Watercolour Smile (33 page)

My hands curled around the seat of my chair, and the office around me began to swim. The framed pictures on the wall lost their rigidity and melted into one-another, and for a moment, I feared that I would pass out.

“This was on my desk.” Webber’s voice reached to me from far away, the muffled, distorted quality trying to convince me that I was underwater, and he was speaking to me from above.

He had placed something onto the desk, and I glanced at the short length of pipe now, my eyebrows drawing together and the bile in my throat dying to an uncomfortable simmer as confusion took over.

“W… what—”

“It’s another bomb.” Webber seemed part-way exasperated now, as though he dealt with explosives on a daily basis, and my lack of composure was beginning to wear on him. He picked up the tray that the pipe was balancing on and turned it the other way, showing me that the pipe had been cut open, and was being cradled by a stand of some sort. “The pipe was pre-cut. There’s a glass film over this side,” he explained, motioning towards what I could already see for myself.

I didn’t want to get too close, but Webber was touching it and moving it around, so the people from outside—whom I now suspected were Klovoda agents—must have already disabled it. I moved to the edge of my seat, just far enough to make out the different levels of matter on the inside of the pipe, framed by the glass viewing window. There were strange metal balls packed in tightly, taking up most of the room in the pipe, and then what looked like half an inch of soil, topped by some kind of blocky white substance. It seemed to have a chalky consistency.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the white stuff.

“C4,” Webber answered.

I snatched my arm back, cradling it against my chest. “Is… is that… active?”

“The electrical lead has been pulled out and there’s no blaster cap. It’s essentially disabled. Essentially.”

“What kind of bomb is that? It looks more like a display.”

“I wasn’t told its official name, but from what I understand, once detonated, those would act as bullets.” He pointed to the metal balls, and then sat back in his seat, crossing his arms and lifting his gaze from the bomb to my face, almost expectantly now. “There was a picture taped to each of the barrels, Seraph.”

Some part of my mind tried to register the fact that he had just used my real name, but I was distracted by a ringing in my ears. Panic rolled through my limbs, having been held back by a stringent hope that this had nothing to do with the messenger.
No
, I shook my head, drawing a frown from Webber.
Not hope. Delusion
. But there was a limit to how much I could delude myself, and now the evidence was dancing before me, twirling in a taunt of fluttered skirts and ringing laughter. I stared at the bomb on the desk.

Nice try,
it seemed to taunt me.
You will never escape me
.

As though it were the most natural thing in the world to do, I stood and turned my eyes from the bomb—dismissing it—to search the desk before me. Upon finding what I had anticipated, I reached out and gathered the stack of photographs into my hands, falling back into my seat again.

The first was a blurry picture of myself in the peach dress, waist-deep in an inky black pool of water with Cabe and Noah either side of me. The second was a picture of me sitting at the back of the gymnasium, the hood of a sweatshirt pulled up to hide my face. The messenger had captured the longing in my eyes as I watched the gymnastics team stretching together. The third was of me changing in the locker room, a shirt half-pulled over my head, the small white bow adorning the waistband of my grey underpants crooked with mocking naivety, showcasing just how stupid I really was.

“I’m sure you get the picture,” Webber said, reaching over his desk and taking the stack of photos from me. “Whoever did this had intimate knowledge of the schedule of all people coming in and out of this building. The surveillance cameras dropped out for a total of seventeen minutes and the barrels were handled as our night security team were leaving their posts to make room for the day security team. The barrels were placed so strategically that they would have gone relatively unnoticed until students were released for lunch. Lucky for you, I had some paperwork I needed to finish this morning so I came in early and noticed the breach in our surveillance system.”

I stared at the stack of photos, trying to process too many things at once. Seventeen minutes? Did that mean that the messenger was… more than one person?

“Was there a message?” I asked.

He regarded me coolly through his glasses. “So this has happened before?”

I nodded, and he opened one of the drawers beneath his desk, pulling out a lone photograph. It was another photo from the night of Poison’s party. I was stuck between Noah and Cabe, and even though I knew better, it looked like Noah was kissing me. Another unfamiliar nursery rhyme was scrawled in red across the back of the photograph.

I like little pussy, her coat is so warm,

And if I don’t hurt her, she’ll do me no harm;

So I’ll not pull her tail, nor drive her away,

But pussy and I very gently will play.

“They’re not really my brothers,” I said, after contemplating the message for a moment more.

“I figured as much.” Principle Webber’s tone was dry. “Do you know who is doing this?”

“I don’t know who it is. I call him The Messenger.” I looked up then, meeting his gaze over the desk, letting him see that I wasn’t being dramatic or dishonest.

“I had someone do a little investigating,” he said. “It didn’t take long to figure out your real name, Miss Black. What you’re doing with the Adairs is another matter altogether. The Klovoda has been informed, and as you can see,” he gestured over his shoulder absently, “their agents have converged on the school. I expected them to pass word onto the Voda, simply because the Adairs are involved. I
didn’t
expect them to send a representative to Maple Falls to meet with you.” He watched me, waiting for a response. I didn’t have one. “You’re not a sworn Zevg
hé
ri yet, are you Seraph?”

“No.”

“And yet… you’re living with the sons of the Voda and you go to a Zevg
hé
ri school. The Klovoda has been trying to contact you for months. Someone has been blocking them at every turn. Silas is denying involvement, but the Klovoda is well-aware that he plays by his own rules. It’s the very thing that makes him so valuable to them. Why are the Adairs and Quillans hiding you from the Klovoda?”

“They’re not hiding me.”

“No?” His expression finally shifted, revealing a small, humourless smile. He turned to his computer and pressed a few buttons on his keyboard before turning back to me again. “I drafted a message earlier excusing you from lessons for the rest of the day by special request of the Klovoda. It has now been sent to all faculty members. I’m expecting Miro Quillan is about to storm into my office at any second, would you refute my assumption?”

“No.”

“Then you are aware that they are hiding you from the Zevg
hé
ri?”

Before I could answer, the door opened and Quillan stepped inside. Principle Webber sat up a little straighter, his small smile appearing again. “Why, Mr. Quillan,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”

Quillan rolled his eyes. He shut the door carefully and then picked up a chair from against the wall and set it beside mine. “We have her phone bugged, Bill.”

“Ah,” Principle Webber’s expression changed. “Of course you do.”

“Wait,” I fumbled with my phone, pulling it out of my pocket, “you do?”

Quillan silenced me with a look, and I stuffed the phone away again. I’d just asked a stupid question, apparently. But… bugged?
They were listening in on all my conversations
?

“Which Klovoda representative is being sent to meet with her?” Quillan asked Webber.

“The only one who can control a Zevg
hé
ri who hasn’t yet sworn in,” Webber said as Quillan leaned forward and picked up the photograph with the message scrawled over it.

“Jayden,” Quillan surmised, his brows drawing together. He folded the photograph in half and put it in his pocket. “Still,” he mused. “He’s a little young to be acting on behalf of the entire Klovoda, isn’t he?”

“They need him,” I answered, before Principle Webber could. “It’s the only way they’ll see my mark.”

“So it’s true.” Webber sat forward again. “I hadn’t seen a mark on you myself, but the eyes…”

“Yes.” Quillan watched me, but I didn’t understand his expression. “It’s true. She has a mark.”

“You must know who her pair is, or you wouldn’t be guarding her so cautiously.”

If Webber was looking for confirmation, Quillan didn’t provide it.

“I trust you can curtail the rest of your questions, Bill, until the representative arrives. It would save Seraph having to repeat herself.” His eyes finally switched from me to the Principle as he spoke.

There was silence for a little while, and then Webber stood up. “You might be in line to be the next Voda, but I’m still in charge at this school. You should remember that.”

“Of course.” Quillan stood and tapped the arm of my chair. I stood beside him. “Where will we be meeting?” he asked Webber.

“The indoor basketball court, I’ve cancelled all classes in the Sports Centre for the day and Jayden’s men will be here any minute to set up security. The meeting is at ten.”

“We’ll meet you there.” Quillan opened the door and I moved out ahead of him.

“Just one more thing,” Webber called out, bringing us back in from the hallway.

He held out his hand, and Quillan stared at his open palm for a moment, before slowly extracting the folded photograph from his pocket and handing it over. After that, Webber shooed us out and closed the door in our faces.

The school was alive. It surged and teetered with the mass of whispered anxiety contained within. I could almost see the whispers travelling from ear to ear along an invisible cord, tying all the bodies together and turning their heads to stare as one. They were fascinated with the Klovoda agents that had infiltrated the corridors—a feeling that I felt I could understand. I assumed that the agents were making at least a passable effort to blend in, as they weren’t wearing aviators and gun-belts—though perhaps they never wore aviators and gun belts. I didn’t know much about Klovoda agents, because predictably, the guys had told me absolutely nothing.

They stood out nonetheless. Many were posted beside doorways, spaced out in regimented intervals. They shuffled around on occasion so as not to be mistaken for stone-faced gargoyles, but no more than two or three steps at a time, and they always seemed to return to the exact same spot. They would peer into the room that they stood outside of, and then lean against the wall before shuffling again.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine… ten steps, another agent
.
Ten more. Another
.

Their eyes pierced me with the practised efficiency of a well-oiled machine—but not the brain-washed, mechanical kind: the kind of machine that hurt, the kind that packed ammunition and forced you to stare right down the barrel of all things superior until your every hope is made foolhardy and your foolish fear is given wings. They knew who I was, and at the same time they wondered exactly
who
I was. I debated briefly whether they were here to investigate me, or to protect us all from the messenger. I sincerely hoped that it was the latter; after all, that was why we were here in the biggest Zevghéri-run school in the country. The messenger was one of them, and they might just be the only people capable of stopping him.

Maybe an average school would have been in the middle of an emergency evacuation by now, but not Hollow Ground. It seemed to be common knowledge that there was no safer place than inside these walls—even though said walls had been surrounded by explosives only a few hours ago. Some of the kids were even talking about camping out
inside
the school until the current ‘security breach’ passed. They didn’t seem to know about the bomb thing. Probably, they would feel differently if they knew—but keeping secrets must have run in the Zevghéri blood, because nobody seemed likely to tell them.

“It’ll be fine,” Quillan said quietly, not for the first time.

He was walking two steps behind me, and Noah and Cabe were nowhere to be seen.

“I only have so much blind faith,” I replied. My tone was so low that Quillan may not have even heard me, and a part of me almost wished that he hadn’t, but his hand caught my arm, just below my elbow.

My feet stilled in their slow march forward, and Quillan paused too.

“Jayden is one of us,” he said.
Again
. He had repeated the same thing for the last half an hour in his office—offering the words up at every glance of my resurfacing panic:
it’ll be fine. Jayden is one of us.