4

They look … intimidating. Powerful. And perhaps most surprisingly … not the least bit ridiculous. They look like they belong here. Like whatever it is they’re doing, they were born to do this.

The one in the middle holds something up between his outstretched hands. At first, I’m not sure what it is. He lifts it higher until it’s clutched high above his head.

When he opens his mouth, his voice carries loud and clear.

“We, The Brotherhood.”

In unison, the two boys standing at either of his sides shout the same.

As soon as their jaws clamp shut again, the boy in the middle sweeps his arms down in a sudden, smooth movement, sending the thing in his hand crashing to the ground. It smashes in an explosion of ceramic shards and ash.

The whole hall fills with thick, choking smoke.

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I throw up my hand to shield my face, but it isn’t until the dust has started to settle that I realize I’m suddenly standing alone. Everyone else had the good sense to step back out of the way. With the rest of them hidden in the settling ash, it feels like I’m standing in the midst of an empty chasm.

Movement above draws my gaze back to the top of the stairs.

The air has started to clear on the landing.

As I watch, the three boys each reach down and take a handful of ash. They smear the dark powder across their cheeks and chests like great swaths of warpaint. Once they’re finished, each one of them straightens back up and stares ahead again.

“The Brotherhood Lives.”

This time, the chant comes from all around me, instead of from the boys up above. It scares me shitless, making me jump and whirl around as the ash finally starts to settle enough for me to make the rest of them out. Behind me—much further behind me—the students repeat the chant several more times. The only one who doesn’t is the dean, who though he doesn’t look entirely pleased with the ritual, isn’t doing anything to stop it either.

Well, this is fucking fantastic. I think I’ve joined a cult.

When I glance back up to the top of the stairs, the boys are gone.

But this isn’t the last I’m going to hear of this. I know it when the last of the ash settles enough for me to finally catch sight of Rafael among the rest of my crazy new classmates.

As soon as he spots me, he covers his face with his hands and I know that once again, I’ve done something wrong.

But something else tells me this time, the fix isn’t going to be so simple as biting down my nails or taking a draw on a cigarette. And it might have something to do with the fact that, like the boys at the top of the stairs, I somehow ended up being the only other student smeared with that same ash.

Chapter Four

After a display like that, I half expect shadowy figures to appear all around us in dark cloaks chanting something ominous, probably in Latin.

But instead, everything returns to such stark normalcy that it leaves my head spinning.

“Everyone should take this opportunity to finish unpacking their things and tying up any final affairs before dinner,” Dean Withers says calmly, the only hint that anything totally weird and cultish just happened being the slight cough that punctuates the end of his sentence. “We will meet in the dining hall promptly at seven. Anyone late will be turned away. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the voices chorus around me. I try to join in, but between the ash I’ve sucked into my lungs and that cigarette earlier, all I manage is a pathetic wheeze.

While the rest of the boys start to disperse, none of them giving off the slightest hint that anything out of the normal just happened, the Dean turns directly to me.

“And you are … Alex, I presume?”

The only good thing about the ash covering me head-to-toe is that it hides the full extent of how red my face actually gets.

“Yes, sir.”

“You were late,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Did your driver get lost?”

If I thought my face was red before …

“I took the bus,” I say, tacking on a hasty “sir” to the end.

His face pinches up. “Ah yes. I forgot. You won the contest, yes?”

The way he says it makes me want to reassure him that though I’m not Aston-Martin-for-my-sixteenth-birthday rich, it’s not like I’ve spent the first part of my life roughing it in the streets of Victorian London.

But since I’m already probably in enough trouble as it is, I just shove my pride even further down where the sun don’t shine and nod my head.

Before the vice-dean can say anything else, we’re interrupted by the muffled clatter of heels on the stone floor. A woman, so tall and slender that she towers above nearly everyone present, appears over his shoulder.

“Ah, Withers, I was wondering when we’d get to meet the scholarship recipient.”

Only I see the moment it takes him to compose the Dean’s face. For one brief moment, I see an intense hatred there. By the time he whirls around the greet her, it’s been replaced by a broad, welcoming smile.

Good to know I can’t trust him, anyway.

“Headmistress Robin!” he exclaims, holding out his arms as if he expects her to run to embrace him.

She maintains her position, only nodding her head slightly at him. ”Again, it’s Dean Robin. But so good to see you, too. The summers just seem to keep getting longer and longer, don’t they? I was just starting to think I’d never have to see you again.”

Dean Withers is about to respond, but then he pauses as the meaning of what she just said starts to sink in. She doesn’t wait for him to reply. Unlike Withers, she doesn’t try to hide the flicker of distaste on her features. Instead, she turns sharply back to me.

“Alex, isn’t it?”

She sticks out her hand, then thinks better of it when she sees the grime covering mine. She recovers nicely by clasping her palms together in front of her well-fitted pencil skirt.

“I’m the dean of the preparatory school across the valley,” she explains, for my benefit. “I helped Horace here sort through the scholarship applications. If it was up to him, I think he would have just picked out the one with the oldest-sounding family name and been done with it!”

Her tinkling laugh does nothing to cut the meaning of her words.

“Well, some of us actually have a proper school to run,” the dean grumbles.

“Anyway,” she says airily, brushing his words aside like a distracting gnat, “I just wanted to offer you my sincerest congratulations. Your essay was … remarkable. You just don’t often see that sort of raw emotional intelligence in a boy so young as yourself,” she says.

Normally, this kind of praise would go straight to my head. I’d be strutting around like a peacock for a week, trying to find any reason to bring the topic up in casual conversation. But right now, with Withers straight-up scowling behind this terrifyingly chirpy lady, I just find myself wishing someone else would smash an urn so I could slip into the dust and disappear.

But since no one seems determined to do that, I just manage a gravelly, “Um. Thank you?”

Dean Withers scowls more. I can’t have the dean hating me already. I don’t know much about this place, but I do know that.

So, I squint up at the woman and cock my head to the side. “Who was it you said you were, again? The headmistress of the girl’s school?”

I watch as a little part of her dies inside. She unclasps and then clasps her hands several times, her lips pressing into a tight line as her smile turns less than genuine.

Behind her, Dean Withers straightens back up and for a second, we share an understanding look. It worked. I might not have completely won over the dean, but I’ve avoided being branded an utter traitor on my first day.

Why then does my stomach feel so sour?

“Well, anyway, I just wanted to let you know you can come see me any time. I’m excited by this new direction Bleakwood is taking.”

“As are all of us,” Dean Withers says, loud enough to make it clear he’s announcing an end to her little interruption. “Now, unless you came all the way over here to say what could have been communicated in an email …”

He trails off with an all-knowing look.

“Of course not,” she says.

Dean Withers holds out an arm to usher her in the opposite direction. “And Rafael?” he calls over his shoulder.

I turn around to see Rafael freeze in the doorway, nearly having made his escape.