She searched the main school building without success before trying the classroom wing. Students were still in classes, and most of the doors were shut. She could hear the teachers talking, a faint drone in the background as she hurried upstairs to check the next level. It was much the same – there was no obvious place for Dom here.
The top floor of the classroom wing was dedicated mostly to seminars for senior students, so the classrooms were smaller and more numerous. All were empty at this hour – the corridor was gloomy and too quiet. Allie found herself tiptoeing – as if not to disturb the silence. That was when she first heard the faint tapping sound.
She paused to listen. The noise was arrhythmic but constant.
She traced it – going from door to door until she reached one where the sound was louder. This close she could hear something else as well.
Music.
She knocked.
‘Enter.’ Dom’s American accent flattened her vowels and elongated the ‘r’.
Allie burst in, already talking. ‘What’s happening? Is it Carter? Have you found him?’
Her words poured out in a breathless race.
‘Sort of.’ Dom stood up from a desk at one end of the room. Allie’s hope began to dissipate instantly – she looked too serious for this to be good news.
Allie’s chest tightened. ‘What do you mean, sort of?’
‘I’ve heard his voice.’ Dom’s tone was calm. ‘He’s definitely alive. I just… can’t exactly find him.’
Like Eloise, Dom was young, twenty-one according to gossip, but she was a technical genius. She had started a software company while still at Harvard, and sold it for millions of dollars.
A former Cimmeria student, she’d returned to the school to help them deal with Nathaniel, but her distinctive, androgynous style always set her apart from the school’s conservative teachers. Today she wore a button-down shirt of a heavy creamy material, with baggy trousers cinched tight around her narrow waist. Her burgundy brogues had been polished until they gleamed. With her dark skin and short-cropped hair, she was so sophisticated, Allie was usually a little in awe her.
But today all she cared about was Carter.
‘You’ve heard his voice?’ Allie wanted to shake the news out of her. ‘How? When?’
Dom stepped back. ‘You better come in, and close the door.’
Allie did as she was told. The room had once been a classroom, but it had been transformed into a spacious office. The desks had all been removed, leaving only an oak teacher’s desk, which Dom had accessorised with a sleek, black office chair. Three laptops sat side by side on the desktop. A widescreen monitor was mounted on the wall. Four leather chairs Allie thought she recognised from the common room surrounded a round wooden table that might have been harvested from the dining hall. A red Persian rug with a design of gold stars covered the floor.
Allie could hear the faint sound of jazz – the discordant kind, rather than the jolly World War II kind – swirling from hidden speakers.
‘Have a seat.’ Dom pointed at the chairs by the table, but Allie shook her head. She didn’t want to sit down. She wasn’t here for a chat.
‘Please, Dom. If you know something, just tell me.’ She couldn’t keep a pleading note out of her voice. ‘Where is he?’
Behind her glasses, Dom’s eyes were sympathetic. ‘That’s the one thing I don’t know.’
Allie wanted to scream in frustration. It took all her determination to keep her voice steady. ‘What do you know? Is he hurt? Where did you hear him?’
‘I hacked into Nathaniel’s comms system. I’ve been listening to them all night.’ Dom hurried back to her desk and began typing rapidly on one of the laptops. This was the sound Allie had heard from the hallway. ‘His system is well-protected. His people are very good, but…’ She paused to glance at the monitor. ‘I’m better.’
The jazz disappeared, replaced by a cold voice. ‘Item secured. Team Eight en route. Over.’
The sound crackled but Allie recognised it instantly: Gabe.
Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. The last time she saw Gabe he killed Lucinda. It turned her stomach to hear his voice.
It was hard to be here. Hard to know he lived on, while her grandmother’s life was over. But she made herself focus on small things. In the background, she could hear an engine rumbling – a vehicle of some sort – and other voices talking.
Then a second voice replied to Gabe. ‘Copy Team Eight. Gold Command requests verification of condition of item. Over.’
Gabe responded a moment later. ‘Item is conscious and aware. Condition good.’
Time passed. Then the second voice spoke again. ‘Gold Command requests verbal verification from item.’
Allie couldn’t put her finger on it, but something in that voice – a cool, undertone of distaste – told her the person didn’t like Gabe.
There was another long silence, broken suddenly by harsh breathing, and the clunking sound of a microphone being fumbled with.
Gabe spoke from a slight distance. ‘Verify your condition.’
A new voice replied, sardonic; unafraid. ‘How the hell do I do that?’
Allie’s heart leaped. It was Carter. She’d know that voice anywhere.
6