Fallen University: Year One

“Where were you?” I demanded.

“Staff locker room,” he said under his breath. “Talking to Beedle. Rumor was I was gonna get jumped after class today. Was explaining to him why I was going to stay a while after, and we got to talking.”

The lights flickered back on overhead, illuminating what was left of the basement. Owen, in his panic, had smashed a massive hole in the wall that separated the gyms from the labyrinthine corridors. He looked around, blinking sheepishly as his stone demon form melted away, leaving only his usual geeky self in its place.

“Everyone form a line in the center hallway,” Toland intoned.

People were still in various stages of panic and weren’t listening. Kingston and I exchanged an annoyed look. Our group moved as a unit toward the center hall, pushing our way through people who were still freaking out.

Then Toland bellowed, bringing the room to silence. “Everyone! Form a single line in the center hall! Now!”

“We’re going to be questioned again,” a girl piped up somewhere to my left. Her voice sounded strained to the point of breaking.

“We already know what caused this,” Toland said loudly over the chattering mess of students. He sounded frustrated by the lack of order, but not furious like he had after the sprites were set loose. “Circuits were damaged during the sprite attack. Some of that damage went unnoticed and caused a short. Repairs are well underway, as you could probably deduce from the fact that the lights are on. Form! A single! Line!”

“If they could just listen for like half a second, we could all get out of here,” Jayce said. I’d never heard him sound so grumpy, and I looked back at him in surprise.

“Look at what they did,” he explained. His voice shook as he gestured around at the disaster. “For no reason! Can you imagine what this crowd would do during rolling blackouts?” He rubbed a hand over his face and groaned.

It took way too long, but eventually Toland got everybody under control. He and his assistants separated us into two groups; one bound for the infirmary, the other dismissed for the rest of the period. That suited me just fine. I was sorely bothered, and I needed to talk it through to pinpoint exactly what it was.

I knew part of it. I definitely didn’t believe that the school would just let damage go unnoticed. Even if they had missed something somehow, I didn’t think a short would go that long without making itself known. Something wasn’t adding up, and I wanted to see if anybody else thought this was weird.

When we were finally released from the basement, all I wanted to do was go up. Anywhere up. I was feeling incredibly claustrophobic after all of that and needed air. Hannah had been sent to the infirmary with a burned hand, but the guys stuck close to me. All of them.

“Hannah’s tower?” Jayce suggested.

I shook my head. “Roof. I need space.”

Nobody argued, which made me wonder if I had inadvertently used persuasion on them, but I shook the thought away. I would have felt it—I was getting better at controlling my powers, and it wasn’t really the kind of thing you could do accidentally.

The stairs seemed to go on for miles, past the dormitory floor, past a floor filled with little attic spaces, until it led to a door which opened up onto the roof. There wasn’t as much snow as I’d anticipated, which was nice. Short ledges ran around the inside of the protective wall, and I led the group to sit down on one of them.

“All right, raise your hands if you think the sprites caused a short that didn’t show up for months,” Kingston said as soon as we were all situated.

Nobody moved a muscle.

Kingston nodded. “That’s what I thought. More sabotage?”

“They didn’t even seem sure the sprites were sabotage,” I pointed out. “Maybe this place is just so old it’s starting to crumble.”

“They were sure,” Xero said quietly. “Trust me.”

My heart squeezed with something between pity and fury. That fierce protectiveness rose up in my chest again, but I had no idea how to express it. I clenched my fist and glared over the parapet.

“I think it was Sonja,” I said.

Jayce’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? I don’t know, that seems like a stretch. She’s been telling everybody she suspects you. She couldn’t suspect you if she’s the one who did the thing.”

Kingston and I shared a look.

“Right, okay, but here’s the thing. If she is the one who did it, wouldn’t she want to fling suspicion away from her as fast and as firmly as possible? She would want to point everybody’s attention away from her so they didn’t suspect her.” I spoke as gently as possible, silently blessing Jayce for being so pure.

Rueful realization dawned on his face. I hated to wreck Jayce’s world view, but we couldn’t afford to be naïve.

“She could be framing you,” Kingston said, nodding. “It would make sense, since she already has a grudge against you.”

“She’s tried to sabotage my reputation, my confidence, and even my enrollment. You know she pushed the Custodians to send us to the underworld before they even had a chance to offer us the alternative? She’s been gunning for me since the moment she laid eyes on me.”