Firespell (The Dark Elite 1)

“Come in,” I said.

The door opened and closed, followed by the sound of heels clacking on the tile floor. Foley appeared from around the corner, hands clasped before her, a tidy, pale suit on her slender frame, ash-blond hair tidy at her shoulders. Her expression was all business.

“Ms. Parker.” Foley walked to the window, pushed aside a couple of the slats in the blinds, and glanced out at the city. “How are you feeling?”

“Good, considering.”

“You lost consciousness,” she said. Said, not asked.

“That’s what I hear.”

“Yes, well. I trust, Ms. Parker, that you understand the importance of our institution’s reputation, and of the value of discretion. We, of course, do not wish to elicit untoward attention regarding the hijinks of our students. It would not serve St. Sophia’s, nor its students or alumnae, for the community or the press to believe that our institution is not a safe place for its students.”

I don’t know what she knew about what went on—or what she thought went on—but she was certainly keen on keeping it quiet.

“I also trust that you understand well enough the importance of caring for your physical well-being, and that you will take sufficient care to ensure that you do not lose consciousness again.”

That made me sit up a little straighter. What did she think—that I was starving myself and I’d passed out for lack of food? If only she’d seen the private moment I shared with the pudding cup earlier.

“I take care of myself,” I assured her.

“All evidence to the contrary.”

Okay, honestly, there was a tiny part of me that wanted to rat on Scout, Jason, Michael, and the rest of the Adepts, or at least on the brat packers who threw me into harm’s way. It would have been satisfying to wipe that smug expression from Foley’s face, and replace it with something a bit more sympathetic.

There were two problems with that theory.

First, I wasn’t entirely sure Foley was capable of sympathy.

Second, I had to be honest. I hadn’t gone downstairs because Veronica and the rest of her cronies had forced me. And I’d made my way down the other hallway—and into the Reapers’ path—because I’d decided to play junior explorer. I’d been curious, and I’d walked that plank willingly.

Besides, I could have walked away from all of it earlier. I could have stepped aside, told Jason, Michael, and Scout that I didn’t want to be included in their magical mystery tour, and let them handle their Reaper problems on their own. But I’d invited their trust by asking them to fill me in, and I wasn’t about to betray it.

So this time, I’d take one for the team. But Scout so owed me.

“You’re right,” I told her. Her eyes instantaneously widened, as if she were surprised a teenager would agree with her orders. “It’s been a stressful week.” Total truth. “I should take better care of myself.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “That’s a surprisingly mature attitude.”

“I’m surprisingly mature.” It wasn’t that I wanted to snark back to the principal of my high school, the head honcho (honchess?) of the place I lived, slept, ate, and learned. But her attitude, her assumption that I was here because I lacked some fundamental ability to keep myself safe, practically begged for snark.

On the other hand, since I’d made the decision to move deeper into the convent instead of heading back to my room, maybe I did.

Foley lifted her brows, and her expression made her thoughts on my snark pretty clear. “Ms. Parker, we take the well-being of our students and the reputation of our institution very seriously.”

Given what was going on beneath her institution, I wondered about that. But I managed to keep my mouth shut.

“I expect you’ll return to St. Sophia’s tomorrow?”

“That’s what they say.”

Foley nodded. “Very well. I’ve asked Ms. Green to gather your assignments. Given that tomorrow’s Saturday, you’ll have some time to complete them before classes resume. I’ll arrange for a car to transport you back to St. Sophia’s. If you require anything before your return, you may contact our staff.”

I nodded. Her work apparently done, she walked toward the door. But then she glanced back.

“About our conversation,” she said, “perhaps I was . . . ill informed about your parents’ professions.”

I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the about-face. “Ill informed?”

“I recognize that you, of course, would know better than I the nature of your parents’ work.” She glanced down at her watch. “I need to return to the school. Enjoy your evening.”

My mind began to race, but I managed to bob my head as she disappeared around the corner, then opened and closed the door again.

I stared down at the remote control in my hand for a minute after she’d left, flipping it through my fingers as I ruminated.

It was weird enough that she’d dropped by in the first place—I mean, how many high school principals visited their students in the hospital? She clearly had her own theories about what had happened to me—namely, that it was my fault. I guess she wanted to cover her bases, make sure I wasn’t going to spill to the media or call a lawyer about my “accident.”

But then, out of the blue, she brought up my parents and changed her story? And even weirder, she actually seemed sincere. Contrite, even, and Foley didn’t exactly seem like the nurturing type, much less the type to admit when she was wrong.

I gnawed the edge of my lip and gave the remote a final flip. Call it what you want—Reapers, Adepts, magic, firespell, whatever. Things were seriously weird at St. Sophia’s.

True to the doc’s word, I was released the next morning. True to Foley’s word, one of the glasses-clad matrons who usually patrolled the study hall brought casual clothes for me to change into—jeans and a T-shirt, probably selected by Scout—and signed me out. A nurse wheeled me, invalid style, to the front door of the clinic and the St. Sophia’s-branded minivan that sat at the curb. The matron was silent on the way back to the convent, but it was a pretty short ride—only a few blocks back to my new home on Erie. They dropped me off at the front door without a word, and I headed up the stairs and into the building. Although I’d been gone only a couple of days, the convent seemed almost . . . foreign. It hadn’t yet begun to feel like home, but now, it felt farther from Sagamore than ever.