Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,296

are you here to rescue us?" the guy on the table gasped, his pasty blonde hair sticking to his forehead as he looked at me like I was some kind of hero.

And I guessed maybe that was exactly what we were here for, even though I hadn't given it much thought until this exact moment.

"Us?" Xavier asked as he rushed over, heading straight towards the Rat dude like he intended to unstrap him, and I held an arm out to slow him down.

"Hang on a second," I said, my palm hitting Xavier's chest as he looked at me in alarm. "We can't make it obvious we were here."

"Fat chance of that!" Gravebone shrieked from his position on his back on the floor. "I've seen your faces - your father will hear of this Xavier!"

Xavier snorted in fury, kicking out at Gravebone's head and making him shriek in pain as his nose shattered. I caught Xavier’s shoulder to stop him before he could do any more, still unsure of the best way to proceed.

I filled Gravebone’s mouth with dirt to stop him from speaking again and smiled cruelly down at the terror in his eyes as he fought to breathe around the obstruction.

"Untie me!" the Rat begged. "Please - I know who you are. You're Caleb Altair-"

"Everyone knows who he is, buddy," Seth said, moving to stand beside me with a contemplative frown on his face.

"Yes, but, I went to Aurora Academy with Elise. Please, my name is Eugene. Eugene Dipper. I swear I didn't do any of the things they said I did. I didn't steal the midnight amethyst stones from anyone. I was just a collector, I never hid that, I swear!"

I exchanged a look with Seth, the guy having even more of my attention now as I wondered if I should try to call bullshit on his claims by finding out if there was any truth to them. If he'd known Elise then I guessed that gave me even more reason to help him out, but I didn't have any intentions of leaving him here anyway.

"Calm down, man," I said. "No one is leaving you here. We just need to figure out how to cover up our involvement in this little incident. I need it to look like you got yourself free somehow."

"H-he - Gravebone has the cuff key in his pocket," Eugene gasped. "Perhaps if it looked like I got a hand free then maybe it could seem like I'd gotten hold of it and freed myself and my magic without help."

"Doesn't help us with the witness issue though," Seth mused, giving Gravebone a casual kick which drew a muffled grunt of pain from him.

"That's why we need to kill him," Eugene growled and I was surprised to hear such savagery from the little dude, but he was more than clear in his thirst for blood here. And I guessed if I’d been strapped to a table and tortured while some freaky asshole tried to convince me I was a Medusa, I would be out for blood too.

"What the fuck is the point of all this anyway?" Xavier asked indignantly. "Even if you believed you were a Medusa, you wouldn't suddenly become one so-"

"Gravebone and V-Vard have been doing experiments," Eugene said, a sob catching in the back of his throat. "C-cutting Fae open and trying to steal their Order forms before re-replacing it with another. I've been down here for weeks and watched them kill countless Fae of my kind with their twisted experiments. It’s never even come close to working but they just start again as soon as they fail. They’re sick."

"There are more of you here?" Seth asked sharply and Eugene bobbed his chin towards a door on the far side of the open space.

"M-more than I can count. Tiberian Rats, Sphinxes, Minotaurs - all of the Orders the Dragon King has deemed lesser than whatever he requires for supremacy. You have to help us. You have to!"

"We're getting to it," Seth said, glancing at me and I gritted my teeth as I tried to think about the best way to do this.

"We need to cover our faces so they don't all see us, in case any of them are caught," I said, glancing at Eugene and wishing I'd thought of this sooner. "Then we let them out and give them a chance to run for it. They can punish Gravebone however they see fit."

Gravebone started to thrash and kick on the floor at