I woke up from the worst transformation yet to find Lottie holding my hand.
The touch was so warm and pleasurable that for a few minutes, I didn’t let on that I was awake. I lay in my bunk with my eyes half-closed, listening to the sound of her breathing, the gentle patter of icy sleet on the window.
Last night, something had almost happened between us. And it fucking terrified me, for so many reasons.
First, because of Noémie. I had let myself feel these things for her, and she had left. And it was only now, with distance from the situation, I really realised how much it had hurt. How much of a chasm she’d left in my heart. What if Lottie left too? She was human sunshine, and I was the deep, dark woods. She was bound to grow tired of the shade.
Then there was the obvious fact that I was a monster.
A cold psychopath still roamed free in my mind, leaving ragged flaps of the veil blowing in the breeze. I thought calmly of shoving Dacre from the North Tower Observatory, imagined the sickening thud of a body splattering over the cobbles below, how good it would feel to exact revenge for something he may not have even done. I thought of the girls who had mocked me in high school, and imagined taking a knife to their skin, how much satisfaction it would be to cause death by a thousand cuts. I thought these things with a casualness that disturbed me to my core.
Because these were not just hot, fleeting impulses as they once were – like when a cyclist would swerve in front of my car, and in that split second I’d picture ramming into him with my bumper. These thoughts were cool and enduring, surviving long beyond the heat of the moment.
And now the transformations were closing in, and I didn’t know how much more lucid time I’d have before I became like Feathering and Mordue; gritting my teeth through each day until I could take myself away to a locked room and go through it all over again. How long had there been between this one and the last? Just over a week? The walls were closing in like something out of a nightmare. Soon there would be nothing left of who I used to be.
So I couldn’t let Lottie get too close to me. If I hurt her, I would never forgive myself.
Still, I could indulge myself this single sweet moment. Her hand in mine, sleet on the window, and something pillowy and peace-shaped in my chest.
I heard her shift in the desk chair she was perching on, and then felt warm, soft lips pressing against my knuckles; so lightly it threatened to unravel me.
I couldn’t let this happen. I opened my eyes and pulled my hand away.
‘Morning,’ she murmured, stretching her arms above her head and cracking her shoulder joints. ‘Are you ready to bring your soul back together?’
Frowning, I propped myself up on to my elbows. ‘What? How?’
‘I will tell you,’ she said. ‘But first, Hafsah.’
‘Shit, Hafsah!’
Lottie rubbed at her bleary, red-rimmed eyes. ‘Don’t worry, I went to check on her last night. I stayed with her until it was over. But we should take her some coffee.’
Hafsah was propped up in bed when we arrived with three lattes and several cold slices of toast from the dining hall. There was a stack of manga on her bedside table, and she was leafing through one volume looking thoroughly exhausted.
‘I might never leave this room again,’ she said, taking the coffee from Lottie and groaning as she sipped. ‘I’m just going to stay here and read comics about monster sex. Just let Dark Hafsah come and go as she pleases.’
‘Dark Hafsah may not be around for much longer.’ Lottie stuffed a hand into her back jean pocket and pulled out a floppy disk. ‘I got this from Dacre’s office last night.’
I frowned. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure. I took it to the library and slotted it into a computer, and it’s password-protected. But check out the label.’
Written in black biro on a white label – in what I clearly recognised as Dacre’s handwriting – was one word: SOCIETY.
‘TheSociety?’ I murmured. Then a vivid memory came back to me, and I kicked myself for not recalling it sooner. ‘Fuck, I saw Dacre and Le Conte on the night Poppy died! They were walking with their heads together as though discussing something private. I remember thinking it was weird that they were out so late.’
‘Who’s Le Conte?’ Lottie asked, frowning in concentration.
‘One of our professors,’ Hafsah said slowly. ‘But I feel like I’m missing several links here.’
Lottie quickly filled Hafsah in on the findings from the library while I nursed my hot, sweet coffee.
‘And Alice saw them together on the night Poppy died. Which means . . . hang on,’ Lottie said. She grabbed the investigation notebook from her desk and de-lidded her blue fountain pen. ‘What time would that have been?’
I wracked my brains. ‘Maybe five minutes after midnight?’
She nodded, scribbling the time and the note on a fresh blank page. Then she stared at it, as though trying to slot it into the picture slowly growing in her mind. ‘What could they have been doing? We already know Mordue killed Poppy – and we’re one hundred per cent going to the police about that once her soul is intact. So how else could they fit into it? Unless it was just a coincidental midnight stroll about an unrelated private matter . . . Do you think they might be boning?’