you are in so much trouble,” Cadence added. “All of you are. Where have you been? You are in so much trouble,” she repeated. “You just—they didn’t make an announcement or anything, but everybody knows.”
“Well isn’t that special?” Muirin snarled.
“Hey, uh, Claire. Is she back yet?” Burke asked hopefully.
“Sure.” Cadence stared at him as if he’d grown an extra head. “They kept her overnight down in Radial because they had to do surgery to fix her ankle, she said, but she’s back now. And she’s excused from all of her sports for the next three months,” she added, a little enviously.
Burke glanced at Spirit and smiled, and she smiled back. This is why we did it, she thought. The rest really doesn’t matter.
By now the five of them had attracted everyone’s attention. Their fellow students were standing around them, staring at them as if they’d just come back from the dead—although of course none of them could possibly realize how right they were. Everyone was talking at once, asking the same questions over and over. Some of the questions were utterly inane (yes, Burke really did realize he was carrying a shotgun) and some of them were questions none of the five of them intended to answer—like where they’d been and what they’d been doing—because answering those questions would just get everyone, including them, into a lot more trouble. It was almost a relief when Angelina Swanson and Gareth Stevenson showed up from the house.
“Okay you guys, break it up, nothing to see here,” Gareth said with kindly ruthlessness. “You guys don’t want to get points, you know. The dance is tonight.” Amid groans of disappointment, the students began moving away. Standing beside Gareth, Angelina simply regarded the five of them coldly. “All of you. Inside. Now,” she said, when the last of the other kids had moved away.
At least we know it hasn’t been seven months or seven years or, or, or something like that, Spirit told herself reassuringly. The Hunt is gone, Claire wasn’t Tithed to it, and we’re back more or less the same day.
Gareth took charge of Burke’s (long since empty) shotgun, and the two proctors brought the five of them inside to the Entry Hall. Angelina told them to wait right there at the foot of the staircase as she went off to inform someone in authority that they were back, but Gareth didn’t protest when they all walked over to the enormous fireplace and stood in front of its roaring heat.
“I will never be warm again,” Loch said solemnly, setting the leaf blower down at a careful distance from the heat and walking right up to the edge of the hearth.
“Thought you liked winter sports,” Burke said teasingly.
“From now on, the only winter sports I like are the ones you can do indoors,” Loch answered with feeling.
“I think you were very brave out there, Loch,” Addie said softly.
“No,” Loch said, after a moment’s startled hesitation. “Burke was brave. He stood and fought back. All I did was run. I’m good at that.”
“That’s not what you did!” Spirit said fiercely. “You let that . . . thing . . . walk right up to you so you could trap it. You were brave. As brave as Burke was. Or Addie. Or Muirin—oh, Muirin, I couldn’t believe it when I heard you call them ‘losers.’ ”
“Yeah, well, they were, weren’t they?” Muirin said, staring at the ground. “They lost, anyway.”
“We were all brave,” Burke said firmly. “I’d just rather not have to be that brave again,” he added softly.
Spirit bit her lip. They were already in trouble. She wasn’t going to make it worse by mentioning that their troubles were far from over, no matter what else happened today.
They’d just gotten warm enough to unbutton their coats and take off their hats and gloves and scarves when the tik-tik-tik of high heels on the tiled floor alerted them to someone’s approach. To nobody’s particular surprise, it was Ms. Corby. Despite her festive scarlet business suit and the glittering enamel holly-wreath brooch pinned at its collar, she was nobody’s idea of a jolly Christmas elf. Instead, Doctor Ambrosius’s personal assistant seemed a lot more like the elves they’d spent most of last night dealing with. She looked more than angry. She looked enraged.
“Doctor Ambrosius is taking time out of his very busy schedule to deal with all of you,” she said, her words clipped and precise. “He expects a full explanation of your behavior. And so do