The Fairies' Path by Ava Corrigan

Author:Ava Corrigan [Corrigan, Ava]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2020-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

FIRE

I was walking through the courtyard, trying to keep my head down while other people failed to keep their voices down, when Aisha ran over to me.

Aisha, not usually excitable, was having a hard time keeping her own voice down.

“Bloom!” she said. “You will not believe what I found in my desk!”

I tensed. “Files?”

“A ring that acts as an eavesdropping device!” Aisha almost yelled. “It must have been Callum’s. Queen Luna came into the office—she looks just like Stella, except even more intimidating—and I knocked over some papers. I only meant to put things away. Then I found a metal ring in a desk and I just picked it up and I heard a little static. So I put the ring to my ear. And, I swear this is true, Queen Luna’s voice in my ear said, ‘Your assistant died here. In your office. You must have a theory about what happened.’ ”

“Wait,” I said. “Callum’s not visiting family? Callum is dead?”

Aisha and I kept walking, with Aisha in full voluble storytelling mode.

“And Dowling told me he left for a family emergency. So they’re—”

Oh, Ms. Dowling was the worst. I couldn’t believe I’d ever trusted her. I couldn’t believe I’d wanted to.

“Lying. Shocker. So something happened to Callum. What did you do with the listening thing?”

Aisha said, “I put it back.”

I stared at my poor, sweet, innocent roommate.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to just put it away and forget about it.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. It felt … wrong.”

“Callum clearly didn’t agree. What do you think he was after?”

Aisha gave me a meaningful look. “Maybe he had a friend who needed him to spy on Dowling, too?”

I ignored the snark.

“Or he was on to one of Dowling’s secrets and wanted to know more.”

Callum had always been quiet and unobtrusive. If only I’d caught on to something about him before it was too late. Maybe he could’ve helped me.

He’d been killed in Dowling’s office. Who could have done it? The only student I was aware of who kept slipping into Dowling’s office was me, and I wasn’t the murderer. Though no doubt everyone at Alfea would be ready to believe I was.

As Aisha and I walked, the stares increased in intensity and the buzz of conversation rose. I lowered my voice so other people wouldn’t hear Aisha and me talking about murder and sneaking around.

“You’re sure she didn’t shred those old records …”

Aisha looked confused by this hard left turn in conversation.

“What?”

“The Alfea records that predate her,” I reminded Aisha. “You don’t think she destroyed them?”

“Are you kidding? That woman loves paper. I offered to start scanning the files into the computer system, and she looked at me like I had two heads. The records are somewhere.”

I stopped walking. That was the moment Aisha visibly registered that a disaster was about to happen.

“Bloom,” said Aisha. “The assembly is mandatory.”

“Which means everyone is distracted.”

“Bloom—”

“I’m not asking you to come,” I assured her.

“It’s a bad idea!”

“A bad idea is going to that assembly where everyone will stare at me like I’m a freak.

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