The Nightmare Charade (18 page)

I shuddered, feeling gut-punched by the idea, by the reality of it. It was the kind of awful truth I wished I could dismiss as mere legend or even exaggeration, but I knew better. The severe lack of Nightmares around was proof enough that such prejudice could happen. Even worse, it was still happening. Everywhere, it seemed. And not just among magickind.

“But other legends say they just went into hiding,” Selene continued. “The shape-change isn't detectable like most magic. It's more like a Nightmare's magic. It's part of who they are. A shape-changer could've walked right into that ward without setting off a single magic detector.” She hesitated. “I think so, anyway. If the legends about them are true.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “I'm not sure that relying on an ancient legend as a possible explanation is going to get us anywhere with Valentine. He's more of a facts-and-evidence kind of guy.”

“That's certainly true,” Eli said, a sigh in his voice. “But still, we don't have a lot to go on. If we eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

“You know Sherlock Holmes was fictional, right?” Paul said.

“You sure about that?” Eli arched an eyebrow, the sarcastic gesture doing little to disguise the hostility on his face. He might be acting civil with Paul so far, but friendliness would be a long time coming. Like never. “Up until a year ago fairies and sirens and Nightmares were all fictional, too. To me at least.”

“Good point,” I said, my voice a little higher pitched than normal. I sensed a fight brewing, and I wanted to head it off. “It seems like every other day I discover something I thought was myth is actually true—Atlantis, Beowulf, King Arthur.”
Excalibur,
I silently added. Around my wrist, Bellanax tingled against my skin.

Flashing me a commiserating smile, Eli turned back to the board and wrote down
shape-changer.

“Guys,” Lance said, “we don't have to go searching for improbable explanations. Not yet.”

All three of us turned to look at Lance. Even Buster seemed to shift toward him, in sync with Selene's gaze.

“What do you mean?” Eli said.

“There's another Nightmare around, besides Dusty and her mom.”

“If you're talking about Bethany Grey,” I said, “you can forget it. Valentine told me she's gone missing, and it wasn't a jailbreak. Lady Elaine saw a vision that it's connected to the—” I suddenly couldn't speak, my lips sealed together as if with magical cement.

Eli grunted. “That damn nondisclosure thing. What Dusty is trying to say is that given the reason Bethany has gone missing it makes her a victim, not a suspect.”

Selene harrumphed. “I really wish you could tell us what this nondisclosure thing is all about.”

Me, too
, I thought, unable to say the words aloud.

“Me, too,” Eli said.

Lance waved us off. “I'm not talking about Bethany Grey.”

“Then who?” Selene fixed a fierce stare on him.

Shifting his weight from side to side, Lance said, “It's Mr. Corvus.”

I tried to laugh, couldn't quite do it with my mouth closed, and managed a snorting sound instead like I was trying to breathe through water.
Mr. Corvus? A Nightmare?
No way.

“I don't know,” Eli said. “It's hard to picture it.”

“Why?” Selene said, her face alight with comprehension. “Because he's male? Trust me, there are male Nightmares around. There has to be. You know, a little thing called survival of the species.”

A suggestive grin flashed across Lance's face. Wisely, he made it vanish before Selene noticed.

“Yeah, okay.” Eli focused on Lance. “But why do you think Corvus is one? He's never mentioned it in class.”

No kidding,
I thought,
I would've remembered something like that.

“His eyes glow in the dark,” Lance said.

An awkward silence descended at this announcement. It was true that glow-in-the-dark eyes were the surest sign of a Nightmare, our signature as it were, but how on earth would Lance have ever seen it? It wasn't like Corvus made a habit of turning the lights off to teach. And I knew from experience that Nightmares took measures to keep their glowing eyes hidden.

Lance bared his teeth in a sarcastic smile. “It's not as weird as it sounds, I promise. I snuck out the other night to put some hot sauce in the trash troll feed bins in the Menagerie—”

Selene gaped. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“Wanted to see what would happen to the little bastards. One of them bit my shoe the other day in bio and nearly escaped with a toe.” He shrugged. “I figured they might stop being so inclined to bite if they got a taste of something hot.”

I snorted. “That has got to be the worst prank you've ever come up with.” A half second later, I realized the nondisclosure spell had let go of its hold on my tongue. “Thank goodness,” I said, patting my mouth.

“Welcome back,” Eli said.

Lance grinned in my direction. “I might have better success with my pranks if you got back in the game.”

“Come on, you two,” Selene said. “Don't get started.”

Lance sniffed. “Fine. The point is, I saw Corvus walking outside the Menagerie. It was really dark, but I'm sure it was him.”

“If it was dark, how could you tell?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?” His lips twisted upward in a smirk. “There aren't a lot of people on campus with only one eye. Try none.”

“Oh.” As soon as he said it, I realized it made perfect sense. It was incontrovertible. Glowing eyes meant Nightmare. Glowing single eye meant Corvus.

“Wow,” said Eli. “I can't believe we never figured it out before now.”

“Yeah, but do you really think he's involved?” said Paul. “What motive would he have for killing my uncle?”

“Who can say?” said Eli. “There might be any number of reasons.”

“Especially if he's connected to Marrow,” I added. I stood up, unable to stay still as thoughts tumbled through my mind. “Valentine and Lady Elaine seem to think that all of this might be related to Marrow. Both Titus's murder and the thing that Eli and I aren't allowed to talk about. And with Marrow involved, Corvus might have any number of reasons for killing Titus. Maybe it was a cover-up. Remember how we thought Corvus was involved with the attack on Lyonshold?”

“That's right,” Eli said. He looked on the verge of pacing. “Me and Dusty were snooping through Corvus's office when Titus kidnapped us. Titus said he'd bugged our dream-session, but maybe that was a lie. Maybe Corvus knew we'd broken in and tipped him off.”

I nodded, scrambling to recall all the details. It hadn't been all that long ago, a little over three months, but so much had happened after Titus captured us. “We suspected Corvus because there were ravens in Eli's dreams,” I said, thinking aloud.

“And he owned the
Atlantean Chronicle,
” added Eli. “He's an historian. We never did figure out how Titus learned the spell to sink Lyonshold. Maybe Corvus told him.”

“That's possible,” Selene said, bobbing her head in agreement. “And he might not have known what Titus was planning when he handed over the information at first. But then after the attack, he could have decided to kill him to save his own neck.”

I frowned. Was Corvus capable of something so cold and calculating as executing Titus Kirkwood to protect himself? The short answer was—maybe. It wasn't that he was cruel or unkind. He didn't even strike me as vindictive. No, the word that always seemed to come to my mind to describe him was imperialistic. Authoritarian. He ruled his classroom with absolute power, and that sense of dominancy permeated everything about him. He reminded me of a general in a war movie, the kind of man capable of making decisions that he knew would cost lives, but that he calculated would be worth it in the long run.

What kind of a person can do that?
I thought,
sacrifice real lives like chess pieces?
Only it happened all the time. Wars were fought among ordinaries across the world every day.

Shaking off the shiver sliding down my spine, I glanced at Eli. “And the third reason we suspected him was because of that symbol. The one with the three rings all connected.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot.” Eli turned toward the dry-erase board and drew the symbol. When he finished, he stepped back, giving us all a clear view.

I examined the symbol, a peculiar feeling going through me. Mostly, I suspected, it was because of all the bad memories that came with it. I glanced at Eli. “Didn't you ask Corvus what it meant afterward?”

He ran a hand over his buzzed head, nodding. “He called it the Borromean circle. Said it was an archaic magickind symbol of unity. Each ring represents a kind. One for witchkind, one for naturekind, and one for darkkind.” He pointed to each in turn.

“So something less than diabolical, in other words,” Paul said.

I nodded, but inside I wasn't so sure.

Only the blood of the twelve can undo the circle
.

The odd phrase came sailing at me from out of the blue. For a moment I couldn't remember where I'd heard it, but then it came to me. It was the line Corvus had made me translate out of one of his ancient books as part of my detention with him last year. A depiction of the Borromean circles had been in that book, too. And while the symbolism of the Borromean circles might be positive, that sentence certainly wasn't. It sounded like a way of breaking the circles, shattering that unity—perhaps in the same way Titus Kirkwood had hoped to start a new magickind war by sinking Lyonshold and making the naturekinds look responsible for it.

“Well,” said Selene, “the symbol might not be evil, but that doesn't mean Corvus wasn't involved. Does anybody know if he was even at Lyonshold that day? I know I didn't see him. He should've been there though. All the teachers were chaperoning.”

Eli twisted the marker through his fingertips, his mouth hanging slightly open as he contemplated the possibility. “We won't know anything for certain until we take a closer look at what he's been up to. But I've got to guess that Valentine knows he's a Nightmare and has gotten his alibi already.”

I clucked my tongue in dismay. “He certainly gave me the impression that there was someone other than me, Bethany, and my mom running around here.”

“Yes, and I would think he'd have to disclose his kind to school officials, at a minimum,” said Lance. We all turned to stare at him, surprised by his sudden contribution. It wasn't that he was dumb, quite the opposite. Lance was absurdly clever—and devious—but he was also perpetually bored and disinterested. It was strange to hear him talk with such enthusiasm.

“Yeah, they probably do,” Eli said, recovering first. “But I don't think we should eliminate him as a possible suspect. Not yet. He's our best lead so far.”

“And he could've lied about his alibi,” Paul said.

“What about the guilt test?” asked Selene.

I scoffed. “Valentine suspected my mother from the beginning. I doubt he tried all that hard to read Corvus's guilt.”

“Or maybe Corvus is pathological and doesn't have any guilt about committing murder,” Lance said. “He is a Night—” Lance cut himself off before finishing the sentence, but that didn't stop Selene from standing up and punching him hard in the shoulder. Buster followed it up with a full frontal attack, whacking Lance in the knees with its seat.

Lance winced, and cupped his hand over his arm, as if trying to squeeze the hurt away. “Ouch. But yeah, I deserved that.” He cast a sheepish smile in my direction. “Sorry, Dusty. Old habits and all.” The words were light, but for once he said them straight, no joking or underlying derision.

I clenched my teeth, uncertain how to react, whether to be angry or pleased. On the one hand, it wasn't the first time I'd been faced with the stereotype that Nightmares were born evil. In truth, it was one I'd worried about from time to time myself. I was often haunted by the possibility that there was something fundamentally evil about my nature, especially whenever I screwed up and did something stupid. But on the other hand, Lance had apologized—sincerely. If he could change, well, that was a big enough miracle for me.

“It's all right,” I said, and for once I spoke to him straight, too—no snide or sarcasm in sight.

Eli cleared his throat. I had a suspicion he was trying not to grin about the Disney-moment breakthrough Lance and I just had. “Anyway, so it looks like our first order of business is to investigate Corvus.”

I nodded. “But we need to be extra careful this time.”

“No argument there.” Eli wrote Corvus's name on the board.

I stared at it, a weight sinking through my chest and down into my stomach. Corvus was a Nightmare. Like me. Like my mother. Like Bethany. Four of us, the only four I'd ever met or knew anything about. And of those four, Bethany was a condemned criminal and my mother suspected of murder. As much as I was certain she hadn't killed Titus, I couldn't claim that she was entirely innocent either. My mom had skirted the line of the law, the line of
rightness,
her whole life.

And then there was me. Most times I wanted to believe I was good, always inclined to do the right thing. But I'd attacked Katarina. Was that really just because of Bellanax? Or was it because of something in my nature?

There was no answer, not even from the sword, which seemed to have gone cold and lifeless as it lay in its glamoured form around my wrist.

Please let us be wrong
, I thought, looking at Corvus's name on the dry-erase board.
Please let the guilty be anybody else except a Nightmare.

 

13

Cell Block B