Chapter 210: Monsters on Campus

The sky behind the curtain went from black to gray.

Killian sat where he had sat all night, in his desk chair in front of the drawn velvet, his legs crossed and his hands folded on his knee.

Elias had fallen asleep again, upright on the sofa with his chin on his chest. Ezra stood by the bed.

Heather lay on her side under the pink quilt, facing the curtain. Her white eye was open.

Then it closed.

She sighed, rolled onto her back and flung an arm across the pillow. Both eyes were shut.

Ezra looked at Killian.

Killian stood and drew the curtain back a hand’s width.

The lawn was empty.

The frost on it was trampled flat. From the foot of the lawn, dark tracks ran back across the white playing fields in straight lines, all the way to the trees.

He looked at them for a long moment. Then he opened the curtain the rest of the way.

Pale sun came in across the rug and over the chair.

"Your Highness," Ezra said. "You should sleep."

Killian sat back down in the sun.

"Later."

**

By eight, the whole campus was outside.

Students lined the edge of the playing fields in coats thrown over pajamas, bunched up by faction. Wolves along the fence. Big cats on the library steps. A row of crows sat on the low wall with their wings pulled in tight. Nobody was going to breakfast.

Out on the white fields, dark tracks ran in straight lines from the trees all the way up to the Royal Faction House.

Two professors walked beside the tracks with their heads down. A third was tying rope from trunk to trunk along the edge of the forest.

Nora was waiting for Blair at the bottom of the Dormitory G steps, her coat buttoned over her bathrobe and the sleeves pulled down over her hands.

"Did you see them?" Nora asked.

"I was asleep," Blair said.

On the fence beside them, a tall tiger in a hockey jacket was telling it to anyone who would listen.

"I open the door, right? To see why the lights are on. And they’re right there." He dragged a hand down his face. "No eyes. Just skin."

The wolf next to him snorted. "You screamed."

"I didn’t scream."

"Dude, the whole house heard you scream."

A long black car came up the drive and stopped in front of the senior houses. A lion girl in a fur coat came down the steps with a porter carrying her trunk behind her. She got in without looking back.

"That’s the third one," someone said.

Margot came along the line of humans with her clipboard, her braid over one shoulder.

"Dormitory G, listen up. Curfew’s eight o’clock tonight. Doors lock at dark. Nobody goes near those trees."

A girl near the fence put her hand up. "What about classes?"

"Monday, same as always."

"Are they coming back?"

Margot’s smile stayed where it was. "The faculty are handling it," she said, and moved on.

Blair looked at the tracks again. They ended under the windows of the Royal Faction House.

Heather was in that house.

Beside her, Nora was watching the professor with the rope.

"Monsters. On campus," Nora said. Her voice trembled. "And Ivy’s out there somewhere."

Blair took her elbow and walked her away from the crowd, to the side of the steps where nobody stood.

"She’s alive," Blair said quietly.

Nora stopped.

"Ivy’s alive, Nora."

"How do you know?"

"I saw her."

"Where?"

"I can’t tell you."

Nora stared at her. Her mouth opened and shut.

"Is she okay?"

Blair looked down at the frost on the step.

Nora’s face crumpled. She pressed both sleeves over her mouth, and her shoulders shook.

**

At nine the fourth floor of the East Wing was dark, except for a strip of lamplight under the last door.

Daemus was already inside, sprawled in the chair by Jack’s desk with his legs stretched out. His ears came up when she walked in.

"Bunny."

He held out a hand. When she took it, he tugged her down and kissed her, his mouth warm, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles. She smiled against his lips.

Behind the desk, Jack turned a page.

Daemus held on to her hand. "Coach canceled practice." He looked at Jack. "Everyone’s saying there were at least a hundred."

"Forty-six," Jack corrected.

Daemus stared at him. "How do you know that?"

"I counted." Jack turned another page.

The door opened, and Killian came in.

His jacket was buttoned and his hair was perfect. The skin under his eyes was gray. He crossed the room and sat on the windowsill.

Daemus looked him over. "Wow. You look like shit."

"I have not slept," Killian said.

"Is Heather okay?" Blair asked.

"She slept through it."

Daemus sat up. "Through what? Wait. They were at your house?"

"On my lawn."

Blair looked at Killian. "Why would they go there?"

Killian looked back at her for a moment.

"I don’t know," he said.

Jack’s eyes went from Killian to the window behind him and back.

"The faculty walk the forest from tonight," Jack said. "In pairs. Every night."

Killian’s head turned. "Then sooner or later someone walks to the gate."

"And finds a rail tunnel full of water."

"And reports it to the Crown. The Crown will want to know where it goes." Killian folded his hands on his knee. "I would like to know before they do."

"Then let them," Daemus said. "Seriously. Let the Crown deal with it. The faculty, the police, whoever. That’s literally their job."

"It is my name on their forms, Wolf."

"So write them a letter." Daemus turned to Blair, and his voice dropped. "Bunny. Last time you got near those things, you passed out spitting blood. I’m not doing that again."

"Ivy’s still in there," Blair said.

Daemus’s ears went flat.

"We don’t know where that place is. We don’t know how many people work there, or when they sleep, or how to open the glass." Jack picked up a pen. "Until we do, nobody goes anywhere."

Blair looked down at her hands.

Daemus let his head fall back against the chair. "So we’re doing homework. On the monster lab."

"Yes."

There was nowhere left to sit but the windowsill. Blair sat on the other end of it, her hip a hand’s width from Killian’s.

Jack started writing again. Daemus started arguing with him about messing around with the creepy monster lab.

Something touched her shoulder.

Killian’s eyes had closed. His head had tipped sideways and come to rest on her. His temple was cool against the side of her neck. Silver lashes lay against the gray skin under his eyes. His breath went slow and even. Up close, asleep, he looked younger. His mouth had gone soft at the corners.

Blair held very still.