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“I’ll try. Where do you want to meet?”
Noah suggests a fast-food restaurant, and I note down the address.
“I’ll see you there at 3.”
I’m enormously relieved that Alfredo doesn’t spring a surprise nighttime training session on me, and I can get some sleep. I’m now so physically exhausted that even my excitement about meeting up with Noah can’t keep me awake. My alarm rings. I switch it off, get out of bed, and grab my jacket, having slept in my clothes to save time.
I peer out into the corridor. As expected, the house is dark and quiet at this hour. I have to go up to the first floor, so I creep along the corridor toward the stairs. Suddenly, I hear footsteps and stop in my tracks. Mr. Fabrici’s study is in this part of the house, but I’m surprised that anyone is still up at this time of night. I quickly open a door, slip through it, and close it enough so that I can’t be seen. But my curiosity prompts me to peer through the crack.
Alfredo appears and knocks on the door to the study.
“Come in,” says a voice.
Alfredo opens the door but doesn’t enter.
“You’re actually awake. Right, you did say you’d be up late.”
“Oh, nearly three. I guess I should call it a night.” Mr. Fabrici appears in the doorway and steps out into the corridor with his son. “Do you have the reports?”
Alfredo hands him a document. “I wrote everything up. She hasn’t made any significant progress, and I’ll make sure it stays that way for a while so that the Council agrees to her staying on here. But I formulated it so that they can infer a minor improvement in her skills.”
Mr. Fabrici nods contentedly, and an icy shudder runs down my spine. What are their plans for me?
“Good. It’s immensely valuable for our family to have someone with a gift on our side. If we succeed in softening her up, we’ll be able to exploit her powers for our own ends. Just imagine if she helped us find a goddess… what that would mean for our standing in the key-carrying world. We need to do everything we can to gain her loyalty. On the one hand, she needs austerity and discipline, but we also need to turn a blind eye and let things slide now and then. The stick and the carrot – that’s how we’ll get her where we want her.”
I swallow back the rage bubbling up inside me. He can’t be serious!
“We’ll tame her,” Alfredo declares with conviction, as if I’m some animal that needs to be broken.
“And how’s your plan working out? Are you any closer to the truth? You know we can’t just let it go. We need to know what really happened.”
“And we will,” says Alfredo. “I won’t let her get away with it, I promise. She can’t hide the truth forever.”
I’m seized by a hot, overwhelming sense of panic. What are they talking about? What do they want from me? I’m feeling more and more like an animal in a snare from which there’s no escape. But I refuse to give up.
They move off down the corridor and disappear. I wait a moment longer, collect myself, and try to focus on the here and now. I need to go meet Noah. I’ll worry about the Fabricis later.
In the next corridor, I search for a suitable window. The Fabricis have taken precautions since the supposed break-in. The windows on the ground and first floors are all locked. So there’s only one way out. I’ll have to climb down the façade.
Finally, I find what I’m looking for: a window that’s not locked. I open it, climb out, hold on to the downspout, and slowly climb down. I’m dreading the way back up, but I’ll manage it somehow. I glance up and call to Yoru.
“Come on, time to go.”
His dark snout appears. He looks down at me and doesn’t hesitate for a moment. He springs nimbly onto a ledge and then lands easily beside me on the ground. Together we leave the alleyway and walk through the still night.
We reach the meeting point on time, and Noah is already waiting for us.
“All good?” he asks.
I nod. “I just hope I can get back into the house.”
He frowns. “I could go back with you and try to help.”
“I can just picture it – you trying to push me through a window and someone calling the police,” I mutter, eliciting a laugh from Noah.
“We’ll need to be smarter than that. Although the police showing up wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen.”
He’s right about that.
