Chapter 20: The Exit

Piecing things together: Grace lied about the door she swore she closed, Mr. Cald helped himself to half the display, and Henry shut four students in the back room on dry bread and a bowl of water.

Three secrets that ought to make his next conversations easier.

A crackle sounded inside the room.

Milo eased his back to the door’s glass pane as the phone was at Henry’s ear again.

"Yes? When? Mhm. And if they’re wrong, which way is it? Saying clean, or saying sick?"

From what Milo gathered, testing kits were being delivered to the building. If he were to come out and get cleared by one, he might become a normal student again. Ex-student, to be precise, with luxuries such as an unlocked room and clothes nobody wanted burned.

When he flattened himself beside the pane, waiting for one more sentence, any new useful information, the baton’s outline slid along the first floor.

It stopped at the staircase and went up.

Mr. Cald was coming home to his nest.

Milo shoved off the wall and ran, soundless on the boards, the Turnhook pumping in one fist. The way out was the way in, every door off the carved route was sealed. One lane, two travelers, opposite directions.

The baton entered the labyrinth and sped up. In the third room since Henry, Milo pulled up to a door and shuddered it by the handle.

Fuck.

The sealed door was his only escape from the approaching baton.

If the seal gave, he had a bolt-hole and a closed door between himself and the man’s homecoming.

Each breath stirred the bruising under his sweater. Seb’s work had survived the run. He had one clean chance at the seal before Mr. Cald reached the room.

Milo gripped the Iron Turnhook tighter.

Breaking in would likely leave a crater on the wood, but hey, maybe the man had something urgent to share about ghosts and empty soup bowls and would ignore the noise entirely.

THUD!

The hook rang off the wood and jumped in his palm. Not so much as a flicker from the seal. The noise, on the other hand, traveled around the room and shook the furniture.

As he hauled the hook back for a second try, the door to his left swung open.

Milo stared at the intruder’s dark, slick clothes, eyes nearly bulging from their sockets.

Mr. Cald froze on the threshold with half the display room stacked up in his arms. At the top of the load, the dented hand-bell tipped, slid, and struck the floor with one flat clank.

In two quick steps, Milo dashed toward the man and smacked the pile of relics from the bottom.

Iron and glass rained over the floorboards.

Before the last piece landed, Mr. Cald’s ragged stick whipped at Milo’s head.

He swung the pole up in both hands and blocked the blow from above, knees trembling under the man’s pressure. Wood cracked on iron as the stick’s tip brightened with the same light that had burned the emergency seals away.

Milo flung himself sideways, shoulder slamming the wardrobe. Having hooked an arm over the furniture’s edge, he wrestled it steady and leveled his weapon at the instructor.

"CALM!" he yelled. "Try to hit me again and the whole school hears about your little heist!"

A boy crusted in blood and vomit, prescribing calm from behind a fire-hook.

It had to work.

"Milo? Have—"

"Quite the announcement earlier," Milo interrupted. "Entities seen in corridors. Report all sightings." He mockingly trembled his hands and tipped his chin at the scatter between them. "Are you an entity, Mr. Cald? Sealed doors do open for you."

"You..." The light at the stick’s tip guttered out, undischarged. Rage, however, lit the man’s face red. "I am staff. Inspection duty." The stick’s tip swung down and settled on the Turnhook. "That is from the collection. That’s academy property, behind academy Wards. Explain yourself."

While Milo wasn’t familiar with Mr. Cald, people usually became instructors for two reasons: prove themselves as superior or take care of the inferior, both of which overlapped in practice.

Henry guarded four infected suspects and Mr. Cald moved freely behind the academy’s seals. Milo could see the partnership now, though not its purpose.

"Seems we both have our dirty secrets." Milo cupped his hands behind his back and grinned. "Yes, I took a single relic for self-defense. You took half the display and paraded it around the facility, spreading the Plague."

"The Plague?!" Mr. Cald burst out before his eyes narrowed. "I am dealing with it, and you are scattering what I need across the floor. I am working in the institution’s interest."

"I’m not sure others would agree, but oh well..." Milo lowered the hook until its tip ticked the floorboards. "Here’s my trade. You let me walk and never mention I was here. In exchange, I never mention your little relic errand. To anyone, ever. We leave rich."

The man scanned him from top to bottom, deep in thought.

At last, he took a step closer and asked, "What about the four?"

Checking whether I know little enough to be let go?

Mr. Cald observed Milo’s face carefully, hunting for the first twitch of movement.

I need to give him nothing.

"Four?" His gaze dropped to the relics on the floor and went over them one at a time, hook pointing, lips moving as he counted. "Learn how to count, you stole six." He looked back up. "Nevermind. You stole zero, right?"

"I stole zero," Mr. Cald said, giving a wary nod.

"Now your turn. Where was I?"

"Nowhere."

"See how easy that was?"

With the Turnhook between them, Milo eased around Mr. Cald and backed into the next room. The man rotated in place, arms curved over a load he no longer held.

After gently pulling the door shut, he started off toward the exit of the labyrinth.

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Lights Out" ... ⤵︎ [!]