Allie wouldn’t let her finish. ‘And found what you were looking for, yes. You’re welcome.’ She rested her hands on her hips in a defiant posture. ‘Anything else you want to thank us for? Warning the students their parents were on Nathaniel’s side? Giving them a chance to make their own decisions? Thinking on our feet? Being innovative? Doing your jobs?’
‘Enough.’ Isabelle’s powerful voice rang out in the empty room. ‘You’ve made your point. Now sit down. I have a lunchtime workshop scheduled and the students will arrive in a few minutes.’
Allie hesitated a second – she could, after all, just storm out in protest – but she really wanted to hear what Isabelle had to say.
With reluctant slowness, she lowered herself on to a nearby seat.
Placing her hands flat on Allie’s desk, Isabelle lowered her gaze to hers. ‘What you did – invading Mr Zelazny’s private space – was in complete violation of The Rules. You had no right to take it upon yourself to do that. If he ever found out what you did I don’t like to think what his reaction would be. If Lucinda found out you’d be lucky to still be at this school.’
Allie exhaled a long, relieved breath – Zelazny didn’t know. They hadn’t told him.
The rest – Isabelle’s lecture – didn’t really matter. She’d known all that when she walked through Zelazny’s door.
‘What was he doing with the key?’ Allie asked, searching Isabelle’s fine-boned face for clues. ‘Have you asked him? Is he the one?’
The headmistress closed her eyes for a second as if summoning strength. ‘Allie, you must let us handle this – this is what we do.’
Her voice fairly crackled with frustration but Allie refused to back down.
‘You didn’t even know he had the key —’
‘We did know.’ Isabelle’s voice rose. ‘And the key is now back in the book again. Please, for the love of God, leave it there.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
D
isbelief made it impossible for Allie to speak for a moment. She couldn’t seem to get her brain to function.
‘You… you… what?’ Allie stuttered in shock. ‘I… I don’t…’
‘Understand? No, I don’t suppose you do.’ Isabelle smoothed the dark blonde hair which had begun escaping from her hairclip; as if her rage had been transmitted to her hair follicles. When she spoke again, her voice was more controlled. ‘Allie, Raj and I are investigating all the people who could be Nathaniel’s spy. All of them. And we have been for months now. We know everything in everyone’s rooms down to the tiniest speck of dust. Down to the fingerprints on their books. And the earplugs in their bedside tables.’
As she tried to process this, Allie held up a hand – she needed Isabelle to stop talking while she thought it all through.
‘Why did you leave the key there, though?’ she asked after a second. ‘Why haven’t you just questioned him about it?’
‘If he’s Nathaniel’s spy we can learn more by not making him aware we’re watching him,’ the headmistress replied. ‘He could inadvertently lead us to Nathaniel, or reveal others who are working with him. Once we show our hand we’ll get nothing from him.’
This made a dark kind of sense. But there were others involved, too. Other questions unanswered.
‘If you think it’s him, why hold Eloise?’ Allie asked. ‘Is she just, like… what? A decoy?’
‘Yes and no. At first we thought she might be the spy. Now we’re fairly certain she’s not but we’re holding her so the real spy can believe we’re not paying attention. We’ve reduced patrols of the grounds for the same reason, and suspended Night School.’
Sighing, Isabelle sat down in the desk next to her.
‘Allie, there are more guards watching this school right now than there have ever been. The night you all went to the cottage, you were watched all the way there.’
All other sound receded. The noise of students chatting in the corridor outside the classroom could have been on another continent. Allie couldn’t even hear her own heartbeat any more.
We were watched the whole time? Did they watch me and Carter?
Had someone watched them kiss? Stood by impassively as they revealed their deepest feelings about each other?
The thought of such an invasion of their privacy made her stomach churn.
When she looked up, she saw Isabelle was waiting for her to say something. Trying to appear calm, Allie cleared her throat, but could only manage one word.
‘How…?’
‘The guards don’t patrol any more,’ Isabelle said simply. ‘They hide and watch. They communicate using a new system Raj brought in. It’s changed everything.’
Even as Allie absorbed this bit of information – nodding like a normal person – in her mind the same words were circulating on a vicious loop.
… watched all the way. You were watched all the way. You were watched…
Isabelle was still talking but Allie only barely heard her. ‘You must have seen them using microphones – they have tiny earpieces. It’s the first technology we’ve allowed on campus in more than five years. It has changed the way we work.