Hexbound

He glanced back, only one eye open. “All the Adepts are accounted for, tucked safe and sound into their beds, with the exception of you two.” He didn’t say “trouble-makers,” but I could hear it in his voice. “So there’s no immediate risk. Not enough that would justify sending you out on a hunting mission.”

I couldn’t argue with that logic.

While Daniel prepared to fire up his ward, Scout sent a message to Lesley to let her know that her work was done for the night, and that we’d be up as soon as Daniel was done.

His method of magic was quite a bit different from Scout’s . . . or anything else that I’d seen. She’d said he was a protector. Maybe they had their own special brand of mojo. After he’d communed with the door, he pulled a short, cork-stoppered clear bottle from his jacket pocket and held it up to the light, checking it out. A white cloud swirled inside it, like he’d bottled a tiny tornado.

Daniel sat cross-legged on the floor, facing the door. He pressed his lips to the bottle’s cork, then pulled out the stopper. The mist rushed out. Daniel closed his eyes, smiling happily as it expanded and circled him, swirling around like a magical version of Saturn’s rings.

“What is that?” I whispered to Scout.

She shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

The rings still circling and his eyes still closed, Daniel put hands on his knees and offered his incantation. “Solitude, sacrifice in blackness of night. Visitor—enemy of goodness and light. Hear the plea of this supplicant, protector of right, and quiet the halls of this reverent site.”

For a second, there was nothing, and then the door flashed with a brilliant, white light that put huge dots in my vision. It took me a few seconds to see through the afterimages. By the time I could focus again, the mist was gone and Daniel had recorked the bottle.

Scout squeezed her eyes closed. “Little warning about the flash next time, Daniel?”

He stood up and put the bottle back into his pocket. The door’s glow faded back to normalcy. No buzzing, no pulsing, no vibrating rivets.

“That should hold,” he said, “at least until they find a work-around. As Adepts, you’ll be able to come and go at will. It’ll only keep out Reapers—and whatever else they try to drag in here.” He pointed toward the other end of the corridor. “That the way back to St. Sophia’s?”

Scout nodded, and we all headed off in that direction.

“What was in the bottle?” she asked as we took the stairs to the second floor.

Daniel slid her a glance. “You’ve never seen sylphs before?”

Scout pointed at his jacket. “That was a sylph?”

Surprisingly, I actually knew what a sylph was—or what it was supposed to be. My parents had given me a book of fairy tales when I was younger. There was a fable about three sylphs—winged fairies—who’d tricked proud villagers into giving the sylphs all of their youth and beauty. I think “Vanity gets you in trouble” was supposed to be the moral of the story. I always got the sense they looked basically like smallish people—not clouds of mist.

As if in answer to Scout’s question, Daniel’s pocket vibrated a little. “That was many sylphs,” he said, “and since I can still feel them rattling around, I think you offended them.”

They must have been snowflake-small to fit into that tiny bottle, I thought, wondering what else the underground had in store. What other creatures were hiding in plain sight, living among Chicagoans even though they had no idea?

“Sorry, sylphs,” Scout half shouted. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You probably don’t need to yell.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who offended the sylphs, are you? One can never be too careful.”

“I’d agree with that if I didn’t think you were being crazy sarcastic. I’m assuming you’re actually leading me out of this building?”

“Of course,” Scout said. “We’re taking the bad-girl exit.”

Daniel lifted his eyebrows. “The ‘bad-girl exit’?”

“Walk and talk, people. Walk and talk.”

Lesley was gone when we emerged upstairs, and the main building was quiet. Scout silenced Daniel with a finger to her mouth, and we tiptoed across to the administrative wing where the offices—including Foley’s—were located. “We’re taking the secret exit without the alarm. This is how some of St. Sophia’s busier girls, if you know what I mean, sneak in and out at night.”

“No way,” Daniel said.

Scout nodded. “Welcome to the glamorous world of boarding school. Where the things that go bump in the night are either horrific creatures—”

“Or equally horrific teenagers,” I finished.

We followed Scout through the main administrative hallway and into a narrower corridor that led from it. The offices looked dark . . .

“Students,” a voice said suddenly behind us.

We froze, then turned around. Foley stood in her open doorway, a candle in one of those old-fashioned brass holders in her hand.

“I believe it’s past curfew.” She slid her gaze to Daniel. “Mr. Sterling.” It took me a moment to remember Foley knew Daniel because he was our studio TA.

“Sorry for marching through your territory,” he apologetically said, “but we were on a bit of a mission.”

“A mission?”

“Interlopers,” Scout said. “There were Reapers at the gates, so to speak. Daniel here warded the door, and now we’re escorting him out.”

We stood in the corridor silently for a moment, Foley probably debating whether to let us go. Since she didn’t rush to call the cops about the man standing in the middle of her girls’ school in the middle of the night, I assumed she knew about Daniel’s magical tendencies.

Her voice softened. “You’re being careful?”

“As much as we can, ma’am,” Daniel said. “And—I was sorry to hear about your daughter. She was a good friend—and a good Adept.”

I snapped my gaze back to Foley and the grief in her expression. She’d had a daughter who was an Adept? And she’d lost her?

Foley actually seemed to make more sense now. But before I could say anything, her expression went bossy again. She nodded at Daniel, then turned and walked away. “Get back to bed,” we heard.

We were quiet for a moment until I looked at Scout. “Did you know?”

She shook her head. “I mean, I suspected, given the fact that she was in the community, but I didn’t know she’d had a kid—or lost her.”

We both looked at Daniel. His brow was furrowed. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. Her name was Emily. She was a green thumb Adept—she could grow trees and vines that practically encapsulated buildings.” He paused. “We think it was a Reaper attack.”

“I had no idea,” Scout quietly said.

Guilt settled heavy in my stomach. “I didn’t either. And I was pretty hard on her earlier today.”

“We do the best we can with the information we have,” Daniel said. “For now, let’s focus on the things we can change. Such as getting me out of here.”

Scout nodded, then gestured down the hall. “This way,” she said. We continued the walk in silence, and didn’t speak again until Scout paused in front of an old wooden door.

She jimmied the ancient crystal knob. “There’s no light in here, but you can use flashlights when the door’s shut.”

We stepped inside, shut the door, and pulled out our flashlights. The room was big and mostly empty, and the ceiling arched above it. The floors were made up of old wooden boards, and along one side was a fireplace that took up almost the entire wall. It was made of rough, pale stones that were still stained with soot. A simple wooden chair, the kind with rails across the back, sat beside the fireplace.

I shivered. There was something creepy about this place—the empty chair in the otherwise deserted room. I could imagine Temperance living here alone, waiting for someone to conjure her up. I shivered, then wrapped my arms around my shoulders.

“What is this?” Daniel whispered.

Scout walked to a corner of the room and began feeling around on the floor. “Not sure. I think it was the original kitchen for the nuns before they built the new wing. Mostly no one comes in here anymore.”

“Except bad girls,” I pointed out.

“Except that,” Scout agreed. She lifted up a ring, then pulled open an old door that was set into the floor. “Root cellar,” she explained when we walked over. She pointed down into it. “There’s a door to the yard, and from there you can just walk out the front gate. No alarms or anything.”

Daniel headed into the cellar, disappearing into darkness. I followed him down, and Scout followed behind me.

The root cellar looked exactly how you’d expect a root cellar to look. It was dark and damp, and it smelled like wet soil and plants. The ladder into it was wooden and rickety, as was the door that led to the side lawn. Had the folks who’d changed the convent into a school with fancy classrooms failed to find the rickety door—or had Foley left a secret exit for any Adepts that needed it?

Yet another question, but I was already full up for the night.

The evening was cool, so I tucked my hands into my hoodie pockets and followed Daniel and Scout to the street.

“Thanks for the help,” he said. “I might find some Varsity kids and ask them to take a walk through the tunnels. I think you’ve already had enough close calls for the week.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Scout said. We said our final good-byes, and Daniel took off at a jog toward the street, then turned and headed out of view.

“This has been quite a week,” she said as we headed back up the ladder and into the building. “First teethy monsters, then vampires, and now Reapers.”

I stopped. “What did you say?”

Scout glanced back, then blinked. “What?”

“Just then. What did you say?”

“Oh, uh, teethy monsters, vampires, Reapers?”

“Teethy monsters,” I repeated. “You said it the other day—the rat things had fangs. And vampires have fangs, too, right?”

“Yeah, but so what?”

I frowned. “I’m not exactly sure.”I was on the edge of something.... I just didn’t know what.

She pointed toward the door. “Come on. You can sleep on it and let it percolate in your dreams, or something.”

“Actually, I have a better idea.”

“And that is?”

“I think we need to go visit the vampires.”

16

“You want to what?”

“I want to go see Nicu,” I said. “Monsters with fangs, monsters with pointy little teeth. I mean, I know it’s kind of a long shot, but my gut tells me something’s going on there. Besides, Sebastian said we needed to talk to Nicu.” I shrugged. “Maybe this is why.”

Her look wasn’t exactly friendly. “So now you’re following Sebastian’s advice?”

“I’m following the only lead we’ve got.”

She was quiet for a moment. “The vampires weren’t exactly friendly the last time we saw them.”

“And they may not be friendly this time, either. But what other choice do we have? I say we visit the coven and skip the turf war bit altogether.”

“Oh, you just want to traipse into a coven of blood-sucking fiends and beg them for help?”

I shook my head. “Not beg, but definitely ask. Do you remember what Marlena said about Nicu’s coven being weak? What if that wasn’t just talk? Sebastian said something about the ‘missing.’ What if the Reapers aren’t just targeting Adepts?”

Her expression softened. “You think they’re taking vampires, too?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But if we find the vampires, and if we offer to help them . . .”

“They might not make breakfast out of us.”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

She whistled. “That’s risky. And even if it doesn’t get us eaten, we don’t know where the coven actually is.”

“No,” I said. “We don’t. But we know who probably does.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were in the back of a dark green cab with GYPSY printed on the door in white cursive letters. We were heading for Buckman’s, one of those old-fashioned multilevel department stores a few blocks from St. Sophia’s. I wasn’t entirely sure why we were meeting at a department store, but when the girl with the map tells you to jump, you ask how high.

The cab ride was short, probably not even a mile. But I stared out the windows the entire time, taking in a view of Chicago I hadn’t seen before—I hadn’t yet been aboveground in the dark. We drove past soaring sky-scrapers, including two that looked like a pair of concrete corncobs, cars stuck into parking spaces right against the edge like tiny steel kernels. We crossed an iron bridge over what I assumed was the Chicago River, and then we passed the marquee of the Chicago Theater—

“Oh, my God,” I said, turning to stare as we passed it by. “Did you see that?”

“What?” Scout asked.

“In the theater sign—in the marquee. There’s a circle inside a Y behind the word ‘Chicago.’ ”

“Folks say that Y is supposed to stand for the branches of the river,” said the cabdriver, glancing up at his rearview mirror to look at me. “You see ’em all over the city, including over by the theater. Kind of a weird deal, I guess, that they’re on buildings and such, but there you are. Probably somethin’ to do with politics. It’s Chicago, after all.”