And then, there it was. The long hallway with the four doors, the little paper bird hiding in the darkness. Jonathan slipped through the door and up the stairs.
Colin was sitting on his bed. Paper, some folded and some not, lay scattered and piled on the bed and floor around him. Four candles sat around the bed on the floor. Startling splashes of white light flashed through the windows from the storm outside. Colin was facing the door, chewing on a bright red apple.
“Hey,” he said with a smile as brief and bright as the lightning. “I wath hoping that wath you.”
A ferocious blast of wind whistled in through the broken window, shuffling the loose leaves of paper into a swirl of scattered white. One of the candles flickered out. When the gust had died down, Colin calmly relit the smoking wick with one of the other candles.
“You’re here late,” Colin said.
Jonathan took a couple of steps into the room.
“I’m here for good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sebastian. He said I had to leave. I’m, like, kicked out.”
Colin’s brow furrowed and he pinched at his neck with one hand.
“I thought he wanted to catch me.”
“Yeah. He does.”
Colin squinted one eye and cocked his head.
“Well … don’t you think he’d jutht follow you?”
Jonathan opened his mouth. But before he could say anything, he heard the distant creak of a door from behind him, and then the rumble of footsteps running up the stairs.
The lightning was constant and explosive and spectacular. It provided more light to the dining room than the candles that were lit on every table. Colin sat in a chair in the middle of the room, flanked by Roger and Francis.
Rain pelted the huge windows. Thunder booms like cannon shots rattled the glass. The courtyard was a rain-lashed lake, reflecting the violent white cracks of lightning above. The wind shrieked between Slabhenge’s tall towers like an army of furious ghosts.
The sword glowed red and yellow in Sebastian’s hand, from the candlelight. Except when it gleamed white in the lightning. The Admiral’s hat was back on his head, retrieved from Colin’s room. His sneering mouth was busy chewing one of the reclaimed gold-wrapped chocolates.
Jonathan stood off to one side with the others. Benny was holding him roughly with one hand, pinching harder than he needed to, his fingers like fangs in Jonathan’s shoulder. Jonathan sniffed from time to time and rubbed at his nose with his arm. His sleeve was smeared with dark blood. When the boys had reached the top of the stairs to Colin’s room, he’d tried quickly to slam the door, but it was too late; they’d burst in and Sebastian had knocked him to the ground with one vicious punch. Colin was bleeding, too, from a cut above his eye that Sebastian had given him when he’d tried to dash to the broken window and toss the Admiral’s hat out.
“Admit it, Colin, you’re the one who stole my chocolates.”
“Of courth I am. You found them in my room, Thebathtian.”
“Shut up. So you admit it, then, trespassing and theft.”
“Yeth. I went into the Admiral’th room and took the Admiral’th chocolateth.”
“It’s my room!” Sebastian shouted, getting right in Colin’s face. “The Admiral is dead! I’m in charge! When are you going to get that?”
“Oh, I get it, Thebathtian.” Colin’s voice was calm. Soft. Sad. “I abtholutely get it.”
Sebastian straightened back up. His face was eerily pale in the shifting light.
“And we all saw what you did to the Sinner’s Sorrow. That’s destruction of property. You have to be punished.”
There was an especially loud crack of thunder at the same moment as a particularly forceful gale of wind. One of the large windows shattered, sending shards of glass flying into the group of boys. They screamed and ducked and dove under tables. Rain blew in through the broken window. Wind whipped through the room, blowing out most of the candles.
“Hold that little thief!” Sebastian hollered. “Relight those candles!” The boys stood frozen, their eyes wide and scared. “Oh, Jesus, guys, it’s just a little thunderstorm. Relight those candles. We’ll cover the window in the morning.”
They got the candles relit and moved to tables farther from the broken window. They all shivered wetly in the storm that was now in the room with them.
“Punishment,” Sebastian continued. His black hair was plastered to his forehead with rain. Water dripped down his face. He had to almost shout to be heard above the wind and the thunder and the pouring rain. “The Sinner’s Sorrow is ruined. So what could we do? What could we do to a thief and a criminal?”
The group blinked at him in silence. Teeth chattered.