The Dark Watch had struck with more force than the previous time from the looks of the chaos and the blood that painted the grass.
I should have flown back and helped. Guilt wracked me as I stared down at the still body of one of the students I had seen earlier at the Peak. Apparently, he’d fled back to campus only to find himself in the middle of an even worse fight—a deadly one.
I hadn’t wanted to leave Claire and Lacy to return to the school on their own, not knowing what they’d find when they arrived. I came back with them, but now regrets were rocketing through me. A flare of pain through my injured shoulder reminded me it would have been difficult to fly at best, and might have been impossible.
The Watch had killed at least four of Imperium’s students, their bloodied bodies scattered in the courtyard. A wail rose on the air. Everyone looked toward the houses. My stomach dropped as I watched someone throw herself to the ground near a still form near the Earth House. The wail ceased, replaced by a heartbroken howl as the girl shifted to wolf, no longer able to contain her grief.
“Mia,” Claire whispered the instant before she ran to her friend.
“Claire, wait,” I shouted, but she was already well on her way across the courtyard. When she reached the wolf’s side, she melted to the ground.
“Oh no, it’s Anna,” she exclaimed as I caught up with them. While Claire wasn’t nearly as vocal in her grief as the wolf, tears streamed down her face. I wanted more than anything to comfort her, but I stayed back, and stood behind them as Lacy joined in, dropping to her knees next to Claire. The two girls clung together, their arms looped around the wolf, who seemed oblivious to them.
I looked down at the girl on the ground. There was a gash across her throat, no doubt from a blade. The Dark Watch believed silver blades had to be used to kill shapeshifters. I was struck by how similar Anna and Claire looked. They had the same dark hair and build.
It could have been Claire if she hadn’t been at the Peak tonight.
That thought spiraled into another. She wouldn’t have been there at all if it hadn’t been for Victor. This was the second time he’d said or done something that had kept Lacy and Claire away from the school when it was being attacked.
If I was a nice sort and didn’t suspect him of helping the Watch, I would have begrudgingly thanked him.
But I wasn’t nice…and he wasn’t innocent in what happened here tonight. Not by a long shot.
The only good thing to come from this was I now knew Claire wasn’t responsible for the crystals breaking. She hadn’t been there to affect them in any way. She is Yokai, but this wasn’t her fault.
I spotted Victor lurking by the side of the main house, and it was all I could do not to go over and kick his ass—for more than a dozen reasons.
Then I saw the headmistress near one of the other houses.
I touched Claire’s shoulder. When she looked up at me with her sad eyes, I told her I’d be right back.
I left them and waited to speak to the headmistress. She looked tired. This night had taken its toll on her. “I know you and a few others were not here tonight, Logan. I’ll address that in the morning once everything else has been sorted out,” she promised, her tone still as firm as ever. “We have our dead to take care of tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am. But I think you might want to hear what I have to say. I know who has been helping the Dark Watch penetrate our shields.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You have my attention, Mr. Fairmont. But be sure of who you are willing to reveal as our enemy, for I can assure you that justice will not be merciful.”
She took Claire, Lacy, and me to her office, and I repeated what I suspected about Victor, then I pulled the scale out of my pocket and gave it to her.
“He also tried to drown me earlier today,” Claire added.
I looked at her, incredulous. When was she going to tell me that?
Seeing the look on my face, she continued, “At first, I thought I only fell into the lake, but when I saw Victor’s serpent coiled around you, I remembered the moment before I blacked out. I remember being pulled under the water and dragged down by his coils. I know it was him. Lacy was there to save me, thank goodness.”
“It would appear you have been in need of constant saving today, Ms. Pratten,” the headmistress said dryly.
We stayed silent. It wouldn’t do to tell the headmistress that Claire had been the one to save me on the Peak. That would open up an entirely different conversation…one I didn’t want to have. Instead, we all stood there looking at one another for an uncomfortable moment of silence.
The office door swung open, and Victor stepped into the room. Claire and I exchanged a startled glance—how had we missed her summoning him?
He stood apart from us. A long section on one side of his face, from hairline to chin, was scorched. That hadn’t come from me, I thought, trying to keep the grin from showing. That had been all Claire and her wyvern.
“Information has come to light in your involvement concerning the Dark Watch,” the headmistress told him without preamble as she lifted the scale up for him to see. “Had you only been involved in luring lowerclassmen to lakes and off school grounds, I would have given you another chance, as I have Mr. Fairmont. However, there is proof against you and lives were lost tonight. For that, a price must be paid. You are hereby banished to the Forest of Lost Souls for your crimes, Victor DeVenoss.”
He didn’t so much as blink at the verdict. Instead, his gaze was locked on the scale in her fingertips, as if he wondered how it had been found. As two upperclassmen came into the office to take him away, his attention turned to me. “This won’t be the last you’ll see of me, dragon boy,” he promised darkly. “I’ll find you on the other side.”
Then they grabbed him and took him away.
The door slammed shut, and I flinched. It sounded like an ending. A gunshot…or the thunk of a guillotine. Even though I knew he wasn’t in the section of the forest that would take his soul yet, he was as good as there.
“Now for you,” the headmistress said in an even tone, as if she regularly banished her students and it was of no consequence to her. “This will be my last warning for each of you. If I hear so much as a whisper that any of you have disobeyed Imperium’s rules and left the grounds during this next week, you will be following Victor DeVenoss to the forest. Is that understood?”
All three of us nodded in unison.
The headmistress gave us a hard look for a moment, her lips parted as if she was deciding on whether to say anything more. Then she sat down behind her desk, picking up a sheet of paper and a pen.
No doubt getting ready to write a letter to Victor’s parents and explain why they won’t be seeing him again.
The headmistress’s eyes flicked up, and she waved us away. “You are dismissed. Please close the door on your way out.”
I felt as if I were tiptoeing the entire way to the door, worried she’d change her mind at the last second.
When we were out and I pulled it shut, I let out an uneasy breath and gave Claire a smile.
“I’m going back to the dorm. I’m not feeling well,” Lacy announced suddenly.
“I’ll come with you,” Claire offered.
Lacy waved her off. “No, I’ll be fine. Just going to lay down. Today was too much excitement. It’s catching up with me.”
“All right.” Claire didn’t sound sure, but she stood and watched her friend go.
“Where to?” I asked, knowing she must be wanting to go somewhere or do something if she wasn’t heading straight to her room.
“Could you just walk with me? I have questions.”
“Sure.”
We left the main hall and made it back outside before she asked the first one. “I didn’t like Victor, but I feel responsible—as if I’ve murdered him somehow by sending him away.”
The feeling was mutual, but I didn’t want to tell her that and have her feel even more guilt.
“Could you take me to the spot where the Forest begins? I feel like someone should have at least been there to witness him leaving.”
In no way had I seen that coming. “Yeah, I can take you.”
We walked in silence as we crossed the courtyard and passed the houses to the forest.
“The Forest of Lost Souls is this close to the dorms?” she asked. I didn’t have to look at her face to know she was surprised; the shock in her voice was clear.
“It’s not far,” I admitted, leading her up the path we had taken before to the overlook. I grabbed a fallen branch and made a torch so we would be able to see.
Halfway up the mountain, I made a sharp right onto a smaller path that was visible from the freshly trampled grass and broken limbs. In a few places, there were furrows in the dirt, evidence the two shifters who had been tasked with exiling Victor had to drag him a few times.
There were footprints here and there pointing in the direction we had come. Their task was already done.
A few yards more and the atmosphere changed, becoming thick and foreboding.
“This is it,” I said, stopping when I couldn’t manage to take another step. This was the place where Victor had been physically thrown to his end, though I couldn’t see anything else past this point. Everything looked blurry and uncertain, with shapes that slid back and forth in hues of green and brown.
“It feels as if there is a wall here,” Claire whispered, reaching her hand out to touch the magic that separated the two sections of forest.
“There is a wall here. The coven keeps it in place,” I explained. The magic shimmered under her touch, then sent a shock through her fingertips when she kept them there too long.
“Ow.” Her hand went to her mouth as she sucked on one sore finger.
“Sorry. I should have warned you about that. It gets worse the longer you touch it.”
“Between keeping the shields up to keep the Watch out and then this wall to keep us out, it’s no wonder Hadley looked preoccupied when I saw her last,” Claire said.
“Yeah, I’d say being one of Imperium’s witches could definitely be a juggling act at times,” I agreed.
“So what happens once you enter here?” she asked, her eyes locked on the wall.
“You become locked into what your animal spirit is and eventually your human side dies.”
“You’re telling me that there are only creatures in there?”
“Well, not really,” I admitted, not happy to tell her the rest of what I’d heard happened there. Claire turned to me and waited, obviously not going to let me stop there. I sighed. “They say that the creatures in there fight with one another once their human counterparts die. Then, after a while, the creatures die, too.” I saw questions lingering in her eyes, so I continued. “We are shapeshifters. Two souls in one body, forever connected. Taking away one part of our soul—whichever part—only causes the other to suffer.” I turned my attention back to the wall, unable to look her in the eye any longer. “It’s the Forest of Lost Souls, Claire. Those behind this wall haven’t just been punished. They’ve been given a death sentence.”