ログイン"Rule six," I told the team. "Nobody dies.""That's the same as rule one," said Wyatt."I'm emphasizing.""Can we have a rule that nobody gets hit with a net?" asked Rowan."No.""I'd like to propose an amendment.""Rowan.""Sorry."It was one in the morning, Day 70, and we were crouched in the dark behind the Academy kitchens, eating stolen biscuits and trying not to look suspicious. There were five of us. Me, Wyatt, Snow, Rowan with his hawk, and a very small, very shiny peacock chick perched on my shoulder, who was pretending to be an ornament.Molly was not with us. Molly had a different job."Run through it again," said Wyatt, in the low, tired voice of a man who had not slept in three nights."The wine vault is under the old chapel," I said. "There's one main door, guarded by two Imperial soldiers. One window, barred. And a secret passage from the kitchen, which nobody remembers.""How do you know about the passage?""I wrote it in chapter twenty-two.""Wrote it?""Discovered it
Thirty-two days.I burned the Dean's note at breakfast, in a tin cup, with my whole camp watching."That's a lot of smoke for one letter," said Tilda."It's a very dramatic letter.""Was it a love letter?""It was a hostage letter.""Those are worse," said Tilda, with the air of a woman who knew.I stirred the ashes with a spoon. The line was still burning in my head. The password is the name of the first beast you chose. I had asked myself a hundred times who could have known, and every answer made my stomach hurt.Molly knew. Marl knew. Wyatt knew, thanks to a very awkward hallway. Pudding knew, and Pudding could not keep a secret to save his life."It could be a forgery," said Molly, chewing a heel of bread. "Somebody who wants us to think the Dean's in trouble.""It could be real," said Wyatt, from the other side of the table. He had not spoken to me in three days, except to say "grain." He was cleaning a knife with the dedication of a man who did not want to talk about it. "Blyth
"You're not speaking to him," said Molly."I'm speaking to him.""You said 'pass the salt' with your eyes shut.""I was tired.""You have been tired for three days, Nora. It's very suspicious. You haven't called me your friend, you haven't made a single joke, and you've started writing lists in the margins. Biscuit thinks you're plotting a murder.""I'm plotting a boat," I said."It looks like a murder."We were standing at the edge of the cavern lake at Greyspire, in the cold dusk light that filtered through the ridge, watching Marl and his brothers hammer the ribs of a very large, very ugly wooden hull. It had been going up for six days. It looked like a barn. It looked like a barn that had been told it was a ship and had not believed it."It's the ugliest boat I have ever seen," said Molly, with feeling."It's not meant to be pretty.""It looks like a very large coffin.""Well… It's meant to float.""It looks like it might sink and take us all down for company.""Molly.”"I'm only
"Psst."I ignored it."Psst. Nora."I kept walking. It was dusk, and I was crossing the Academy gardens with a basket of grain samples under one arm, a peacock in my collar, and a headache the size of the Dragon Spire. I had spent the afternoon avoiding four Imperial guards, one Inspector, and a boy named Wyatt who had stopped talking to me but kept looking at me, like a man doing a very long sum.I did not have time for a hissing hedge."Nora Wells. I know you can hear me.""I can hear you," I said, without turning. "I'm choosing not to.""That is extremely rude.""So is breaking into my room and stealing my pills."A pause."That was a long time ago," said the hedge."It was thirteen days ago.""It feels like a long time."I stopped. I sighed. I turned around.A glossy black snake with golden eyes was coiled on a low stone bench, looking at me the way a cat looks at a mouse that has just made a joke."Jax," I said."Nora.""What do you want?""A conversation." He lifted his head. "A
The new student arrived at breakfast with a wolf the size of a pony and the personality of a locked door."Don't stare," Molly hissed, stirring her porridge so hard that it slopped. "He bites.""Who? The boy or the wolf?""Both, probably."I looked up.He was tall, dark-haired, broad-shouldered, in a plain grey coat with the Academy crest pinned crookedly on the lapel. He had a face like a cold winter morning, sharp and quiet and a little tired. At his heel walked a white wolf, huge and silent, with eyes the color of ice.Wyatt Frost.I had written him for a single scene, in chapter forty-four. A northern boy who had arrived late to the Academy, with a wolf he never explained, and who had been a perfectly pleasant background character until I ran out of ideas for him. I had given him a nice jaw because it helped the pacing.I had never given him a plot."He's a transfer," said Molly. "From the Northern Marches. The Dean put him in your logistics team.""My what?""You're in charge of
"Rule five," I told Pip, in the carriage. "Do not bite the Inspector.""I would never.""You bit a goat last week.""The goat provoked me.""The goat was asleep.""It had a very smug face," said Pip, from inside my collar, in a voice of wounded dignity.I pressed my forehead to the carriage window. It was a gloomy morning. The sky was the color of dishwater, and every farm we passed had its shutters closed. Somewhere ahead, in the grand courtyard of Skyfang, an Inspector from the Imperial Vaults was waiting to ask a girl with White Blood to step into a cage.I did not intend to be that girl.I had three things going for me. First, Dean Miller, who I was almost sure was on my side. Second, Elder Hugh, who had already lied once to protect me. And third, a small leather pouch in my pocket that contained a very cheerful lie."Tell me again," said Molly, riding opposite me with Biscuit on her lap, "why I'm here.""Because you're my alibi.""For what?""For everything.""What if he asks me







