Lottie came up with the plan to distract the North Tower guard remarkably fast.
If it was successful, we might be in with a chance of figuring out why Mordue went to the North Tower every night at midnight. Lottie’s hunch was that it was something to do with the mysterious room beside the Sisters of Mercy library, since the original architectural drawings showed a second door halfway up the tower’s spiral staircase. All we would have to do once we got past the guard was lie in wait for Mordue to arrive, and see whether she went to the circular Observatory at the top of the tower – or to the hidden room Lottie was sure was central to this whole thing.
What was Mordue doing for those three hours? I had my ritual-shaped suspicions.
The night after Lottie stole Mordue’s spare key, we made our move. It was hasty – maybe too hasty – but the transformations were hurting Hafsah and me more and more, gripping every inch of us in full-body cramps and spasms, as though a hot fork of white lightning was shredding the skin from our muscles and the muscles from our bones. Almost like the effort of cleaving our goodness from our darkness was taking more and more from us. It left us ragged and gasping, incapable of anything but sleeping shakily for the whole day afterwards. The thought of an eternity of this fear and pain was so overwhelming I couldn’t let my brain consider the idea for more than a few seconds at a time.
I was also bitterly disappointed that the latest vial of tincture had not repaired the ragged hole I’d somehow torn in the veil at the hockey match. The kind, gentle instincts were still there – I longed to reach over and tuck a lock of stray hair behind Lottie’s ear, or make her one of my favourite whisky cocktails – but they were twisted by the cold, violent thoughts, like smooth tarmac warped by tree roots. I stalked around campus accompanied by a cold, calm voice that said: ‘You could kill them. You could kill all of them, and it would feel amazing.’
There was no longer a separation between me and the vicious killer on the other side of the transformation. I found myself plotting Kate Feathering’s murder with a kind of indifference that chilled me to my core – as though I was planning a birthday party, not an assassination. Worse, I knew in my bones that I couldn’t stop it. I had to rely on Lottie to keep me in check, or before long, there would be blood on my hands.
And it would feel so good.
The night of our attempt at the plan was a Friday, and Carvell’s campus hung with the scent of mulled wine, woodsmoke and clove. The darkness had soft edges to it, blurred by fairy lights and tinsel, Christmas carols and teddy coats. Bats swooped and dived among the branches of now bare trees. Moth cocoons hung in neat rows down the crooked branch of an old ash, and I found myself wondering how many vials of ritual tincture I could harvest from them.
The murderous voice that had taken root in me made a mental note of all the potential weapons; the crackling fires and sharp metal skewers, dangling tartan scarves and the neat little penknife I’d bought and engraved. That night it was tucked in the inside pocket of my coat, nestled close to my chest along with an emergency vial already mingled with Lottie’s blood. She’d let me carry the weapon in case anything went wrong and we got into real danger, but her eyes darted over to me every thirty seconds to make sure I wasn’t trying to withdraw it.
It was around 9 p.m., and the night guard had just taken over from the day guard. The two men looked almost identical – middling height, thick brown and grey beards, and stocky frames. They exchanged a few muffled words, which we couldn’t make out from our window perch.
Soon enough, it was time to put the plan into action.
I left Willowood first, wrapping around the whole of the building until I was concealed behind the corner closest to the guard. Lottie and Hafsah would be enacting the first part of the plan. All I had to do was watch, listen, and be close enough to sprint if and when the guard ran from his post. I gripped the key to the tower tightly between my thumb and forefinger until the time-worn brass was hot to the touch.
Lottie and Hafsah came out the front entrance of Willowood next, embroiled in a fake argument, and started walking slowly in the opposite direction to where I stood. I slipped my boots off, wincing as the soles of my feet met the freezing cobbles, but it was important that I be able to slip silently across to the locked door.
‘Lottie, please, I didn’t mean to,’ Hafsah faux-pleaded, her voice taking on a whiny pitch I’d never heard from her before.
‘How could you do this to me?’ Lottie all but yelled. ‘Fuck you. Just . . . fuck you, Hafsah.’
I peeped around the corner. The guard was indeed watching them, although seemed to be trying hard to pretend not to be.
My heart beat audibly through my satin shirt. What would happen if I got caught? Would suspension from the school be better or worse than what we were currently going through every time we had to perform a ritual?
I tried not to think about the fact that if we were expelled, we might never find the counter ritual. We’d be doomed to this dark half-existence forever.
How would I explain what was happening to me to my family?
‘What will it take for you to forgive me?’ Hafsah moaned, the words wobbling with fake tears. She was a decent actress, I’d give her that.
Lottie was striding ahead as though she didn’t want to know, and Hafsah was scurrying to keep up. They were almost at the corner of the building when Lottie swung maniacally around, grabbed Hafsah by the petite shoulders and slammed her against the wall, forearm pressed to her throat.
‘You could let me hurt you as much as you’ve hurt me,’ Lottie growled. I shivered involuntarily as she pulled her ornate penknife from her back pocket and held it against Hafsah’s stomach.
That’s when Hafsah started to scream for help.
After a few split seconds of indecision, the guard strode over, shouting, ‘Oi!’ in a brisk Borders accent.
Now or never.
As quickly and quietly as I could, I sprinted straight at the door, shoes in one hand and key in the other, not bothering to turn and look at what was going on with the guard and the girls. If he saw me, it was all over, whether I saw him see me or not.
Feet screaming at the freezing cobbles, I made it to the door, jamming the key in as softly as possible. It took a few juddering attempts, but it finally gave. I turned the ridged brass handle and winced as the mechanism clicked conspicuously, but before I knew it I was inside, panting hard as I eased the door gently shut. I locked it behind me for good measure, so the guard wouldn’t be alerted to my intruding presence if he tried the handle.
I eased my feet back into my shoes, pulse jackhammering against my skull. The air in the North Tower’s stairwell was dank and freezing, with almost no light. I could barely make out where the spiral staircase began. I touched my fingertips to the circular stone wall – it was cold and slick with a miscellaneous moisture – and followed it carefully around until the pointed toe of my boot met something solid. And then I began to climb.
I kept my fingertips on the wall, feeling for the place where it gave way to a doorway. Sure enough, around what must have been halfway up the tower, the stones abruptly became smooth, slatted wood. The door must have been absolutely flush to the ground, because no light poured from a crack beneath the frame. The whole place was sinisterly, absolutely black.
Feeling around with my feet, I found a small ledge jutting out into the staircase. I climbed softly on to it, breath rattling in my throat, and pressed my ear up against the door.