lost his temper at him.
Simpson and the officer he’d snagged to come with him, Giles, stepped up to the center entry of the North Wing. If Saffron Everleigh was on campus, this is where she would likely be. Perhaps they’d find her in the arms of Mr. Ashton, as the inspector seemed to think they were a couple. Simpson would be terribly embarrassed if that was the case. One didn’t just walk in on things like that, even if one was a policeman.
They waited only a moment for the university caretaker with the keys to meet them, and once the door had been unlocked, Simpson and his deputy climbed up the dark stairs, using their torches for illumination. They made their way toward the only office with a light on within. From his scrawled notes, Simpson saw it belonged to Alexander Ashton. Dread filled him; he really was about to interrupt something, wasn’t he?
Giles glanced at him with a raised brow. Simpson straightened up, recalling how the inspector was never embarrassed, even when he had to ask questions that made Simpson’s toes curl in his boots.
Simpson knocked smartly, but there was no reply. He tried the door and found that the tidy office was deserted. He didn’t let Giles see the relief on his face.
