I hadn’t spoken to her in weeks.
“Hey,” I greeted Gail through the cracked door, “is everything okay?”
“Do you have a moment?” she replied, not looking at me directly.
“Yeah, for you, of course,” I stammered. “Please, come in.”
Gail stepped uncertainly into my room, looking around. She was in the same clothes I’d seen her in that day. Jeans and a light tunic top.
“Burning the midnight oil, too?” I asked.
“Did he get you this room?”
“They moved me here when … um … after that death—”
“Funny business, that.”
Gail was prickly. I’d never seen her this standoffish, even when she was telling me off at the cliffside. She was sad, then. Now, she was tough, hitting me with unspoken accusations I couldn’t quite understand.
“Did you learn something, Gail? Is there something you want to tell me?”
“I figured it was high time I talked to you, Biba. You’re the one who’s supposed to be undercover, infiltrating Zephyr Williams and his crew. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
“I’m doing my best.”
“That’s good to hear because, for the last three weeks, I’ve been feeling around blind, picking at threads in the vain hope they’d yield any answers about ….”
Her voice caught. I could see the beginnings of tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
“… in the hope, you’d find out what happened to my parents.”
“I’m … I’m trying, Gail. I promise … I …”
But I couldn’t lie to her. The truth of the matter was that I hadn’t been spying on the Kings. I wasn’t some double agent working Zephyr for information. Days had gone by without me even thinking of Gail, her father, or my father. She knew that, and I needed to be honest with myself about it.
“I’m sorry, Gail,” I said at last. “I’ve treated you badly. I lost sight of your pain and my own. All it took was some nice things, and I stopped caring. Can you forgive me?”
Tears were streaming down both of our cheeks. Gail opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out, so she nodded and reached out to me. We met in the center of the room and hugged each other for what felt like an hour, weeping all the while.
Finally, we regained something like composure and let go of each other.
“There is one thing I learned,” I volunteered. “It’s not much, but it could matter. I asked Zephyr about your and my tuition. He didn’t state outright that he paid our way to Stormcloud, but he didn’t deny it, either.”
“Can you get more information from him?”
“It will take some persuasion,” I said, then added with a knowing smirk, “but I’m getting pretty good at that.”
“Oh, Biba!” she giggled, still a little blubbery. “You’ll have to dig some dirt on your sordid goings-on with Zephyr.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
“But listen, love,” she continued, “I’ve learned something of value, I think. It’s the reason I came here. I think with your position as Miss Amelia’s assistant, we can act on it.”
“I’m listening.”
“Miss Amelia was a student here, around the same time as our fathers. And I’ve learned she was hired ten years ago as headmistress under the direct orders of the newly appointed Chief Trustee … Peter Williams.”
“Holy shit.”
“If there’s a plot involving the old Kings, it has to involve her.”
My mind was spinning. What could we do to investigate this? Could we get into Amelia’s office somehow and access her personal files? She was always in there, it seemed. Unless…
“Gail,” I said, as a lightbulb went on in my brain, “I have an idea.”
Chapter 25
Biba
The only viable time to infiltrate Amelia’s private files was the night after final exams.
The final night of spring term was the one time of year that Stormcloud Academy resembled a typical university. All the illicit booze and substances came out. Social barriers broke down. Genuine popular music filled the halls. Before Gail had dropped her revelation about Miss Amelia on me, I was looking forward to cutting insanely loose that night. I was going to get fucked up, dance until I couldn’t feel my face, then strip down and ride my boyfriend to the gleaming full moon.
As far as Zephyr knew, that was still the plan. Gail and I had other intentions.
Miss Amelia could not stand the bacchanal that was Final Night at Stormcloud. She wanted nothing to do with it, but her private office was perilously close to the debauchery. The night of the revels, she had to calculate every student’s final grade for the term. It was a laborious undertaking that required all her mental energy. So, she removed herself from the madness altogether.
One of my recent duties as her assistant was reserving a room at Wachsbrunnen Inn and arranging a courier to hand-deliver all final testing to the room. I also ordered two bottles of Riesling to be waiting for her there.