Page 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was late by the time Tennyson and Nikolai got back. Everyone else had drifted in after dinner and then back out to bed. I didn’t want to talk to Tennyson through our bond, it might throw him off if he was in the middle of something. It was too risky. Still, I hated not knowing.

The later it got, the harder it became to concentrate on deciphering the pages of the book, or on homework, or anything. I gave up and paced around the common room instead. I was just about to throw caution to the wind and try to contact Tennyson despite the danger when I heard them approach. I slumped back into my seat in relief.

They looked exhausted when they came in, but otherwise fine. Nikolai didn’t even speak; he just waved goodnight from the doorway and headed to bed. Tennyson came in and sat beside me.

“She was right,” he said. He rested his head back against the chair.

“Did you stop the attack?”

He nodded. “We got the family to a safe house before your father showed up. Then you… Other-you, I mean… it seemed as if she turned into you right in front of our eyes. It was surreal. She was very convincing.”

Something about how he said it made my hackles rise, but I pushed the feeling down to think about another time.

“Your father showed up,” Tennyson continued. “He didn’t need much convincing, honestly.”

“Were you close enough to hear what she said to him?”

I didn’t trust her one bit. If she could double-cross us and team up with my father, I doubted she’d hesitate for a second. Then she’d double-double-cross him.

“She said that she’d go with him if he promised to leave your brothers alone. That she wanted to learn from him and become strong.”

“And he believed her?”

Tennyson gave a tired shrug. “She was very convincing. She’s already installed a listening device in his office and a few other places around his compound. We’ve got a team that will monitor them around the clock.”

There were so many holes in this plan, but Tennyson looked so exhausted, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t know anyway, so I didn’t say anything. Still, I had a gnawing in the pit of my stomach that was as accurate as Althea’s vision and it said this was not going to end well.

The next few days dragged. I waited for news that my doppelganger had been killed and my power was lost forever, or she’d killed my father and stolen his power, or something else terrible had happened, but there was no news. Definitely no news, not just no news because Tennyson was holding it back from me, because I made sure I was there for all the reports the surveillance team made to him.

They were learning a lot: where he planned to attack and how, the location of his storage facilities, even a few spies from within the pack, but nothing that I could use to defeat him for good. As far as we could tell, my father had no idea it wasn’t really me, but he’d definitely clue in soon, once his attacks kept failing. Honestly, I was surprised he’d fallen for it at all. It kind of stung that he knew so little of me to believe I’d turn to the dark side. I’d been pretty clear what I thought of him and his whole schtick.

Though the thought that he did know me that well and was just playing Other-me to get to her power wasn’t comforting either. Either way, there wasn’t much I could do about it but wait to see how it played out.

In the meantime, all I could do was help Althea work on the translation. There wasn’t much I could do, since I didn’t know Latin. Mainly, I was just looking up words that had multiple translations or that Althea wasn’t sure of, for her to reference back to and make corrections. It was kind of monotonous, but comforting. She was still fairly weak, so sometimes we worked in her room so she could rest in her bed, or if she felt up to it, we worked in the common room. Sometimes Nikolai and Hannah helped, or just studied in the common room with us. Sometimes, even Harper joined in. Tennyson was too busy with pack stuff most of the time, but when he had the chance, he sat with us. Sam, I never saw. I wasn’t sure where he was or what he was doing, only that he didn’t want to be around us.

After the full moon, Althea was almost back to normal. The color returned to her cheeks, though the shimmer still remained on her skin.

“I look like I’ve dunked my head in glitter,” she complained, checking her face in the mirror of her compact. It was her first day back in classes, and she’d noticed a few strange looks. She sat at the lunch table; her food forgotten as she tried to cover the shimmer with make-up.

“You can barely notice it,” I told her. “Anyway, it’s you . I bet by tomorrow, half the class has sparkly faces.”

She sighed and snapped the compact shut. “At least I haven’t had any more visions,” she said.

I raised my eyebrows. “You shouldn’t have said that. You’ll definitely have one now.”

“That’s just superstition,” said Tennyson. It was rare for him to have lunch with us these days; he was normally in a Zoom meeting or taking care of some problem or another. I didn’t want to argue with him on a rare occasion that we had him to ourselves, but it definitely wasn’t just superstition; it was tempting fate.

“Well, maybe it’s a good thing,” said Nikolai, ignoring Althea’s glare. “A few minutes pain for a look at the future, sounds like a fair deal to me, honestly.”

“I can tell you your future,” said Althea, gripping her fork tightly. “And give you a few minutes pain.”

“Please don’t stab Nikolai,” said Tennyson. “He’ll bleed everywhere, and it will put me off my lunch.”

It seemed just like old times for a moment, everyone in good humor and wanting to kill Nikolai. Sam was absent, but then, he had always been absent a lot.

But then Althea dropped to the floor.

She slumped to the side and off her chair. She was normally so graceful, but now she was like a sack of potatoes. I rushed to her side, all of us did, but we didn’t know how to help her. She was twitching violently. Her eyes were completely rolled back. The shimmer on her skin became a full neon glow, and it spread all over her body, as if she were trapped in a giant green bubble.

At least we were on the mezzanine level of the dining hall, so nobody else could see her, but then she started making weird noises, and the murmur of conversation went quiet.

The noises were eerie, low growls. I hadn’t even heard her make noises like that when she was transformed into a wolf. They weren’t the growls of a wolf; they sounded like some sort of hell beast.

“What do we do?” I whispered, looking frantically to Tennyson for help.

He stared helplessly back at me.

Surprisingly, it was Nikolai who jumped into action. He took off his hoodie and balled it up, then put it under her head. Then he gently turned her on one side. He reached over to grab his phone from the table.

“If you record her –” Tennyson began, but Nikolai waved him off.

“You have to time seizures,” he said. “It might not be a vision. She was in a coma for weeks; there could be stuff going on with her brain. If there’s no magical explanation, the doctors will need to know how long she’s like this. I used to have a dog with epilepsy. If the seizure is longer than five minutes, we’ll need to get her medical help right away.”

I was about to ask him if I should pre-emptively go and get someone when she started to come out of it. I didn’t realize how my heart had been thumping so wildly until her eyes rolled back down and she blinked.

She tried to sit up, but Nikolai pushed her back down.

“Just take it easy for a minute, sheesh,” he said.

She groaned and covered her eyes. “Why’s it so bright in here?”

I glanced at Nikolai to see if that was because of something medical, but he shrugged.

“Was it… was it a vision?” Tennyson asked, hesitantly. I guess he’d been pretty dubious about the visions before, even after she’d been right about the attack. Seeing it in person was something else, though.

“Yes,” she said. “Just give me a moment, I feel like I might be sick.”

Tennyson set a bowl by her head in case she needed to be sick, and Nikolai fished around in his bag for some sunglasses. I just stood by uselessly.

I topped up her water glass and stood by, in case she needed it. That was the only thing I could think to do. Eventually, she sat up, so I passed her the water. She took a sip of it and then set it down by the bowl.

“He knows,” she whispered croakily. I suppose all that growling had been hard on her throat. “He knows it’s not really Lucy. He knows everything. He’s been feeding us false information for days.”

As she said it, I became aware of footsteps running up the mezzanine stairs. It was Harper. She was out of breath and bedraggled in a way I’d never seen her. She must’ve run the whole way from the Golden House.

“Tennyson,” she gasped. “All of you. You have to come. Now . There’s been a massive attack.”