Rising Fury (Hexing House Book 1) (17 page)

Thea pointed. “Salt. I think I know who started this fire.”

Alecto raised an eyebrow. “Do you, now? Funny, that’s the exact question I came over to ask you. That and where you’ve been for the last three weeks.”

“I was gone for three weeks?”

“Yes. Now do you want to tell me why?”

Thea didn’t trust Alecto, but there were still a few furies around. Surely Alecto wouldn’t attack her here. She looked around more carefully, and spotted a familiar glint of red in the light of the lamps that had been brought out and hung among the trees.

“Cora!”

“There you are! Nero told me he saw you, what—”

“I’ll tell you both, but I’m going to give you the short version,” Thea said. “I’m about to collapse.” She told them about the lab, the superhex, Flannery, her escape. Cora stared at her with a look of increasing alarm, while Alecto’s face only got harder.

When Thea finished, a bit breathless, Alecto said, “And this was the short version?”

“I told you something happened to her,” Cora said to Alecto. “I told you she wouldn’t run away.” She looked at Thea and said, “I tried to get them to search for you. We did some looking ourselves, but…” She shrugged lamely.

Thea nodded and squeezed her friend’s shoulder. “There’s one more thing,” she said, looking back at Alecto. “You’re familiar with Mr. Fanatic?” She told Alecto about finding him at the cabin, sewing the ground with salt. “At some point, he was at this lab I just told you about, and they either let him go or he got away. Now he thinks we’re demons and that it’s his Christian duty to smite us.”

“And you take that to mean he started the fire?”

“Fire and brimstone,” Thea said. (
Burn, witch.
) “And he was pretty fixated on the cabin, for whatever reason.”

“And this is your theory?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, let me tell you mine. You have been weak and, frankly, a bit unbalanced from the start. I suspected time and again that you wouldn’t be able to handle what it meant to be a fury. Then, not two days after you get your wings, you run off—”

“I didn’t r—”

“And now,” Alecto cut her off. “Now you come back to campus and just happen, at that exact moment, to notice this fire that was clearly intentionally set. And you tell me all kinds of preposterous stories to explain it all.”

Thea stared at her. Just how crazy did Alecto think she was? But then, maybe she didn’t think Thea was crazy at all. Maybe she only wanted everyone else to think that, so they wouldn’t listen to her story.

“You can see his salt for yourself.” Thea gestured at the ground.

“I see
some
salt,” Alecto said. “If that’s even what it is.”

“Ask Cora. She was with me. She saw Mr. Fanatic the last time he salted the ground.”

Cora nodded and opened her mouth to say something, but Alecto held up a hand for silence.

“I’ve had more than enough for one day. You can tell your story to the board tomorrow.”

“What do you mean, an impartial facilitator? I’ve told you repeatedly he’s involved in this.” Thea glared at Alecto, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. They stood in Thea’s doorway, where Alecto had come knocking only shortly after sunrise to discuss Thea’s meeting with the board.

“I’ve told you—four times now, I believe—that this is the way it’s always been.” Alecto spoke slowly, as if to a child. “The head of the colony, as the head of Administration, sits with all the other department leads as an equal member of the board. One of our older and more distinguished members facilitates, and for the last three or four years, that’s been Graves.”

Thea felt the old familiar tightening in her chest, and took several deep breaths. She felt trapped—
was
trapped—but this was no time to give in to panic.

She decided the best play was to stop accusing Graves directly and just calmly present the facts. She could take them to the lab, and they could see it for themselves. She’d already decided she couldn’t implicate Cora, but surely now that the whole thing was coming to light, someone else could search the records and see that there was no case involving Flannery. Graves had made that up, and he’d recruited Thea. The evidence spoke for itself.

And on the chance the whole board was corrupted, she would need witnesses.

“It has to be an open meeting,” Thea said. “I won’t have this whole thing covered up behind closed doors.”

Alecto considered this, then finally shrugged. “Fine. The last thing I want is to give your story credence by giving the appearance of hiding anything. Ten-thirty, in the auditorium.”

Thea arrived at the appointed time to find the board already there, seated at a long table on the right side of the stage. Given the short notice, only about a dozen furies sat in the audience. Thea wondered if that number would grow as the gossip spread about who she was accusing, and of what.

She would have asked Nero to help move the rumors along, but she hadn’t seen him or Cora since the fire. She’d expected them to be in the auditorium, at least. They would have heard about the meeting by now. But Thea had no time to ponder their absence.

“Good morning, Thea.” Graves gestured to a chair on the left side of the stage. He was his usual pleasant, suave self, but then Thea hadn’t expected anything less.

She felt giddy as she climbed the five steps up, and momentarily regretted her request for an open meeting. A stage was the last place she wanted to be.

“I understand you have some claims you wish to make before the board,” Graves said, “before we decide on the appropriate disciplinary action for your leaving without giving proper notice.”

“I didn’t leave. I was taken.” It took a great deal of restraint for Thea not to add
as you know.

None of the board members reacted to that. Graves chuckled, as if humoring a child.

“All right. Why don’t you just start at the beginning, and make whatever statement you wish to make?” He looked at his watch. “With luck, we can finish by lunch. I know we’re all busy.”

Thea was proud of how calm and matter-of-fact she sounded as she told them everything that had happened since Flannery’s supposed hexing, from her own blood being stolen to her time in the lab.

Nobody interrupted her, but when she finished Graves said, “Well. I’m sure we all have some questions for you.” He looked over his shoulder at the rest of the board, as if they were all in on the same joke. “I know I do.” A couple of them chuckled.

“That’s fine,” Thea said. “But before I answer them, I’d like to present some evidence to back up my story.”

Graves gestured around. “By all means. I’m sure we’d all love to see it.”

“For starters, I can lead you to the lab. I can prove it’s there.”

“There’s no need.”

It wasn’t Graves who said it, but someone from the doorway of the auditorium. Someone whose voice was impossibly familiar.

Flannery walked up the aisle flanked by two security guards, one arm in a sling. Her skin was pale and waxy, and she walked like she was sore.

Thea was so surprised that she spoke without thinking, and scolded her cousin for the least of her offenses.

“Flannery, what the hell are you doing out of bed?”

Flannery gave her an aggrieved look and came forward. She avoided eye contact with Graves, Thea noticed, and spoke directly to the board. “I have the lab’s address. I can tell you exactly where to go.”

Alecto looked not at Flannery, but at one of the security guards beside her. “Who authorized this human to visit the campus?”

“We found her outside the gate, shouting,” the guard said. “She’s not armed and she seems harmless enough. When she said she had evidence to present at the meeting, we thought we’d better bring her.”

Graves spoke up for the first time since Flannery had come into the room. “I think you did the right thing.” He turned the the board. “We might as well check this address out, wouldn’t you agree? Show of hands?”

Thea’s stomach turned at his encouragement. That had to mean he’d orchestrated this, and Flannery was about to send them to the wrong place. Or to the right place, but they’d cleared it out already.

Most of the board raised their hands, but Stefan said, “This is the accused’s—”

“Now I’m
the accused
?” Thea broke in.

“This is
Thea’s
cousin,” Stefan corrected, but he sneered as he said her name. “She has an undeniable bias. I’d suggest we disregard anything she has to say.”

Everyone looked at Alecto, who considered Flannery for a few seconds, maybe looking for dishonesty. Finally she said, “I agree we should approach what she says with caution, but this is easy enough to verify.” She turned to the head of Security. “Gordon, take the address from her and send a couple people out there.”

“I want to go myself,” Thea said.

“You will stay here and answer the questions you’re asked,” said Alecto.

“But—”

“What about me?” Flannery asked. “I have more to say.”

Graves sighed. “All right. Let’s hear your statement, then.”

To Thea’s great surprise, Flannery told the truth.

She told the board (and Thea, who was hearing the details for the first time) that Graves had interviewed her, as she supposed he had several humans in the area, about working at the lab. The interview included some tests, and when Graves discovered she was hex immune, he offered her a considerable sum of money to become a subject of the experiments. The downside was that she would have to live at the lab, and couldn’t tell her friends and family where she’d gone. She’d decided it was worth it.

Her story backed up everything Thea had said, and openly implicated Graves. But Thea watched Graves’s face, and it never registered any anger or concern. What were they up to?

When Flannery finished, Graves asked the board whether they had any questions for her. Langdon asked several, about the experiments she’d undergone. Flannery answered them all with so much detail that Langdon announced, when he was finished, that he thought Flannery was telling the truth, and that the board ought to undertake an investigation of Thea’s claims.

Graves turned to Alecto. “I’d suggest that we break until after lunch, so we can hear what Gordon has to report before we go any further.”

“Agreed,” said Alecto. She looked at everyone else. “Any objections?”

Nobody had any, so the board filed out, as did the few furies who had been watching the proceedings. Thea found herself alone with Flannery and her escorts from Security.

“Can you give us a minute?” Thea asked the guards.

“We’re supposed to escort her off campus.”

“I’ll be quick. You can stand over by the door and keep us in your sights the whole time, if you need to.”

As soon as they were out of earshot, Thea rounded on her cousin. “What the hell is this?”

Flannery scowled at her. “It’s me saving your ass. And risking my own. You think they won’t get pissed off and come after me? So you’re welcome.”

“Saving my ass?” Thea shook her head. “Day before yesterday you were about to shoot me!”

“Day before yesterday you clawed my guts out!”

“Drama queen.”

“Bitch.”

“Flannery, why did you come here? We both know it wasn’t out of the kindness of your heart.”

Flannery turned away, looking sullen. “My mother told me she would never speak to me again if I didn’t. She said Pete thought you were going to be in some kind of trouble and it was the least I could do. Like I owe you after you cut me open! She always takes your side.”

The last part was too ridiculous to even mention, but Thea couldn’t let the rest stand. “You want to know what else I did, besides cut you open?” She ticked off on her fingers as she spoke. “Let’s see, I came running the second I found out you were missing. I bailed out your fiance and hired a lawyer good enough to get the charges dropped.” Thea extended the claws of her raised hand. “Then I came here and
transformed myself into something that isn’t human
just so I could find you. Lord in Heaven, Flannery, what do you want from me?”

Flannery glared. But then her eyes welled up with tears. “I don’t know!” she snapped.

Thea lowered her voice. “Will you please just tell me the truth? Graves is obviously playing along with you. He’s up to something.”

Flannery shook her head. “I’m sure he is, but I don’t know what. Honest I don’t. I really did come here for my mother’s sake.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and reached out to steady herself on the back of a chair.

“You’re still sick,” Thea said.

“Doctors think someone poisoned me with some ‘unidentified toxin.’”

“They’re pretty much right.”

Flannery nodded. “They say it might take a while to work it all out of my system.”

It was probably unethical, intruding on her cousin’s vices and virtues without her permission, but Thea regarded Flannery for a long time. There was the expected envy—she didn’t need to be a fury to see that—and a little wrath. But Thea didn’t see any falseness. It was possible it was just buried too deeply under Flannery’s other sins, but it was also possible it wasn’t there at all. And if she was telling the truth, that made Graves’s behavior all the more mysterious.

“You should go home and rest.” Thea signaled to the guard that they were finished.

Flannery started to walk toward him, but turned back to Thea. “I knew this whole thing was wrong, leaving and everything. But the wronger it got, the more I dug in, you know?”

Thea nodded. “I do know. That’s just like you.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

Thea watched her go, the list of things she’d done for her cousin still fresh in her mind. Was it worth it? Flannery clearly wasn’t grateful. Nor did Thea want her gratitude. She wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive Flannery, but that didn’t really matter. She hadn’t done it for her. At the start, she’d done it for Aunt Bridget, and that alone justified it in Thea’s mind.

As for the part of it she’d done for herself, she guessed she’d see whether that was worth it after lunch, when she found out what the board had to say.

Thea couldn’t find her friends at lunch, which only made her more nervous. Were they being intentionally kept away? Was it some intimidation tactic of Graves’s, to make Thea feel isolated? She forced down a sandwich without really tasting it, took an extra bottle of water, and headed back into the auditorium to wait.

When they came back in, half an hour late, the board all had especially stern faces, with the possible exception of Alecto, who always looked that way.

Langdon handed Thea an amulet. “You seem to have lost yours, and it’s against company policy to force you to testify without one.”

Testify? Another word that implied she was on trial. And for what? Thea held the amulet without putting it on. “I’ll volunteer to leave it off if you like.”

But Langdon shook his head. “Also against policy. Amulet-free testimony is inadmissible because it’s unreliable. Some furies can manipulate it.”

So Thea put on the amulet, and sat still for Graves to keep spinning his web around her.

But even knowing that he was plotting some deception, she was still stunned by his first question.