“What do you mean?” My heart was still beating from the exhilaration. Even now, Alexei might not make it.
Emma frowned. “Gabby found out we put something in her drink,” she said. “She told me she was too powerful for a confusion potion to work, and she was going to get me back.”
Anger boiled inside my chest. I despised Gabby. There were no lines she wouldn’t cross— she thought she owned this fucking school.
“Is there anything else she told you?” I asked.
Emma hesitated. “No,” she replied. “Nothing.”
There was an underline of a lie in her words. Emma was holding back. “Are you sure?” I asked firmly.
This time, Emma nodded. “Yes. I’ve told you what I know.”
I didn’t believe her. And I didn’t know why— but I had a thin veil of instinct that swore Emma was hiding something. “We need to turn Gabby in,” I said immediately. “She has to pay for this.”
“You already know no one is going to believe us,” Emma said in exasperation. “Kiara made that potion, and we have no proof Gabby poisoned it. The teachers will just think Kiara messed it up.”
I knew she was right. But still, I was so tired of Gabby getting away with everything. She knew how to avoid being caught.
Emma didn’t seem so willing to let Gabby go free. “We have to stop her, Ethan,” she said. “If she’s doing this now, what’s she going to do as queen?”
“We’re doing all we can.” Yet it wasn’t enough. Gabby was willing to play dirty, and we weren’t.
It was something we had to rectify. Fast.
We waited in the hallway for what seemed like hours. Three more figures came through the door— Delmare, Stefan, and Theo.
“We heard what happened,” Stefan said in a winded voice. “What the fuck, dude?”
“It was Gabby,” Emma said viciously. “She did this.”
Delmare’s face darkened. “That whore. I swear, when I get my hands on her—”
“Let’s make sure Kiara and Alexei are all right,” I told the group. “Then we can work on getting revenge.”
We lingered in the waiting room for some time more. By noon, Kiara wandered in with bleary eyes. We stood anxiously on the precipice of receiving bad news.
“He’ll survive,” Kiara said, and we all relaxed. “He needs a few days to recover. He’ll wake up sometime tomorrow.”
“Thank the gods,” Theo mumbled.
Kiara rubbed her arms. “It was a close call. The mithridate bought him time. He almost didn’t...”
She trailed off, and shivered once.
“How did you know how to make that antidote?” Emma asked in wonder. “It was amazing.”
“I’ve learned a lot of things in my Alchemy class,” Kiara said. “It’s a requirement for my major.”
I knew Kiara wanted to be a priestess for Vesna, the goddess of wisdom, and had picked Religious Studies for her major. Priestesses spent their days serving the gods, but they were also great healers among our kind. Good thing learning about various poisons and potions was a requirement for becoming a priestess, otherwise, Alexei might be dead.
Her voice trembled. “I turned my back on that potion for two seconds,” Kiara sniffed. “Gabby must’ve assumed I was making it for myself. I wish I had been.”
“Don’t say that,” Emma said, and she took Kiara into a hug. “If you had, you would’ve died, because none of us knew how to save you. You saved Alexei’s life.”
Tear streaks lined Kiara’s face as she drew away from Emma. Her face had gone from incredible pain to absolutely enraged. “I want in,” she said. “I want to take Gabby and Elijah down.”
Stefan’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with it. That it went against your morals.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” Kiara snapped. “We need to deal with her. I don’t care how.”
“If we do it, we have to eliminate them before the coronation,” I said slowly. “Once they’re king and queen, they’ll practically be untouchable.”
“Fine. I’ll do whatever it takes,” Kiara said thickly. “I’ll break the law, I’ll use dark magic. So long as that bitch goes down and takes him with her.”
I looked around. “We probably shouldn’t be talking about this out in the open.”
“Good, because I was going to search her room,” Kiara said. “Who’s with me?”
“I’m in,” Delmare said, without pause. Emma nodded firmly.
Theo became the voice of reason. “You want to search her dorm... now?”
“Gabby is doing something. She’s using something to make herself so powerful!” Kiara raged. “Why do we keep waiting around to find out what it is? Let’s investigate, before she hurts anyone