King of Cups (Stormcloud Academy 2)

I felt a buzzing in my pocket. I must have been Zeph.

With Buffy’s potent whiskey zipping around my bloodstream, I figured I might have the courage to talk to him.

But when I pulled out my phone, I saw that the number wasn’t coming from Morocco. It was coming from England.

“Biba, love,” came Thomas Monfort’s deep Cornwall accent. “Are you there?”

His voice sounded small. Not weak, though. He greeted me as one might talk to a small child or a kitten.

“Yes,” I answered, just as small. I stood alone in the hall outside Buffy’s room in bare feet.

“How are you, Biba?”

“I’m . . . uh, I’m okay, I guess.”

“We got your letter. It meant the world, and, well, we’re so sorry we didn’t call you earlier.”

“No, I’m sorry. I really should have—”

“It’s not your job, dear,” he said firmly. “That’s why I had to call now, straight away after reading your letter. Mary would have called, but it’s still all a bit raw for her. She will call soon enough.

“Regardless, I needed to tell you . . . this isn’t your job, Biba, finding Gail’s killer. I’ve lost just about every person that matters to me besides Mary, and I long ago accepted that justice is a nice thought . . . but it doesn’t happen all that often. I’ve driven myself halfway mad, fixating on my brother’s death and now Gail’s. I don’t want you to waste your youth obsessing about it like I have.”

I stood dumbly for a moment, trying to bring myself to thank him and then just move on. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

“Mr. Monfort,” I said, feeling somewhat ridiculous at the formality, “do you remember what your wife said about Evian Les Bains when we were at dinner last spring? How it was the town where Victor Frankenstein had his honeymoon?”

“I do, now that you mention it.”

“I didn’t say it then, but . . . do you know how that ends?”

“’Fraid not.”

“The monster—Frankenstein’s monster—finds him there and kills his bride. Victor follows the monster to the ends of the earth after that. He wants revenge, yes, but he also needs to stamp out the evil he brought into the world. What Gail and I uncovered at Stormcloud . . . that awoke a monster here. It killed her, but I have to stop it. I’m sorry, but I have to. I need you to help me.”

The line was silent for a moment, and then I heard him sigh.

“I can’t stop you, I suppose. I knew that before I ever called.”

“When your brother was here, there were expulsions. Some students were thrown out for a crime. Douglas signed a statement against them. Please tell me he told you something.”

“He did. It was a love triangle, I recall. Nothing to do with Doug except that he was close to one of the boys. It turned violent. The girl disappeared. That’s all I can recall.”

“Who were the expelled students?” I asked. My hand shook with anticipation.

“I don’t know their names. But I do know . . . Biba, in your time at Stormcloud Academy, have you heard of a group called the Kings?”

CHAPTER 19

BIBA

One convenient thing about committing yourself to take down a former King is that they tend to be easy to find. After all, we’re talking about the cream that sits atop all humanity. These men don’t hide.

They stand astride the narrow world like a colossus.

So the night after my fateful conversation with Thomas Monfort, I didn’t go back up to the ancient archives of Stormcloud Academy. Instead, I went to the school’s surprisingly modern library. There, I looked through books arranged in a discernible order and even had access to the internet!

My targets were the Kings that ran Stormcloud when Gail’s father and mine went to school here. And I decided to research the most famous of them first.