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“ W hat do you mean you’re not coming down for lunch?”

I looked up from the little desk in the corner of our dorm room to find Fable staring at me, eyes narrowed.

“Marina said you were staying in the room. Are you sick again or something, do we need to go to the infirmary?” she demanded.

“No.” Not unless you counted heartsick. The guilt seemed to be growing inside me like a virus. Between Zeed winding up in the infirmary, and me not being able to save Lucy from whatever fate it was that she’d feared, my innards were in knots. “I’m just not hungry.”

Fable blinked. “That’s not a thing. You’re always hungry.” She stepped closer and I quickly closed the notepad I’d been scribbling in. I was trying to make sense of what I’d seen the night before.

Nicodemus Oliphant had murdered his classmates in cold blood.

I’d told the others everything I’d seen, except the very end. That there was something about his expression ... A moment I couldn’t stop replaying in my mind. Was it grief etched on his face? And who or what was the dark figure behind him?

Maybe it was time to tell her who my father was, before we grew any closer. Before my betrayal could cut any deeper.

I took a steadying breath. “Fable ... I need to tell you something.”

She nodded. “Sure. Can I tell you something first though?”

“Okay . . .”

“I know you don’t like mushy stuff, so I’ll make it quick. I know you feel bad about what happened last night, but no one blames you. You have to know that.”

I let out a bark of laughter.

“No one that matters, anyway,” Fable replied with a half-grin.

“I don’t have a sister, and while I loved him with all my heart, my brother and I had grown apart and were very different people when he died.

I guess what I’m saying is, you’re awesome.

You took one for the team by coming with me even when you didn’t want to.

If you hadn’t, Zeed might be dead right now. So ... thank you. And I love you.”

Frucking hell.

I squirmed for about ten seconds and then mumbled the same back to her, which had her throwing her head back with laughter.

“Not exactly a marriage proposal, but I’ll take it. Now, what did you want to tell me?”

I sighed. I couldn’t make myself say the words now. Before Fable, I could count on one finger the number of people who loved me. Right or wrong, I just couldn’t watch that love turn to hate right before my eyes. Not today, at least.

“That girl who jumped out the window ... Lucy?” I cleared my throat before continuing.

“She said some things to me that I can’t seem to let go of.

She was terrified of what would happen to her if Tarquinius sent her back to wherever she’d come from.

He’s trying to act like she’s another acolyte of Nocta, but I’m not so sure. ”

“Zeed wondered that too. We even went to the library to check it out while you were in the infirmary.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Really?” At least they didn’t think I was crazy.

“Yeah. Zeed thought it was strange that she could sneak in without being detected beforehand. We were looking for blueprints or maps to see if maybe there was some sort of underground network of tunnels leading to various parts of the island. I hate to say it, but that’s how he found out where the fairy circle was.

I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d just told you at the time instead of waiting. ”

She let out a miserable sigh and I reached out to give her hand a squeeze.

“You thought you could convince them not to go. It’s not your fault, Fable. And it’s definitely not as bad as it could’ve been. Once he’s back from the infirmary, he can help us figure out who Lucy was and how she got here.”

And tell us what the hell his Quirk was.

She brightened at the thought and nodded. “Okay. So why don’t we go grab you something small to eat, and then hit the library to get a head start. We can look up info about Lucy, but also find out more about whatever the hell you saw last night.”

Fable was good at research, and I couldn’t just sit here and wallow, no matter how much I wanted to. Resigned to the plan, I pushed away from the desk to stand.

“Let’s check on Zeed first.”

“Definitely,” she said with a relieved smile. “I was down there this morning, but I wasn’t allowed in.”

Weird.

“Was he still unconscious when you saw him last?”

Fable gave a slow nod, her eyes pinched at the edges. “He was. But they said they think he was just in shock and that he should come around soon.”

Together, we made our way to the infirmary. I stopped in front of the nurse’s station and rang the little bell at the corner of the desk.

“Yes?” A pretty young nurse I hadn’t seen before stepped through the door behind her and smiled. “What can I do for you?”

“We’re here to visit Zeed.”

She cocked her head and snick ed her tongue in disappointment. “I’m so sorry, girls ... no one told you?”

My vision blurred.

“Told us what?” Fable demanded, her voice shrill.

“He was released early this morning.”

I grabbed onto the wall for support.

Fable stared at her, blinking back tears. “You made it sound like he was dead!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” the nurse said drawing back in surprise. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’ve only been here a few weeks. I’m good with the patients, and I’ve got some healing skills, but I’m not so great with the rest of it.”

“It’s okay,” I shot a glance at her name tag, “Cara. You just gave us a little scare.” And I, for one, was still pretty scared. “So just to clarify, Zeed is in the clear?”

“Not exactly. He went back to his family to heal in peace and quiet. Whatever happened last night definitely shook him deeply, and sometimes that makes our bodies and minds shut down to protect us.” She shook her head.

“It’s hard to say for sure how long it will take him to get back to normal but when he left, he was awake, he knew his name, and remembered mine, but not the incident that brought him here.

I don’t want to give you false hope, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him back at school after the holidays. ”

Fable and I let out long, relieved sighs at the same time.

“That’s good news, then,” I said, tugging at Fable’s elbow. “Thanks for filling us in.”

As we turned to leave, Liam was walking toward the infirmary. “Ah, ladies. How is Zeed today?”

“They sent him home,” Fable said.

Liam’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry, what the fuck?”

Fable clenched her hands tight, flicking a glance to me and then back to Liam.

“Right, of course. It just caught me off guard. If you’ll excuse me.”

And with that he turned and strode away from us with far more vigor than he’d started with.

“I don’t like that at all,” Fable whispered.

I didn’t either. “Liam will find out what’s going on. I’m sure of it. Come on, let’s get that food.” I tugged Fable along now, drawing her away from the infirmary.

The two of us headed for the dining hall. I was still feeling far from a hundred percent but hearing that Zeed was likely to make a full recovery helped a lot.

“I wish we’d been able to say goodbye to him at least,” Fable said, her expression troubled. “I’m going to miss him.”

“Me too. But he’ll be back. And one thing is for sure. The way things have been going, home is definitely safer than this place. It’s probably for the best.”

Despite my reassurances, the crease of worry didn’t leave Fable’s brow. She was silent, caught up in her own thoughts as we each grabbed a sandwich, and I wrapped a trio of cookies in a napkin and shoved them into my bra for later.

By the time we’d scarfed down our lunch and got past Doyenne Portencia at the library front desk, I had almost talked myself into skipping the whole library idea.

I was great at playing a persona when working a mark and had a poker face to rival the best of them.

But seeing more of my father’s reign of terror was sure to elicit some knee-jerk reactions, and Fable wasn’t a mark.

She was a friend.

Maybe even my best friend.

So, after we collected all the research books and newspapers we could carry I decided that she deserved as much of the truth as I could give her. Starting with Phyllis.

“I went into Phyllis’s room to try to get some information a few nights ago, and I think she’s hiding something.

She and Nocta weren’t just classmates. Based on a bunch of pictures I saw, they were really close friends.

And the people I saw Nocta ... kill in the vision?

I know I saw some of them in those images. ”

“What?” Fable said, eyes popping wide. “Surely, she must know him pretty well, then. Why aren’t the powers-that-be using her for information that might help defeat him?”

“She’s still here, so I’m guessing maybe they know?

But she didn’t say one way or the other, and Typhon didn’t know.

She either doesn’t have enough info to help more than she already has, or they just keep her around because they don’t trust her away from the school.

Who knows? I got the sense that there were things she couldn’t tell me – I think she is rune gagged.

If we go to her with some well-researched theories and facts, maybe she’ll crack. ”

Unfortunately, facts were hard to come by at Neverthorn, even in the library – at least about Nocta.

Fable paused and looked off at the far wall, her eyes distant. “I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t so much a memory as it was a booby-trap or nightmare you got sucked into? Surely, the mass murder of a bunch of students by one of their own would’ve been something we’d have heard of?”

I shrugged. “You’d think.” But I knew better than anyone that this place had more than its share of secrets. Just because we hadn’t heard about it didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. “If that wasn’t real, it was the most powerful bit of magic I’ve ever encountered. It was so ... visceral.”

But the more we dug, the more I couldn’t help but wonder ... and hope. Maybe it was just some evil little fairy trick.

Two hours passed, and we made no progress. Frustrated, and desperate for a win of some sort, we moved on to trying to find out more about Lucy.

“And how old did you say she was?” Fable asked as she stacked the yearbooks we had selected by date, newest on top.

“Hard to pinpoint. She had this ... sort of ethereal quality. In fact, if I hadn’t touched her with my own two hands, I might have been able to convince myself that she was a ghost. Early twenties, maybe?”

“So, she graduated a few years ago, then. I mean, if she really was a student here, she should be in one of these books.” She tugged two from the pile and handed me one. “Let’s start here.”

I cracked open the book and began leafing through, seeing with my eyes, but my thoughts wandering.

They wandered all the way back to Typhon and that kiss, the heat of his lips, the taste of his mouth ...

Fable looked up. “What? Did you find something?”

I hadn’t realized I’d made a sound. I cleared my throat. “Nope, not yet.”

She went back to her search and so did I. It took three false starts – Lucys who weren’t my Lucy – before we stumbled on something promising.

“Could this be her? The name is close. I remember her a bit! She left early, kinda like you, and just never came back,” Fable asked dubiously as she held up the book and tapped one image with her fingertip.

I squinted my weary eyes, leaning closer. “No, I don’t –” but I broke off before I could finish that thought. The more I stared at it, the more it looked like her. Albeit with plump, round cheeks, a glorious, gleaming mane of dark-blonde hair, and a wide, dimpled grin.

“If so, she’s almost unrecognizable,” I admitted softly, reaching for the book. “When I saw her, she was painfully thin and so pale.” Like the health and joy had been leached from her body.

Lucinda Azalea Maura.

I glanced at the age of the yearbook and winced. The girl that I’d seen in the hall was barely twenty? Whatever she’d suffered had aged her.

I shoved down the emotions threatening to choke me and forced myself to look at Fable again.

“It’s her. I’m almost sure of it.”

“So, she went to school here ... what does it mean?”

I had no idea. “Let’s put a pin in it for now.”

And by “put a pin in it”, I meant “track down Typhon at some point and grill him about it”. And if not Typhon, then Liam, or both. One of them knew the truth, and I was going to get it out of them if it killed me.

“And while we’re at it, Phyllis is sixty-five, which means she would’ve been ...” Fable trailed off and frowned. “That’s weird. There’s a two-year gap here. So where are those yearbooks?”

She snagged the next one in date sequence order and pulled it open. A second later, her face drained of color as she laid it on the table between us.

“Look familiar?”

I stared down at a two-page spread, all black with white lettering standing out in stark relief.

“November 9th, 1965. In Memoriam of the Neverthorn Nine, gone but never forgotten,” I mumbled through numb lips. “That’s it. That’s what I saw last night.”

“How could we never have heard of this before?”

“I don’t know, but I know who does.”

Fable nodded as we said it in unison.

“Phyllis.”