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The day didn't drag as much as Clementine had thought it might. They had all tried on their ball outfits when they'd returned to the academy and then spent the rest of their lesson-less day preparing the offerings for the ritual in three days' time. Of course, Sebastien had wandered off the moment they'd got back, but that didn't bother Clementine. He had said he'd be coming back tonight, after all.

          He waved goodbye to Mavis, who left his and Elliot's dorm with Mathew. She left them each a slice of the extra loaf of banana bread she'd made using her fae magic and made sure to say goodnight at least half a dozen times before Elliot closed the door.

          And that was that. Tuesday was over.

          Elliot sighed as he slumped down onto the couch. "What a day," he muttered. "At least we have everything ready for All-Hallows' Eve, though."

          Clementine nodded, standing in his bedroom's doorway. "We got more done than I thought we would."

          "It's going to be so fun!" he squealed. "Are you excited?"

          "Sure," he lied.

          "Oh, do you want to look over the offerings with me one last time?"

          With a deep sigh, he shrugged—but before he could answer, a knock came at the door. He wasn't sure whether he felt relief or annoyance, but he was sure he'd know the moment he opened the door.

          He made his way over to it and pulled it open.

          "Hey babe," Sebastien greeted.

          Clementine sighed deeply. "Come on," he mumbled.

          "What's he doing here again?" Elliot questioned, watching as Clementine led Sebastien into their dorm and over to his bedroom door.

          "We gotta discuss some stuff," he answered.

          "What stuff?"

          "Just stuff, Elliot," he groaned. Then, before Elliot could say another word, he closed his bedroom door.

          "He's so nosey," Sebastien complained, placing his backpack on Clementine's desk.

          Rolling his eyes, Clementine leaned against the wall beside his desk. "Let's just get to it," he muttered.

          Sebastien smirked and unzipped his bag.

          Watching him, Clementine frowned strangely. Had he brought something with him?

          "I thought you'd want these," he said, pulling a stack of files from his back, which he then put onto the desk.

          It took one glance for Clementine to recognise their beige colour. "The student files?"

          "Yeah. These were what you were rummaging through the other night in the professors' lounge, right?"

          "Have you followed me literally every night?"

          "Yep." He grinned, patting the stack of files.

          Clementine counted them. Twelve.

          "Harrison's gone, so I didn't bother bringing his file. So are Horace, Lloyd, and Connor. Horace and Connor were wolf walkers, though. Are you going for just the Ravenblood or those aligned with them, too?"

          Staring at the files, Clementine frowned. "Uh...well—"

          "These are all the Ravenblood, and if you want those aligned with them, I'll have to go back for their files another time. Warren was sniffing around."

          "Why did you bring them? Why didn't you just write their names down?"

          "Well, I thought you'd be interested to look into them all a little more. Some of them are gonna be trickier to take down than others."

          Clementine sighed away his confoundment. He seemed to still be finding it a little hard to believe that Sebastien was actually now assisting him rather than getting in his way.

          "Yeah," he said, pulling out his desk's chair. He sat down and took the first file.

          "Harper Collins."

          "I already got her name." He looked at each file's name, pushing aside those that he'd already discovered for himself. He laid the four new files out in front of him and looked at each name. Amelia Quart, Jackson Stephens, Lori Vince, and Lucinda Winters.

          "This one," Sebastien said, tapping Lucina's file. "She's the ringleader."

          Clementine looked up at him. "You're sure?"

          "It says so," he said, opening her file. He then pointed to her alliance section—

          "Ravenblood President," Clementine read.

          "And soon to be Chairwoman once her parents die."

          "So we take her out first, then," he said, looking up at him. "That'll freak them all out and we can use the chaos to kill the rest of them."

          Sebastien shook his head. "There's no way we'll get to her first. We gotta take her cronies out first."

          Clementine looked back down at her file and eyed her picture. Black hair, blue eyes, one of which had a blown pupil. "I don't think I've seen her around before."

          "You wouldn't have. She's in the law institute. Takes business classes."

          "You didn't think to tell me that from the get-go?!" he snapped irritably.

          "I was getting to it, damn," Sebastien uttered. "Look at her ethos capacity."

          "What?"

          "There," he said, tapping the file.

          Clementine looked to where he was pointing. "Ninety-five copias. Is that a lot?"

          "Is that a lot?" Sebastien scoffed. "That's the highest number I've seen on any of the files. She's gonna be annoying to get rid of."

          "What about Ian?"

          "Twenty-four."

          "And you?"

          Sebastien smirked. "That's for me to know and you to wonder, little mouse."

          Clementine rolled his eyes and opened the other three files.

          "Don't worry about them. They're just your average goons. There's only one subaltern, and that's Ian."

          "He's still my next target," he said firmly.

          "That's fine. But once you kill him, I'd suggest laying low for a while. Maybe a week or two. His death is gonna cause a lot of discord. After that, we can work out what to do with Lucinda and the rest. We'll probably need your big friend's help with her."

          Nodding, Clementine got up and pulled his trunk out from under his bed. "I was thinking," he said, but as he backed up into Sebastien, who just stood there and smirked, he stumbled away from him and scowled. "I was thinking..." he repeated, opening his trunk. "While everyone's at the party, I could sneak up to Ian's room and put some of these into one of his sodas," he said, lifting the jar of death caps to show Sebastien. "That'll give them time to dissolve into the liquid and Ian won't notice a thing until he's puking hours later."

          With a curious frown on his face, Sebastien took the jar from him and eyed the mushroom caps inside. "These stupid little things can really kill someone?"

          "They can," he grumbled, snatching the jar back. "And they're not stupid. They're conniving little things. The poison kills your liver cells and passes through your kidneys to be recirculated later, causing even more damage. There's no antidote, either."

          Sebastien smirked. "You really know your plant stuff, don't you?"

          He put the jar back in his trunk and pushed it under his bed. "I do," he said. "Studying them was the only thing to really do in Itamore."

          "Isn't there some plant that can cure colligo-interitus? Or something that could have replaced those pills?"

          "If there were, Anette would still be here," he muttered sadly, heading back over to his desk. "So, we take out Ian...and then we work on the goons, right?"

          Standing beside him, Sebastien nodded. "That sounds like the best plan, yeah."

          "Okay, well I think we should..." he paused, looking around as his room suddenly went cold. He sighed, ignoring the whispers, but when he saw the unsettled look on Sebastien's face, he frowned strangely. "What?"

          "I gotta go," he said, grabbing his backpack.

          "What?" Clementine exclaimed.

          "We'll talk more about this tomorrow—"

          Clementine grabbed his wrist and stopped him from reaching the door. "We're not done here!"

          Just then, a hauntingly familiar roar broke through the whispers. It sent a shiver down Clementine's spine, but it seemed to worsen the unsettled stare on Sebastien's face.

          "Let go," Sebastien snarled, yanking his wrist free.

          But Clementine grabbed his sweater. "The last time I heard that sound, I was chased by something—twice, actually. I don't know what it is, but you can't go out there."

          Sebastien pulled Clementine's hand off his sweater and opened the door.

          "Did you not just hear what I said?!" he exclaimed, following him through the lounge and towards the dormitory door.

          "What's going on?" Elliot called, coming out of his room.

          "I'll be fine," Sebastien uttered, pulling the door open.

          Clementine tried to grab him again, but he evaded his grip and hurried out of the door. Then, he raced down the hall and out of sight without so much as a glance back at Clementine.

          He clenched his fists in anger. "He's gonna get himself killed."

          "What?" Elliot asked.

          He went to step outside...but hesitated. He had no idea where Sebastien was going and wandering around the academy on his own at night was dangerous enough already, but he'd just heard that creature again. He wasn't about to risk his life again—not now that he was closer than he'd ever been to his goal. He had all their names and faces; he had a plan...but if Sebastien died—if those creatures got him...having all those names and faces would mean nothing. He needed Sebastien's help with the Ravenblood President. If she was as strong as he had said she was, Clementine didn't have a hope in hell of taking her down by himself.

          With a frustrated growl, he stepped out of the room and turned to face Elliot. "Lock the door behind me. I'll be back."

          "Where the heck are you going? Didn't you hear that roar?!"

          "That's why I'm going. Sebastien—"

          "Just let him go! Good riddance—"

          "I can't!" he insisted. Then, he stormed off down the hall, heading for the stairs, ignoring Elliot's hushed calls for him to come back.

          He hurried downstairs, checking his left and right every few seconds. When the cold and whispers faded, he calmed his frantic walk a little so that he could catch his breath. He searched the halls and corridors, following them past his history class, magick studies, and even the trial hall. But there was no sign of Sebastien.

          Clementine stopped outside the large oak doors of the assembly hall and exhaled deeply. He really hated this kid. Why the hell had he just run off like that? If he was as much of a know-it-all as he seemed, surely he knew those creatures existed, so why would he risk being out in the halls while they roamed around? What was he doing out here? He'd told himself he wasn't going to risk himself anymore, yet he'd willingly wandered out into the halls again.

          With an irritated exhale, he looked left, right, and straight ahead. He listened for footsteps, but there wasn't a single sign of Sebastien. Where had he gone? Had he disappeared into another wall? Had he already gone to wherever he was going to move between this side of the academy and the Law Institute?

          But then he saw it. A flicker of blue in the corner of his eye.

          Clementine sharply turned his head, his heart racing, his body tensing up. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking at, but it sent a bitter shiver down his spine. A thick, black visage of something with four legs; it prowled across the hall at the end of the corridor in front of him. It didn't look as big as the creatures he'd seen glimpses of previously, but something about the way it moved forced him to suspect it might be one of them.

          Its eyes glowed blue in the gloom; it stopped prowling forward to glare at him, and as Clementine stared right back at it, the creature growled quietly—

          "What are you doing out here?" came Professor Huxley's voice.

          Startled, Clementine flinched and sharply turned his head.

          Professor Huxley was heading towards him, a sceptical glower on his paler-than-usual face, and as he stopped a few feet from him, he glared down at Clementine, waiting.

          "I-I was..." he paused, looking back down the corridor, but the blue-eyed creature was gone.

          "You were...what, Mr Darlington?"

          Swallowing his trepidation, he looked up at the professor. "I was...going to the alchemy storeroom, sir. We needed something else for our offering."

          For a moment, Huxley eyed him up and down. But there was something off about him. Not only was his skin as white as paper, but a hint black stained the corner of his lips. His glaring eyes were bloodshot, and his once perfectly combed hair was something of a franticly brushed mess.

          "Get back to your dorm," he said sternly. "You can continue your offering preparations tomorrow."

          He wasn't about to argue with him. "Yes, sir." Then, he turned around and headed down the corridor. He glanced back over his shoulder, and when he saw that Huxley was still standing there, watching him like a hawk, he picked up his pace a little and swiftly turned into the closest corridor.

          Clementine didn't stop. Despite his aching, trembling limbs and racing heart, he navigated the halls, swiftly finding his way back to the staircase that took him up to the dormitory hall. And when he reached the top of the stairs, his legs gave out.

          As he fell to his knees, he grunted, clinging to the bannister. He really, really needed to stop all this running around. It was getting increasingly difficult, and if he kept it up, he feared he might end up shortening the time he had left.

          But he couldn't hang around in the hall. He gritted his teeth, pulling himself to his feet. He dragged his shoulder along the wall as he walked, using it to keep himself on his feet. He didn't know where Sebastien had gone, but the building hadn't dropped to freezing again...and he hoped that it wouldn't. Maybe Sebastien had made it back to his dorm, wherever it was. But why had he left in such a hurry?

          He huffed irritably as he reached his door. He grabbed the handle and turned it—it was locked. Of course it was. He'd told Elliot to lock it. He took another deep breath, composed himself as best he could, and knocked.

          Clementine waited, his struggling body failing to recover. He started to feel dizzy, and when Elliot finally unlocked the door, he stumbled inside.

          "O-oh my God, Clementine!" the kid gasped, grabbing his shoulders. "What happened to you?!"

          He shrugged him off and dragged himself along the wall over to his door. "Nothing, I'm just...tired," he breathed.

          "Y-you look—"

          "I'm fine!" he snapped.

          Elliot stepped back and pouted sadly. "I'm sorry."

          He didn't make it through his door. With his legs giving out again, he sighed and slumped down on the chair beside his door.

          His roommate closed and locked their door, and when he came back into the lounge, he stared over at Clementine. "Did...did you find Sebastien?"

          "No," he grumbled.

          "Do...do you think something happened to him?"

          He shook his head. "The place didn't go cold again, so...maybe he made it back to wherever he rushed off to."

          Elliot nodded, slowly sitting on the coffee table. "Who do you think it was this time?"

          "I don't know," he breathed, dragging his hand over his sweaty forehead. "Maybe we'll find out in the morning."

          "I'm surprised no one's said anything about Ian's friends yet."

          Clementine nodded, resting his hands at his sides. "It'll get around eventually." Then, sure that he had enough strength to move a few feet, he sat up straight. "I'm gonna head to bed. I'm exhausted from today."

          Elliot nodded. "Oh, okay. Well...are you sure you're okay?"

          As he stood up, he gripped his bedroom doorframe and nodded. "Yeah. I'll see you in the morning."

          "Okay.... Goodnight."

          "Night," he mumbled, closing his door.

          Then, when he reached his bed, he fell onto it and groaned into his pillow. He wasn't sure if he was more mad than tired, or more tired than mad. He was exhausted, but all he wanted to do was smack Sebastien's stupid face for running off like that. He could continue to ask himself why, but it was a pointless waste of energy. He had no idea what that guy was up to, and it was probably best if he just went to sleep and waited for him to show up again tomorrow—he inevitably would. Was he going to get an explanation? Probably not, but what mattered more than that was ensuring they agreed upon a plan to deal with the Ravenblood.

          He rolled onto his back and glared up at the ceiling. He was pretty sure he'd seen another one of those creatures, too. But this one had been smaller, and it hadn't charged at him, either. He'd already worked out there were more than one, so could the blue-eyed blur he'd seen not too long ago be the second? What even were they? He could have sworn it looked like some sort of hound. Could they be a species of lycan or wolf walkers?

          With another sigh, he pulled off his turtleneck and dragged his bed covers over himself. It had been a long day...all he wanted to do now was rest. The sooner tomorrow came, the closer he'd be to the night he'd kill Ian.

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