Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,63

however, would be the tricky part, and time was of the essence. Everyone knew that the first 72 hours in a missing persons case were the most crucial.

“That shouldn’t be too challenging.” Victoria seemed pleased. If I’d said there were a thousand, even as a joke, I wondered if her calm façade would’ve cracked at all. What did it take to rattle the fabled Ms. Jules? I wasn’t sure, but I liked that she seemed completely fearless. It made the rest of us feel more at ease.

Once I’ve caught some… then what? If I put them in a Repository orb, I’d hate myself for it. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the she-pixie and her abject misery. Perhaps if I talked to Nathan about options, I might be able to come up with a better solution for the pixies. I could hide them somewhere safe, or set them free elsewhere, far from the Institute. Anyway, I’d have to cross that bridge when I came to it. What mattered now was capturing as many pixies as possible before the hunters got to them. Some would end up in boxes, but not all, and that was the most I could ask for at the moment.

“That’ll be all, Persie.” Victoria stood and nodded to the door.

My heart swelled. “Does that mean I’m not expelled?”

“Why would I expel you?” Her expression softened a touch. “You showed perseverance and fortitude by trying to remedy the situation yourself. You were honest when it mattered. You sought help when it mattered. The Institute is here to teach you control, not to punish your mistakes. Do I wish you’d come to me sooner? Yes. That is why I gave you a direct line to my phone, and an emergency beeper. Do I understand why you didn’t? Also, yes. Though I believe you when you say you made the decision to come clean with me, even though the pixies were discovered prior to that. That shows an understanding of your limitations. So, no, you’re not expelled, though you will leave the pixie capture to the experts now.”

“Thank you, Ms. Jules.” I scraped back the chair and hurried away before she could change her mind. Plus, I didn’t want my face to give me away.

I had no intention of leaving it to the experts. Not entirely, at least. If I could use the pixies to find Xanthippe and exonerate them in the same breath, then I would. That way, everyone here would understand that it wasn’t always the monster’s fault. I had nothing but respect for Victoria, but her “they’re fuel and nothing more” attitude left a bitter taste in my mouth.

If it’s not the pixies, then who is responsible? That was a perplexing thought for another day. And not one I could consider just yet, not with the pixies at the top of the culprit list.

Thirteen

Persie

I walked out to find Genie waiting, midway through a tense conversation with Nathan. He shot up like I’d caught him doing something wrong. Genie jumped up with him and threw her arms around me.

“Persie! Thank Chaos, are you okay?” She clung to me and I held her back.

Meanwhile, Nathan scrambled to get a pile of books together. He made an awkward bow in our direction before disappearing into Victoria’s office. The door closed behind him with an ominous thud. I wanted to warn him that I’d unintentionally thrown him to the lions, but Victoria hadn’t seemed remotely surprised by Nathan’s involvement. I hoped she’d go easy on him. She’d said he was a nice “lad,” after all.

“Well, I’m not expelled.” I mustered a stilted laugh. “But we’ve got work to do.”

She pulled away. “We do?”

“Oh, yes, and we’re starting with the engineering lab.” I led her away by the arm, filling her in on the way. “So, you see the predicament here. We’ve got to beat the hunters, and that calls for puzzle boxes.”

“If you downplayed it to Victoria, how many pixies are we actually talking about?” She eyed me with a glimmer of approval, and a hint of “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

I pretended to count on my fingers. “Maybe thirty to forty.”

“Holy crap, Persie!” She clamped her hand over her mouth, eyes bugging. “That means… we need to catch, like, three dozen?!”

“Something like that.” I dragged her faster through the halls. By now, everyone would have dispersed from engineering. They were probably in the common areas or their bedrooms, having a long old gossip about how