The Nightmare Dilemma

28 Roadblock

The only lead we had left to follow was Mr. Corvus, but after getting caught by Miss Norton, we needed to proceed with caution. Breaking into another teacher’s office the very next day seemed the worst of ideas, but we had no choice.

After a long debate, we decided the best thing was for Eli to do it alone during our third-period history class. That way both Selene and I would be present to deter Mr. Corvus from leaving the classroom. There was still a risk of Eli getting caught by one of the Will Guard, but they didn’t bother patrolling the floors that were mostly faculty hallways very often.

The moment the bell rang for the start of third period, Mr. Corvus walked up to my desk and fixed his imperious gaze on me. “Where is Mr. Booker this morning?”

“I think he went to the infirmary,” I answered with no hesitation. “Said he had a headache. We had psionics last period.”

Mr. Corvus flexed his jaw as he decided whether or not to believe me. I kept my eyes on him, not fidgeting. The story had enough believability in it that there was no reason for Corvus not to swallow it. Coming down with a headache after studying mind-magic for an hour was common. And it wasn’t like Eli had a reputation for ditching.

“All right,” Mr. Corvus said, and then he returned to the front of the classroom and started teaching.

I barely heard a word he said, my ears straining for the sound of Eli’s arrival. It was only by sheer force of will that I kept myself from glancing at the door every few seconds.

But less than five minutes after class began, Eli arrived. I frowned at him as he walked in and handed a note to Mr. Corvus. I held my breath. The note was a forgery. A few months ago, during his brief stay in the infirmary after our takedown of Marrow, Eli managed to snag an empty pass with the head nurse’s signature on it. He’d since made a couple of copies of it, but this was the first time he’d used one. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could get away with often.

Corvus studied the pass a moment then nodded. “Very well. Have a seat.”

Eli turned up the aisle and took the desk next to mine. I sent him a questioning look, but he just shook his head. My impatience to learn what he’d found out made the rest of class pass even slower. But when the bell rang, Eli refused to tell us anything until we were in the cafeteria, our conversation safely disguised by the surrounding noise.

“I couldn’t get in.”

“What?” Selene and I said in unison.

Eli grimaced. “The moonwort key wouldn’t work. I put it in the keyhole but nothing happened. It might as well have been just a piece of wood.”

I bit my lip and glanced at Selene—she knew more about these things than Eli and I did. “How’s that possible?”

Selene sighed. “The door must be enchanted against it. Most people don’t bother because moonwort is so rare, but I suppose there are some paranoid enough to protect against it anyway.”

Eli thumped his fist on the table. “That’s just perfect. Leave it to Mr. Corvus to be paranoid.”

I thought about his eye patch. “Well, it does sort of suit him. But yeah, this sucks. Do you know how to pick a lock the manual way?”

Eli leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head. “Yeah, but I don’t have the tools to do it. My dad has some, but it would take time for me to get them, and my dad would kill me if he found out.”

Judging by his dark tone, I had a feeling this expression carried more weight with his police officer father than it did for most parents.

I slouched against the table, resting my head on my arms. “So what do we do now?”

Eli scratched his cheek. “We still have The Atlantean Chronicle. I’m about halfway through it. I’ll try to finish up before our dream-session tonight.”

“Okay,” I said unenthusiastically. I’d already scanned through each page and hadn’t found anything and so had Selene. But Eli insisted that one of us might catch something the others had missed.

“And we might finally have a breakthrough with the dream,” Eli added, casting me a significant look.

I didn’t reply. I had my hopes set on learning the last two letters of the name this afternoon with Mr. Deverell, but I didn’t want to jinx it.

“But what do we do if neither pans out?” asked Selene, glancing between Eli and me.

Eli leaned back and ran his hands over his head. “If we don’t, then we have to go to Brackenberry and Lady Elaine with what we do have.” He fixed his gaze on me as if he sensed the protest already rising to my lips. “We have to, Dusty. I know it puts Paul at risk, but not telling them could put even more people at risk.”

I looked down at the table and took a deep breath. He was right, of course, and I’d already known it. Still, as I nodded, I couldn’t help the hopelessness that came over me, and the certainty of coming doom.

The bad feelings followed me into my session with Deverell. I struggled to concentrate, my desire to succeed in direct opposition to my ability to do so. Several times Mr. Deverell admonished me to relax and focus, insisting that I was proving to be my biggest obstacle. I tried to do what he said, I really did. But when the session ended, two hours later, I’d only managed to uncover one letter. Just one. So close and yet still impossibly far away.

B E L L A N A

The name meant nothing to me. Nothing at all.

Except failure.

As I walked away from Mr. Deverell’s classroom, my cell phone felt like an iron weight in my pocket. I pulled it out, and for the first time in months, I dialed Paul’s number.

He answered on the first ring.

“Can you meet me?”

“Sure. Anywhere.”

I thought about it for a couple of seconds, trying to decide on the place. Somewhere outside and public would be best, I knew, and yet I wanted to talk to him alone. To my surprise, the idea didn’t frighten me. Somehow these last few days, I’d gotten accustomed to being around him.

“How about … our alcove?” I knew he would understand which one I was talking about, the one hidden deep in the tunnels and where we’d shared our last kiss.

I heard Paul draw a breath, as shocked by the location as I’d been to name it, but he recovered quickly. “All right. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

As I walked along the dark tunnel leading to the alcove, I tried not to think about my motives. Everything with Paul was too confused to try and figure it out. With the soft, soothing sound of the canal water echoing off the wet walls, it was surprisingly easy not to think. I kept my gaze partly fixed on the water, drawing some small comfort from its motion. Several times I saw the telltale swirl as a naiad swam by, and once I even caught the colorful flash of a merkind fin. It occurred to me how strange my life was, and yet how wonderful, too, in the quiet, peaceful moments like this.

But when I rounded the corner into the alcove and found Paul waiting for me, the quiet vanished in an instant. Paul didn’t smile when he spotted me, but his eyes lit up in that special way of his I remembered so well—the kind of way that made me feel welcome and wanted. Needed.

I pushed down the surge of bittersweet memory and approached him.

“Hey,” he said. “Do you want to sit?” He motioned to the edge of the small pool where we’d once dangled our feet together.

I shook my head. “What I have to say won’t take that long.”

“Oh.” Paul lowered his gaze, looking diminished. “What is it?”

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Maybe I should’ve sat down. Did bad news go over better that way? People in movies always seemed to think so, but I doubted it would matter much. “I’m sorry, Paul, but it looks like we’re not going to find proof about your uncle in time to stop whatever he’s got planned tomorrow.”

“Nothing panned out with Corvus?”

“Not yet.” I exhaled, mustering my courage. “But you see, the thing is…”

Paul raised his hand, stopping me. “It’s okay, Dusty. I understand.”

I blinked, surprised by his certainty. “You do?”

“Sure.” A crooked smile crossed his face. “You and Eli and Selene have no choice but to go to the sheriff with what you do know.”

“Yes … that’s … that’s right.”

Paul smirked. “Don’t sound so surprised. I know you find this hard to believe but I can sometimes recognize the right thing to do. Hell, I can even do it occasionally.” He flashed that crooked smile again. “Shocking, I know.”

I could tell he was joking, but it fell flat. “It’s not that I think you don’t know the difference between right and wrong. I just think you have a tendency to choose badly. A lot.”

“I suppose that’s a fair statement.” He bent over and picked up a couple of pebbles. Then he straightened and started tossing them one by one into the pool. “It didn’t used to be that way, you know. All my life I chose good even when my uncle was beat”—he paused, catching himself—“even when things were hard. But then Marrow came along and changed everything.”

His voice sounded strange, full of contradictory emotions, both sadness and relief, love and hate.

“Do you regret it?” I asked, surprising myself by the question.

Paul looked up, his eyes bright. He held me with his gaze. “Yes. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I could take it back. Especially Rosemary. I dream about her all the time … nightmares that you can’t even imagine.” He shuddered, at last dropping his gaze. He tossed another stone.

I didn’t say anything, still torn between belief and doubt. But then Paul dropped the last pebble into the pool and crossed the small distance between us. He placed his hands on my arms, his touch so light he might’ve been made of air instead of flesh.

“And I regret what I did to you. More than anything,” he spoke in a whisper, and his voice moved through me as if my skin were permeable. “I’m sorry, Dusty. And I’ll do whatever you want to make things right. So go to Brackenberry. Tell him everything you think you should.”

I held my breath, feeling something inside me shift, my internal gauge for him moving from doubt to belief. Then I exhaled as the change brought a sweet relief like setting down a heavy burden I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying.

Acting on impulse, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and held it out to him.

Paul looked at it as if he’d never seen one before. “What are you doing?”

“Take it. Do whatever you need to do.”

Paul’s fingers slid around mine, as if he intended to take my hand along with the phone.

“You keep it.” Paul pushed my hand into my chest. “Give it to the sheriff. To get to the app press the home button three times and then swipe to the left twice. The pass code is three-eight-seven-eight-nine-seven. It’ll open the app and all the files, too.”

My mouth fell open, even as my mind repeated the numbers, committing them to memory. “You’re giving it to me? But why?”

In answer, Paul leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “You already know.” He let go of me then and started walking toward the mouth of the tunnel. But he paused and turned around. “Say, you, um, wouldn’t ever consider maybe giving it a go with me again, would you? That is, assuming I’m still alive come Sunday.”

It was such the wrong question at the wrong time, and I found myself wanting to cry and laugh at once. “Just promise that you’ll stay alive no matter what and we’ll talk about it.”

“Deal,” he said. And then he disappeared into the darkness.