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Chapter Five

B riony

It wasn’t Fox.

Whoever – or whatever – it was that saved me in the maze, it wasn’t the professor.

I race back up the stairs, berating myself as I go, the stone still clutched in my hands, buried under my jacket.

What the hell was I thinking? Of course, it wasn’t Fox Tudor who saved me. Why the hell would he? Just because he offered me advice about Madame Bardin does not mean … does not mean … what was I even considering it did mean? That the man cared about me? Had feelings for me?

How stupid could one person be? Whatever Fox Tudor once was, Professor Tudor is cold and hard and apathetic. He’d no more care for me than he would care to cut off his own foot from his leg .

No, it wasn’t Fox who saved me in that maze, and, therefore, it isn’t him I can trust with this secret.

Which leaves the question? Who the hell was it?

I race back along the pathways. The rain batters around me, the cobbled stones slippery and wet. Twice I slip, clutching the stone tightly to my body as I regain my footing.

Finally, I make it back to the safety of my tower and my room.

I sit down on my bed and stare down at the stone, tracing my fingertips along the fissures forming on its surface.

What can it mean? And why did it happen now?

I turn the stone over again and again in my hands. Apart from those cracks there are no other differences. The weight is the same, the heat it penetrates no greater and no lesser, and the surface is still smooth.

“Was it you?” I ask the stone. “Was it you who saved me?”

“Saved you from what?”

I jerk, immediately stuffing the stone under my pillow, then I spin around and find Fly standing in my doorway.

“We’ve been searching for you everywhere,” he says, coming to sit beside me on the bed. Like me, he’s still wearing his gray tracksuit and, like mine, it has seen better days. “You know the Princes have been looking for you too.”

“Yeah, they found me,” I say.

“They did?” He looks surprised. “Those shitheads. They could have told us. Do you know Clare is actually searching for you in the library as we speak?” He leans in closer.

“That place gives me the creeps, so I offered to come check your room again. I was not expecting to find you here.” He tilts his head to one side.

“You weren’t here an hour ago. Were you at the clinic after all? ”

He frowns because, if I was at the clinic, they have done a very good job of fixing me up. Much better than usual. I’m no longer covered in scrapes, bruises and burn marks. I bet I look unscratched. Unlike most of the other students probably receiving pathetic patching up at the clinic.

As if reading my thoughts, Fly says, “There are quite a few casualties in the clinic. It’s pretty full tonight. That … thing!”

“You came up against it too?”

Fly shivers. “I managed to beat it away with a heavy branch I found. How about you?”

“I outran it – lost it in the maze.”

“You outran it?” he says, then shakes his head. “Cupcake, you're fast but not that fast. That thing moved like a rabid hunting dog.”

It was fast; I remember it gaining on me quickly, I remember thinking it was going to catch me. And then it had stopped. I assumed I outran it but maybe I didn’t. Does that mean I was helped more than once?

Fly shudders again, this time so hard the bed wobbles, and I glance towards my pillow hoping the stone is secure under there.

It’s not that I don’t want to tell Fly about it.

I’ve been half tempted for weeks. But that run-in with Madame Bardin has reminded me how dangerous this academy can be.

Fly and Clare have been kind to me – heck, they’ve even seemed to enjoy hanging out with me.

Like I told Fox, I don’t want to endanger my friends.

That’s also why I won’t be telling him about what happened in that maze. The less he knows the safer he’ll be .

“So if not at the clinic or playing make-up with the Princes, where the hell have you been?”

I stare at him, my mind struggling to grasp a suitable explanation. In the end, I decide to go for a half truth.

“Something went funny with the trial. I was in there for two hours instead of one.”

“What?” he says, incomprehension and shock spreading across his face. “Like a malfunction? But how is that even possible?”

I shrug. “I guess I got lucky.”

“Seriously lucky, Cupcake,” Fly wraps me in a hug. “You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t. Unfortunately for you, you can’t lose me that easily.”

“Thank goodness,” he says, “you’re growing on me.”

He ends the hug and holds me arms’ length away from him, examining my face. “Those shitheads healed you, huh? At least they can do something right.”

“It wasn’t them. We’re still not really on speaking terms.”

“They’re the Princes! If they wanted to speak with you, then, sorry Cupcake, but even you yourself couldn’t stop them.”

I shrug a second time. “Let’s not think about them now. Tell me, is Clare okay? Did she make it through without being hurt?”

“A few scrapes and bruises like me. Nothing too serious. Apparently she got seriously close to finishing the maze.”

“That’s my girl.” I grin.

Twenty minutes later we’re sitting in Clare’s room again, passing the open bottle of liquor between us and singing along to one of Clare’s records – I’m starting to remember the lyrics .

“Pleeeaaaase!” Fly begs as he swigs back the bottle. “It looks really terrible.”

“Jeez thanks,” I say, lifting my hand to my head. I’ve seen my reflection now. My face and body may be healed, but I have lost a clump of my hair and have gained a scorch mark to my scalp.

“I can fix it for you,” he says, bouncing up and down on his knees, “can hide that bit.” He motions to my bald patch.

“I don’t know,” I say, staring down into the bottle.

“I promise it won’t hurt.”

“It’s not that I’m worried about it hurting,” I begin.

“Great!” Fly says, clapping his hands together and bouncing right up onto his feet, taking me with him and pushing me down into Clare’s desk chair. He swings me around and starts to pluck pins from my head.

“Hey!” I moan. “That does hurt.”

“No pain, no gain,” he sings.

“But you said it wouldn’t hurt.”

“It won’t. You’re being a wimp.”

I glare up at him but he simply smiles and loosens my hair down over my shoulders.

“Wow,” Clare says, coming to stand beside Fly. “Your hair’s really pretty, Briony. Why don’t you wear it down like that more often.”

“I don’t like it,” I tell her.

“You don’t?” she says. “But it’s gorgeous.”

“It draws attention to me. Attention I don’t want.”

And it reminds me of her. She had the same hair and she always wore it down. It turned heads wherever we went. If she’d just stayed hidden, tried to shrink away in the shadows like I’ve always tried to do, maybe she’d still be with us.

“No offense, Cupcake,” Fly says, combing his fingers through my hair and attempting to untangle the knots, “you’ve already brought quite a lot of attention to yourself.

I don’t think your hair will make a lot of difference.

So why don’t you let me style it down?” I shake my head.

“Can I at least do an interesting braid – one that will cover the,” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “unfortunate patch.”

“Sure,” I say. I do have some pride, and though I may not care so much about my hair, I’d rather avoid all the snide remarks and stupid jokes when people spot I now have parts of my hair missing.

Clare perches on her desk and I watch her eyes follow Fly as he skips around my head, tugging and twisting pieces of hair.

“How did you lose that clump anyway?” Clare asks after a while. “It looks like it was burned right off your head. I didn’t come across any fire.”

“I didn’t come across any tornados,” I point out.

“I thought it was going to shoot me right out into space. If Professor Tudor hadn’t sucked me off, I guess I’d be floating somewhere out by the moon right about now,” she mutters.

Fly snorts and we both peer at him. “Okay, okay, I have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old, but she did just say Professor Tudor sucked her off.” Clare blinks. “We talked about this, remember?”

“Ewww,” Clare says, although in the next second the disgust morphs into something more dream-like, “although …”

“Seriously?!” Fly says, almost dropping the pieces of hair in his hands. “The man scares me to death.”

“Well, that too, but he’s also very strong and very muscular and when he wrapped his arms around me– ”

“He did what?!” I shriek, my voice sounding unnaturally high.

Why should I care who Professor Fox wraps his arms around – even if he wraps them around Madame Bardin?

“Well he had to in order to rescue me from the maze,” she says matter-of-factly.

“He rescued you?” I say, wondering if that high-pitch note in my voice is jealousy.

I have three of the academy’s hottest men chasing me – okay, I don’t want anything to do with them but that is hardly the point. Why the hell would I begrudge Clare this? She is intelligent, pretty and kind. Why wouldn’t a cold-hearted soulless man like Fox Tudor want her?

“Briony,” Fly says, tugging on my hair, “that was his job. To fish any students in danger out of the maze.”

“Oh,” I say, the jealousy fading as quickly as it had risen, replaced with something just as bitter.

Because if Professor Tudor was meant to rescue students from the maze, then why the hell didn’t he rescue me?