She stops pacing and looks at us—reallylooksat us. “Iknowyou both are cousins, and that you are not actually a professor, Alexis. I know many of your secrets, because I'm the one who’s doing their best to bury them.” She swipes a hand over her forehead. “And you idiots are not making it easy."
I blink.
Wah?
Beside me, Lexi goes deathly still.
“Maximus Larsen. I know that you and the twins have not been partying in Thailand for the last year,” she says to me. “I suspect you have been somewhere much more interesting.”
Ho. Lee. Shit.
She turns her red-rimmed beady eye on to Lexi next. "I know exactly who you are, Alexis Feniks, and I’m glad you are here. Glad you found your cousin, and extremely grateful that Theodora has you as her protector.”
I flick my eyes to Lex, but his gaze is firmly pinned on the dean. “Explain,” he growls.
Crankshawe gives him a wan smile then takes a seat at the far side of her wide desk. "For some time now, I’ve been the one scrubbing the digital footprints you leave behind,andtrying to keep the rest of the student body safe at the same time.”
Huh?
“Why do you think I’m so insistent that the kids stay away from the building site?” she asks. “If one gets in, they are not going to be allowed to reappear and tell tales, are they?” She rubs her face with a hand then exhales heavily. “At least, that’s what I thought. But then you came back, Maximus. And the Hart boys. I’d fearedyou’d been…exterminated like anyone else who stumbles on the Conclave's secrets.”
My brain is having trouble keeping up with this personality reverse-Uno.
She reaches into a hidden drawer in her mahogany desk and pulls out a small, tattered photograph.
After gazing at it for a moment, Crankshawe slides it across the wood toward us.
A picture of two women, young and laughing, standing in front of an academy.
I don’t know the older girl, but the second is a younger, softer version of Crankshawe.
"Gwrachod Academy, in Wales,” she says. “I was a freshman and given a senior peer mentor called Annabelle Williams. We instantly became best friends. It was ironic that she was my mentor, as her flame was low and magic moderate at best. I, on the other hand, was obviously headed to Elite status. But our differing power levels didn’t stop a close bond forming.”
I roll my eyes. Storytime is all fine, but not really what I’m interested in right now.
Nonetheless, she continues. “We tried to keep in touch after graduation, but you know how it is. Paths go in different directions. Then I was reading the background check on last year’s lottery student. One Theodora Wilson. Father, Kevin Wilson, mother Anne Wilson, née Williams. Anne Wilsonwasmy Annabelle Williams.”
Ooh, there’s the bombshell.
“And Theo is her adopted daughter,” the dean adds.
Lexi leans forward in his seat. “Why didn’t you tell Theo you knew her mother?”
Crankshawe looks down at the desk, then back up again. “I watched her carefully for the six week lottery study. The poorthing was so out of her depth, no spark, floundering in classes. I was going to step in, but why? She’d never make it in our world. Best to let her just slide back to London. I was already aware that the Conclave was trying to shift towards totalitarian control. This is not a world for the weak.”
“So why bring her back again?” Alexis demands. “She was safe in England. Why bring her to the heart of darkness?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” the dean whispers, her eyes filling with grief. “The Conclave had started a hunt for AUAs. Someone in the administration here passed her name on and that was that.”
“That was that?” I spit. “You do realize they want Theo to experiment on? Fill her with that dark shit and turn her into a human battery?”
The crumples. “Yes, I know. But if I’d refused to bring her here, I would have disappeared just like Dean Dartmouth. They’d appoint a loyalist in my place and the school would be in even more danger. All I could do was try and make Annabelle’s daughter stronger. Get her flame going. Why do you think I put her in all those advanced classes? And gave her to you as your charge, Alexis?”
Have I said holy shit yet?
If so, it’s worth repeating.
Ho ho ho, lee, shit.
