The Keep

The headmaster.



He gave janitorial punishments all the time. The day Emma and I had stood together against the Guidons, to chastise her, Headmaster Fournier had forced Emma to clean toilets as her punishment.



I pushed away the memory. I couldn’t let emotion cripple me. I needed clear focus. I told myself it was this sort of cool logic that would ultimately help me get my head above the deluge of loss drowning me. But would it be enough to erase the confusion, chagrin, and heartbreak that was Carden? Would anything ever be enough for that?



I stiffened my upper lip. I was roots in the earth. I was cold stone. I was grit and vision. I was Watcher. Or I would be if I lived that long.



I knocked on Headmaster Fournier’s door, a cup of coffee in my hand. It was tepid—it wouldn’t do well to burn the guy—but I’d waited for the dregs, and I imagined it was all nice and silty with thick, goopy grounds.



His voice was muffled from behind the door. “Come.”



“Good afternoon, Headmaster Fournier.” I used my most formal tone—I wanted to earn a simple janitorial punishment, not an evisceration. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”



It took a lot of gall, doing the casual drop-by like this, and his expression was a mix of curious and surprised. “This is not the best time. But I confess, I’m intrigued.” He glanced over my shoulder, as though an explanation for my appearance might present itself. He didn’t look angry, though, and that was something. I guessed it took a lot to rouse a vampire’s curiosity, and they probably didn’t mind when it happened.



I thanked him with a smile and said, “I’ll be quick.”



There was no stopping now. I walked in and put my cup right on his desk. It made a ceramic clack sound, and coffee sloshed over the sides.



Horrified astonishment instantly marred his handsome face. “Young lady, this is not a café.”



Nerves had me giddy, and I had to bite my cheek not to giggle at his expression. “I’m so sorry,” I said with my chirpiest voice and scooped the cup back up. It’d left a gratifyingly dark ring, which I promptly set to dabbing with my sleeve. I was walking a fine line here. I needed to be careful—bad enough to earn a minor disciplinary action, but not so bad I’d lose my life over it. “Oh no. This is terrible. My sincerest apologies.”



“What did you want?” He addressed me as though he had something distasteful on his tongue.



Okay. So a coffee ring on his antique desk didn’t do it. I’d need to go further. If I spilled on his shirt, I might get laundry duty, but what would I do with a bunch of soap? No, I needed janitorial duty—maintenance guys surely had all kinds of chemicals and tools at their disposal.



“I needed to ask you about something,” I said, thinking fast. Honestly, I’d expected to be punished the moment I walked in. “It can wait, though. If this is a bad time.”



“I told you it was not. Now speak before you try my patience further.”



“I had a question about…an academic matter.” I widened my senses, assessing his office as best I could without actually pausing to look around. Beneath his desk was a gorgeous Aubusson throw rug, with a floral pattern in shades of pale peach, sky blue, and ivory. I prayed it wasn’t priceless and irreplaceable, because spilled coffee could really mess it up good.



I needed to get behind his desk. I stepped forward.



“Stop,” he said sharply. “You have thirty seconds to tell me why you’re here before I pursue disciplinary measures.”



“I beg your pardon, Headmaster. It’s just your office is so overwhelming. I’ll make it quick.” Thinking fast, I said, “I wanted to propose we establish a TA program.”



“TA?” He articulated each letter as though I were speaking some foreign tongue.



I nodded enthusiastically. “Like teacher’s assistants, research assistants, that sort of thing. Like at real colleges.”



“This is not a real college.” He scooted back like he was about usher me out himself.



It was now or never.



I made like I tripped.



My cup spilled, the dregs of my nasty coffee unfurling like a black spiderweb across that pretty carpet.



Fournier made a horrified gasp. He pointed to the door. “Acari Drew. You will report to the janitor, with whom you will spend the rest of your day.”



Score.



Custodial storage was in an outbuilding around the back of—go figure—the old chapel. With just a single hanging bulb, the place was dark, cold, and dank, and considering the small garden plot languishing behind the chapel, I guessed that it’d begun its life as a potting shed. I peeked inside, and where most would see basic cleaning supplies, I saw a gold mine. Just a quick scan, and I was able to identify enough materials to assemble several Molotov cocktails, a thrilling number of stakes, and the makings of enough toxic gases to choke an entire building. Surely among all this crap, I could find something to make a simple cast of that medallion.



When my eyes came to the workbench, I gaped. Dozens of keys hung above—there was hook after hook of them, bearing keys old and new, in all sizes, on all manner of rings, chains, and retractable loops. Once I figured out the casting thing, I could turn my attention here. Every locked door on campus would be mine. “Damn,” I whispered.



“Mind your tongue or you’ll be cleaning toilets with it.”



I startled, cursing myself that I’d let the janitor—the janitor, for pity’s sake—surprise me from behind. What was wrong with me? Letting Trainees catch me unawares was bad enough, but this was just plain sloppy. Was it the absence of Carden’s blood that was making me so distracted? I needed to stop tempting fate and focus.



I quickly assessed the man, and just one look was enough to tell me what a charmer he was. I hadn’t known what to expect, maybe a slice of affable village quirkiness, à la Tom the Draug keeper, but this guy was about as pleasant as dental work. Which he clearly needed, BTW.



“Sorry,” I said, on instant alert. I estimated he was in his fifties, with the heavily ridged brow generally associated with Neanderthals, lifelong mental asylum inmates, and the sort of creepy loners who lurked after teenaged girls like me. I decided to play it polite, wanting to make as few ripples in his little pond as possible. “Just tell me what I need to do.”



“Swab.” He thrust a mop into my hands.



Swab? What was he, a pirate? I scrunched my nose as a rank smell made me consider the thing in my hands. I held the mop as far away from my body as possible, certain I was tempting all manner of fungal infections simply by holding it. It’d been cleaning floors for decades, and if I’d assumed that’d make it clean, I’d have assumed wrong.



In fact, the whole outbuilding smelled off, like a sickening mix of noxious cleaners and damp stone. “You don’t sleep in here, do you?” I had to ask it—I had a feeling I’d be breaking back in here and I didn’t want any surprises when I did.



“Rats sleep in here. I look like a rat to you?”



“Of course not,” I muttered. It’s only your teeth that are rodentlike.



So, me and Mr. Dynamic weren’t going to be fast friends. But scanning his shelves sure consoled me. All those boxes, aerosol cans, and canisters bearing unrecognizable foreign brand names—some kind of molding material was sure to be among them. And besides, there were worse things than spending the afternoon crawling behind Fournier’s desk, swabbing spilled coffee. Who knew what secrets I might stumble across down there?



It was time to get started. I approached the shelf. “Where’s the carpet cleaner?”



“No.” He said it as though he were scolding a bad dog.



Uh…okay. “No?”



He sneered at me. “Girls clean lavatories.”



I dug my nails into the mop handle, deciding that Mr. Forward Thinker better watch his back—I’d proven myself a whiz at long, sticked household items. “Is that so?”



Temper, I reminded myself. This guy was white noise, just a blip on my radar. I already had a bright and shining objective.



He shouldered past me, his hand going straight for a specific key chain among all the others on the wall. I got just a brief glimpse, and it sent my mind reeling. The key fob was a figure eight—one half was the ring holding the keys, but the other half was solid, with a triangle etched in its center.



That was the symbol—the symbol on the gate. Could it really be this easy? Was it just an emblem, or could this thing unlock the tunnel? It seemed preposterous, but why not? Service people had to enter the castle somehow.



As he turned for the door, I said, “Wait.” I braved a step closer, thinking fast. “Are those the keys to the lavatories? If you point me in the right direction, I can go ahead and get started.” I held out my hand, trying not to shake.



He snatched it out of my reach. “Girls don’t get keys.”



Of course not. Forcing a smile, I glanced at the workbench and pretended to marvel at his collection of keys. “It’s amazing how you went right to the correct one.” I looked back at the key chain in his hand, taking in as many details as I could in the dim shed. The infinity symbol looked the same size as the one on the padlock. The only difference was the triangle—this one was flat, neither protruding from nor indented in the metal. The whole thing was old and rusty looking, like he’d just dug it up from where it’d been buried in the dirt for about a hundred years. There were only two keys on it. “I mean, there aren’t even that many keys on there.”



He stared at the ring in his hand as though it were the stupidest thing in the world—after me, of course. “Them’s passingkeys” was all he said, and then his cheek twitched. A real conversationalist, this one.



I leaned against my mop. He seemed anxious to leave, but I wasn’t budging. “I beg your pardon?”



He grunted, then finally, grudgingly repeated, “Passingkeys.” He’d said it louder, as though that might clarify matters.



I stepped even closer, approaching as slowly as I would a rabid dog. But it was worth the risk. Who knew there’d be such bounty in the janitor’s shed? Forget a cast of the medallion. If I could somehow make a copy of this, I’d be golden. “Passingkey? Is that like a skeleton key?”