Firespell (The Dark Elite 1)

“My parents,” I said, “are teachers. Professors, both of them. They teach philosophy at Hartnett College. It’s in Sagamore.”

Foley frowned. “And they never mentioned their genetic work?”

“Genetic work?” I asked, the confusion obvious in my voice. “What genetic work?”

“Their lab work. Their genetic studies. The longevity studies.”

I was done, I decided—done with this meeting, done listening to this woman’s lies about my parents. Or worse, I was done listening to things I hadn’t known about the people I’d been closest too.

Things they hadn’t told me?

I rose, lifting my books and shouldering my bag. “I need to get back to class.”

Foley arched an eyebrow, but allowed me to rise and gather my things, then head for the door. “Ms. Parker,” she said, and I glanced back. She pulled a small pad of paper from a desk drawer, scribbled something on the top page, and tore off the sheet.

“You’ll need a hall pass to return to class,” she said, handing the paper out to me.

I nodded, walked back, and took the paper from her fingers. But I didn’t look at her again until I was back at the door, note in hand.

“I know my parents,” I told her, as much for her benefit as mine. “I know them.”

All my doubts notwithstanding, I let that stand as the last word, opened the door, and left.

I didn’t remember much of the walk back through one stone corridor after another, through the Great Hall and the passageway to the classroom building. Even the architecture was a blur, my mind occupied with the meeting with Foley, the questions she’d raised.

Had she been confused? Had she read some other file, instead of mine? Had the board of trustees dramatized my background in order to accept me at St. Sophia’s?

Or had my parents been lying to me? Had they kept the true nature of their jobs, their employment, from me? And if so, why hide something like that? Why tell your daughter that you taught philosophy if you had a completely different kind of research agenda?

What had Foley said? Something about longevity and genetics? That wasn’t even in the same ballpark as philosophy. That was science, anatomy, lab work.

I’d been to Hartnett with my parents, had walked through the corridors of the religion and philosophy department, had waved at their colleagues. I’d colored on the floor of my mother’s office on days when my babysitter was sick, and played hide- and-seek in the hallways at night while my parents worked late.

Of course there was one easy way to solve this mystery. When I was clear of the administrative wing, I stepped into an alcove in the main building, a semicircle of stone with a short bench in the middle, and pulled my cell phone from my pocket. It would be late in Germany, but this was an issue that needed resolving.

“HOW IS RESEARCH?” I texted. I sent the message and waited; the reply took only seconds.

“THE ARCHIVES R RAD!” was my father’s time-warped answer. I hadn’t even had time to begin a response when a second message popped onto my screen, this one from my mother. “1ST PAGE IN GERMN JRNL OF PHILO!”

In dorky professor-speak, that meant my parents had secured the first article (a big deal) in some new German philosophy journal.

It also meant there would be a bound journal with my parents’ names on it, the kind I’d seen in our house countless times before. You couldn’t fake that kind of thing. Foley had to be wrong.

“Take that,” I murmured with a slightly evil grin, then checked the time on my phone. European history class would be over in five minutes. I didn’t think Peters would much care whether I came back for the final five minutes of class, so I walked back through the classroom building to the locker hall to switch out books for study hall later.

A note—a square of careful folds—was stuck to my locker door.

I dropped my books to the floor, pulled the note away, and opened it.

It read, in artsy letters: I saw you and Scout, and I wasn’t the only one. Watch your back.

A knot of fear rose in my throat. I turned around and pressed my back against my locker, trying to slow my heart. Someone had seen me and Scout—someone, maybe, who’d followed us from the library through the main building to the door behind which the monster lay sleeping.

The bells rang, signaling the end of class.

I crumpled the note in my hand.

One crisis at a time, I thought. One crisis at a time.

7

I waited until Scout had returned to the suite after classes, during our chunk of free time before dinner, to tell her about the note. We headed to my room to avoid the brat pack, who’d already taken over the common room. Why they’d opted to hang out in our suite mystified me, given their animosity toward Scout, but as Scout had said, they seemed to have a thing for drama. I guessed they were looking for opportunities.

When my bedroom door was shut and the lock was flipped, I pulled the note from the pocket of my hoodie and passed it over.

Scout paled, then held it up. “Where did this come from?”

“My locker. I found it after I left Foley’s office. And that’s actually part two of the story.”

Scout sat down on the floor, then rolled over onto her stomach, booted feet crossed in the air. I sat down on my bed, crossing my legs beneath me, and filled her in on my time in Foley’s office and the things she’d said about my parents. The genetic stuff aside, Scout was surprised that Foley seemed interested in me at all. Foley wasn’t known for being interested in her students; she was more focused on numbers—Ivy League acceptance rates and SAT scores. Individual students, to Foley, were just bits of data within the larger—and much more important—statistics.

“Maybe she feels sorry for me?” I asked. “Being abandoned by my parents for a European vacation?”

Okay, I can admit that sounded pretty pitiful, but Scout didn’t buy it, anyway. “No way,” she said. “This is a boarding school. No one’s parents are around. Now, she said what? That your parents are doing research in genetics?”

I nodded. “That’s exactly what she said. But my parents teach philosophy. I mean—they do research, sure. They write articles—that’s why they’re traveling right now. But not on genetics. Not on biology. They were into Heidegger and existentialism and stuff.”

“Huh,” Scout said with a frown, chin propped on her hand. “That’s really strange. And you went to their offices, and stuff? I mean, they weren’t just dumbing down their job to help you understand what they did?”