Page 26

Chapter 26

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14

“Happy Monday, students and instructors! This is Principal Grimes.” Her voice comes from a ceiling speaker. It’s excited and quick, cutting through the seven a.m. haze, like she drank one too many coffees with her balanced breakfast.

A few people in my homeroom groan, including Robby farther down my row, who’d much rather focus on his paperback of Seabiscuit .

As Principal Grimes explains how cable-knit sweaters are allowed over dress shirts now that November is near, Ms. Wu walks over with paperwork. She places a sheet on my desk.

CHARLIE VON HEVRINGPRINZ | ID: V183019 PROGRESS REPORT

Physical Education: 89.5/100

Advanced Chemistry: 98.5/100

Advanced English Literature: 99/100

Advanced Calculus: 92/100

Advanced World History: 99.5/100

First-Year Civics: 100/100

I shoot out of my chair. “YES!”

Stares drift my way from every angle.

Mumbling an apology, I slink back down, but my stomach keeps leaping. Mom must’ve gotten emailed this progress report and seen my B in PE. Not C. Training with Xavier already has me closer to the top five.

“Lastly, a notice,” Principal Grimes says. “Access to the sister academy is paused indefinitely, including special clearances and top-ranked student benefits.”

My head lifts. The homeroom is a sea of horrified looks.

“This does not mean the winter mixer is canceled. However, there was an incident with students sneaking into the equestrian center after hours, and—” Principal Grimes sighs. “The horses have been let free. If you see any in the woods, please notify an instructor.”

Whispers pop up around the room.

I barely hear them, my thoughts swarmed by memories of my trip with Blaze to the equestrian center. The paddock gate. We walked through that.

“Until we know who caused this, we’ve placed twenty-four-seven security guards at our checkout booths to ensure top safety for students. Have a wonderful day.”

Five minutes later, homeroom is over, and I’m out the door on a burst of nerves. There’s no way we’re connected to this. Blaze had everything under control.

“V.H.!” someone shouts across the swarm during passing time. Zain, a typical midthirties rank who I tutored in chem last week. Apparently, Luis’s nickname for me is catching on. The moment he reaches me, he traps me in a hug tight enough to seize control of my body. “You SAVED my LIFE.”

“You’re ending mine,” I wheeze through my crushed lungs.

“Oh,” Zain says, letting go and stepping back. “I got a ninety-eight on that chem quiz, thanks to our tutoring sesh. I love you, man.”

“Same,” another voice says behind Zain. Jack, a typical high-twenties rank who joined the tutoring last week, too, stepping better into view. “I scored a ninety-five.”

A smile travels up my face. “You guys deserve it.”

“You gonna be stuck in the library later?” Zain asks.

Maybe they want more tutoring. “I’m… not sure. What’s up?”

“We wondered if you wanted to tap into our Frisbee match. If you’re down, meet us at Dix after dinner hour?” With that, he takes off with Jack.

I follow them with my eyes as they walk away, a bit stunned. I’m supposed to keep my head down, yet all I can think is about is how much I’d rather play Frisbee than study in the library all night. How much I want to take that risk and spend time with some new friends.

“Charlie,” Xavier says over my shoulder. I jump and spin around. He’s rushing toward me. “You hear those announcements?”

“Yeah,” I say.

Xavier groans. “We’re holding an emergency meeting after classes.”

A piece of me wants to come to the STRIP Crypt to know what’s going on, but I know I shouldn’t. Not when I’m done with Jasper and the love letters. “Hey, Xavier, actually—”

“Oh, my bad. We were gonna train after class, weren’t we?”

“Ah, no, it’s fine.”

“After the STRIP meeting?” He playfully knocks my shoulder. Just a few seconds of discussing his passion for ripping apart his muscles revives him. “You are ready to train again, yeah? Or do you still feel off from”—his voice lowers—“lovesickness?”

“No—!” I lift my calculus textbook in front of my face, then glance around to check that Jasper isn’t staring directly at me. “I mean, yeah. Yep. I’m good now.”

“Cool. Your stats should hit testing day requirements soon.” He grins.

“You think?” I bring the book down, but I still can’t return a grin. If I walk away from STRIP at a time like this, will Xavier stop training me? What will happen to my PE grade?

Will I have to say goodbye to everyone?

Maybe I have to go. Just this once. To find a way to leave STRIP without hurting everyone.

Xavier fist-bumps me. “See you at the meeting.”

“Blaze let out the horses.”

We all blink up at Robby. He stands on a tome table in the STRIP Crypt, his overfilled organizational binder wrapped tightly in his arms.

Blaze pauses drawing a foreboding symbol on his shoes. “What?” squeaks from his pale lips. Usually, his hypothermia look would be a cause for concern, but I’m 90 percent sure his newfound twelve-year-old hobby is dabbling in effects makeup. He clears his throat and lowers his pitch. “What ho?”

From his binder, Robby pulls out a brown horse trading card. “The academy has Hackneys. Those are the worst horses you could’ve accidentally let out. They’re the best breed for carriage driving, harness events, and long-distance sprints. They just keep running.” Robby worriedly looks down at the card in his hand. “I know they’re okay, there’s plenty for them to eat and take shelter under, but I’m not sure how we’ll get them back.”

“You hold no evidence this was my blunder,” Blaze shouts back.

“I do, but first—” Robby points to where I stand on the very left side of the crypt, then Jasper on the very right. “We are starting the meeting, right?”

I don’t dare look at Jasper. He arrived before me, so, naturally, I stood as far away as possible.

Xavier and Blaze shift unnerved looks between us. The tension is palpable.

“Yes,” Jasper finally says, his tone strangely coarser than usual. Still, I don’t look. “Carry on, Robby.”

Before starting, Robby readjusts his dress shirt collar flipped upward despite him usually being put together. The stress of being a Rank Two and STRIP’s admin personnel is catching up. “Blaze delivered letters yesterday evening. The announcement was made this morning. No one, to my knowledge, was there in between those two time stamps. So, he must’ve left the equestrian center unlocked.”

“The doors always automatically lock,” I say unsurely. “There’s a code.”

“The building doors lock,” Robby says. “Not the gate to the horses.”

The rake I knocked over. That hit the gate when we left.

Is this my fault?

“Even if this wasn’t Blaze, he’s on their suspect list now,” Xavier says.

“Maybe all of us,” Robby says. “We’re the only ones who have such an easy way of entering their campus.” He points to the gold number-two pin on his blazer. “All we do is show this. They never write down our names. But that also works in our favor. Blaze, if they ask you anything, deny it, okay?”

Blaze salutes.

My heart sinks deeper as I debate coming out with the truth. It was me. Not Blaze.

But Blaze is twelve. And one of their own members, through and through. Forgivable. If this is my fault—an Excellence Scholar who’s expected to excel in all areas—there’s no way STRIP would react with the same forgiveness. Maybe that would be for the better. When I first arrived, I did promise myself not to talk to anybody too much.

But everything has changed. Xavier helps me with training. I’ve gotten to know other students at tutoring and one-on-ones well enough to be invited to Frisbee matches. Before this meeting, I thought I was prepared to lose STRIP. Only now, as I’m faced with the fate of this hundred-year-old organization resting in my hands, do I realize I shouldn’t leave.

Not yet. Not until I fix things.

Xavier sighs so miserably that everyone looks his way. “The mixer is only a month away, but we can’t risk sending any more letters from this point on, right?” His misery turns to a weak laugh. “Even if we wanted to, I guess we can’t since we’ve lost contact with the top five girls now. Jasper, how many mixer letters have been sent?”

“None,” Jasper announces from his corner. “Blaze’s last delivery was our usual couple correspondence.”

“What?”

“I have been working on the mixer letters. But I prefer those specifically be delivered all at once so no one feels left out. I was waiting to pass them to Blaze.”

“If worse comes to worst,” I say, “can’t people just ask each other out at the mixer without our help?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Jasper says.

I still don’t look over. I pick at my nails. “Hear what?”

“Losing our connection to the sister side isn’t only about the mixer. It’s about what comes after. Before. Between. Couples need to stay together all year-round. We’re their glue.”

I scoff under my breath.

“Our biggest issue isn’t any of this,” Robby announces from the tome table he stands on. “It’s getting shut down by the student body.”

“What?” I say in sync with Xavier.

“Haven’t you heard everyone in the halls? They know we use the equestrian center. These letters weren’t confiscated, but now it’s been put into everyone’s minds what would happen if they were. They’d get in trouble for communicating with the sister academy too.”

I did hear a lot of grumbling during homeroom, but nothing specific with so much happening at once. Was that all about us?

“Everyone would turn on us,” Robby goes on. “They might tell the academy STRIP’s true intentions. We already ride a nuanced likability line with them as top ranks.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. Would they try to get us expelled?

“I know,” Jasper says, and my thoughts are in such a jumble that I accidentally turn to face him. His dress shirt isn’t tucked, and the sleeves aren’t neatly rolled for once, dropping past his wrists. Even from a distance, his dark circles are noticeable against the pink tinge to his skin. Did he sleep in the barn with the horses instead of his aunt’s instructor quarters? “It’s simple, really. We’ll still plan to deliver the mixer letters. If we pull this off despite the twenty-four-seven guards, we’ll regain everyone’s trust.”

Xavier tilts his head, considering.

Frustration sizzles in my chest. I could’ve thought of that too.

Robby struggles to climb down from the tome table while holding his binder. “Great in theory, but how? Our enamel pins don’t allow us through anymore.”

Jasper just rubs his neck, getting out a knot.

“My emergency contact is over there,” I say a bit too quickly. I want to get these words out before Jasper comes back to life to prove I’m helping too. “My best friend.”

“Really?” Xavier asks.

“Yeah, she’s a third year.”

So much hope surges through Xavier that he kisses his lucky spoon. “Call her. We can toss the letters over the cockblockade for her to pick up. Once we know if she’s down, we’ll meet a week before the mixer to strategize?”

A few more nods come around the room, and then Xavier dismisses the meeting.

“Are you holding STRIP Time this week, Charlie?” Robby says, trying and failing to stuff his massive binder in his backpack. “I wouldn’t blame you if you canceled. I personally fear no one will show up. They might all be reluctant to associate with us already.”

“He’s gotta keep holding tutoring regardless, though, right?” Xavier asks. “The shutdown timing may look sus to librarians.”

It’s not like I want any more targets on me. “I’ll keep tutoring.”

Xavier pats my back. “I wouldn’t be surprised if people showed despite everything. Your tutoring’s gotten super popular. Way more than when P.M. was in charge.”

An unsure laugh leaves me. “I’m just a face.”

“You’re more than that, man. No one here could ever tutor as well as you.”

My chest warms. Even if this weren’t my fault, would I have found it in myself to actually quit STRIP and leave the other members behind? Looking around, this crypt almost feels like home within a campus I’m struggling to trust.

Clattering comes from the other side of the room, where Jasper’s grip on his bag has slipped, books and pens spilling across the floor. He stares emptily.

“You okay?” I ask instinctively, and instantly regret it.

Jasper nods in silence.

“I told you to take the bed, bro,” Xavier grumbles, collecting his books for him.

“What?” I say.

Jasper’s posture snaps straight. “Nothing.”

Xavier glances between us. “Yeah, nothing. Charlie, I’ll wait for you outside to go to Pragma.” He leaves with Blaze and Robby.

Instead of following, Jasper starts toward his office beyond the brocade curtain.

“You slept in Xavier’s room?” I call toward his back.

Jasper stops in his tracks. “Whyever do you say that?”

If Jasper thinks I can’t figure out that exchange, then he looks down on me more than I already thought. “ Jasper. ”

Jasper turns, journal tucked beneath an arm, the ocean-blue gemstone clasp sparkling in the antique lamp lights. He sighs. “My room in my aunt’s quarters is gone.”

“What, like, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo?”

“She reverted it into an office earlier this year. I asked about my suite from last year too, but it’s permanently occupied by that first year with a senator for a father. So, yes, I slept in Xavier’s room. Well, the floor.”

“You can’t sleep on the floor of your aunt’s office?”

“We don’t particularly speak much,” Jasper says. “So I’m not sure how to broach the subject of sleeping on her floor. And she is technically still my principal, and…” He massages the back of his neck, faltering.

I grip my forehead. “Okay, you can’t keep sleeping on Xavier’s floor. I’ll feel bad.”

Jasper’s tired eyes open wide. “For me?”

“For Xavier .”

His shoulders shrink, and I don’t feel bad for him. I don’t . “He could’ve declined my request, so I’d refrain.” He studies me. “I didn’t expect you’d come to the meeting. You told me you were done.”

I rub the back of my head. “I’m under fire here too. I’ll keep helping STRIP for now.”

“We should finish these hundred letters together as soon as possible, then.” Jasper nudges his head toward his office. “You can use the fairy-tale books back here for your blackout poetry.”

Working together? Now of all times?

“Yeah, no,” I say. “I’ll talk to my friend and help with the re-delivery, but that’s it.”

Jasper’s mouth hangs open slightly, like he’s deciding how to say whatever comes next. “I admit, I no longer have enough time to finish the letters on my own.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“I have an estimated seventy left. I need you, Charlie.”

The words make my stomach flip in a way it shouldn’t. I cover it up with the biggest sigh I can manage. “Fine. Whatever. But we’ll write separately.”

Jasper barely nods. “Very well.”