were with your familiars, then it couldn’t have been them.”
“But will the authorities believe that?” I choked, ready, myself, to run from the cabin. To warn them not to come back. The Arcane Authorities didn’t believe what I had to say, and I was their kind. They would have even less reason to believe the testimony of shifters.
Her hand squeezed my shoulder. “They will when I corroborate what you’ve just told me. If anyone asks you, I was awake and waiting for you to come back inside the academy to make sure everything went smoothly with settling your familiars in.”
The immense relief made my eyes sting. I hugged her, wrapping my arms around her middle tightly. She gasped but didn’t pull away. Her honey and lavender smell calmed me even more.
Granger patted me on the back. “It’s alright, dear. We’ll make sure nothing happens to them, but until we get to the bottom of this, you should advise them to be wary.”
I stepped back, confused for a moment until what she was saying sunk in, leaving a foul taste in my mouth.
“I hope that whatever happened to poor Miss Dellamora was a chance occurrence. Perhaps an animal in the woods. But there’s a chance, no matter how small, that’s not the case.”
The way she said it told me everything she wasn’t saying. Headmistress Granger didn’t believe it was an animal at all. And she didn’t believe it would be the last time it happened.
“What do you really think—”
“I’ve got to go,” Granger interrupted. “The overseer will be looking for me. I’ll tell him that your familiars had nothing to do with it, but if I were you, I’d send a message through your bond to warn them they will likely be questioned.”
My jaw clenched. If they were questioned, they’d say I left at two in the morning, not three, and this whole lie would unravel.
Crap, crap, crap.
“We,” I hesitated, blushing. “I mean, I haven’t had time to develop that part of the bond. I never practiced how.”
Granger looked to Elias. “See if you can help her get through to them before they return. I’ll try to keep the authorities busy in the meantime.”
He nodded, accepting the command from his superior.
“And you,” she said to me. “Be careful. I’ll be making the announcement soon, but until we know what’s happening, anyone who decides to remain in the academy this weekend will have a curfew. In before dark. No going outside alone.”
The door creaked shut after her, and I started when Elias appeared in front of me, turning the lock.
“Come here,” he said gently and opened his arms.
I latched onto him as though he was the only solid thing in an ocean of raucous waves. I knew being sentenced to nearly four years at the academy would bring it with it a whole new set of problems. But I never expected any of this.
Murderous headmasters. A romance with one of my teachers. Bonding with two Enduran shifters. Saving said Enduran shifters from a dark witch bent on killing them and all the others in that warehouse. Seeing ghosts. And now this.
Sometimes I wondered when I would crack. What it would take to finally shove me over the edge into the abyss of madness that’d swallowed up so much of my family before me.
“Everything will be alright. I won’t let anything happen to you, and neither will Cal or Adrian.”
Did he really think it was me I was worried about? “I can handle myself,” I said, threading steel into my voice.
I pulled away to look him in the eyes so he could see how much I meant it. I was powerful, and I was starting to realize just how powerful. Sure, I needed more training to become more adept at sigils and incantations, but my natural power had no rival. At least, none that I’d ever seen.
“It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s you and Cal and Adrian who live on the grounds where a girl was killed last night.”
He frowned.
“And you didn’t hear anything at all? No screams, or commotion of any kind?”
I shook my head. “You?”
“Nothing,” he said, incredulous. “It doesn’t make any sense. She was attacked just outside the academy, near the south exit.”
I used that exit all the time. So did Elias.
It wasn’t all that far from where we were now.
“What do you think happened?”
His brows raised and a faraway look came to his eyes—the one that alerted me to the fact that he was trying to work out