Night School: Legacy

He gazed at her expectantly, his expression pure humility. She had to say something.

‘Uh … Sure, Ze— Mr Zelazny,’ she said. ‘That would be great. And thank you, I … I guess.’ Watching him as if he might bite her, she took a step towards the door. ‘I should probably …’

‘Oh yes,’ he said. She thought she could see a glimmer of resentment in his small blue eyes but his voice held nothing except beneficence. ‘Go and join the class. If you need extra time, do take it. No hurry.’

Allie fled the room so quickly she nearly stumbled over Zoe, who was outside with her ear pressed to the door.

As they jogged away into the freezing darkness, Zoe said, ‘He is so unbelievably lame.’

The whole thing made Allie’s skin crawl. ‘He … grovelled.’

Zoe stopped running to pogo with malicious joy – it was a clear night, and in the moonlight she looked like a manic forest imp. ‘It was awesome. He thinks you’ll tell your grandmother bad things about him.’ Pausing to think, she added, ‘Blimey, considering how he treated you he must be terrified.’

‘I need to take a shower.’ Allie increased her pace. ‘Right now.’

But there was no time to wash away the memory of that meeting. Instead, after their run, Raj Patel put them through a particularly brutal series of martial-arts style manoeuvres. No matter how painful it was, Allie didn’t mind the work; his training had helped her escape from Gabe.

Stopping to rest, she watched as Sylvain and his training partner practised a complex escape move. Sylvain’s partner attacked with a flying leap, but Sylvain parried him as easily as if he were a child, flinging him on to the mat. Afterward, he leaned over to help him up with an apologetic grin.

As if he’d felt her gaze, his eyes darted up to meet hers. For a long second she froze. He studied her curiously, as if he wondered what she was thinking. Colour flooding her cheeks, she dropped her eyes and crouched down to tighten her shoelace.

‘Your attention, please.’ They all turned to look as Zelazny walked to the centre of the room. ‘Raj Patel would like to say a few words to you about some things that will be happening over the next few weeks.’

Mr Patel walked to the centre of the room with a confident stride and turned in a circle to see them all. ‘As you know, my firm has been maintaining security at Cimmeria throughout the autumn term. You may also know that a meeting of the G8 is scheduled to happen outside London in two weeks, and we will be providing security for that. At the same time, the winter ball will be held here attracting a number of international dignitaries. So our resources are going to be stretched.’

His eyes met Allie’s for a second and she felt a chill of fear.

Something’s wrong.

‘I’m pulling in extra staff for this period but we’ll need your help. We’re putting Night School back on its regular patrols. You’ve been training towards this for months now, and you’re ready. You’ll be working directly with some of my team, who will be staying behind while the rest of us are away. These are skilled, highly trained security experts, and I think you can learn a lot from them.’

A twist of ice had formed in Allie’s chest. All his words about how safe they’d be, and how ready they were, rang hollow as she stared at him.

Lucinda will be here. Raj is going away. And something bad will happen.





TWENTY-SIX





As she walked out of Training Room One, Allie was utterly unaware of the burble of conversation swirling around her. As soon as Mr Patel had stopped speaking the students had erupted in an excited buzz.

‘At last.’ Zoe grinned. ‘We get to go out and do something.’

Across the room she saw Jules clap Carter on the back, and Lucas high-five his training partner. Like Zoe, they were thrilled to be involved at last. But Allie felt like the bottom had dropped out of her world. Whatever Mr Patel might have actually said, all she’d heard was, You will be all alone when Nathaniel comes.

In a stunned daze, she made her way to the stairwell, propelled by the crowd. When she reached the ground floor she stopped, staring into the distance, her mind a whirl of worry. When a hand touched her arm she looked up in surprise to see Sylvain’s blue eyes.

All he said was, ‘Let’s go and see Isabelle.’

It was after midnight and Isabelle had already gone to bed, so Allie waited in the corridor while Sylvain went to fetch her – as a prefect, he could go into the teachers’ residential wing. All other students were forbidden.

When they arrived a few minutes later, Isabelle was casually dressed in leggings and a long cardigan, her hair pulled up loosely. ‘Right, you two. What’s this all about?’