I don't know what these two are on about, but I don't particularly care either way. They asked a question, and I have my answer ready at hand. I curl my lip with as much scorn as I can muster without giving myself a chemical burn. "You're all out of your minds if you think this school is looking out for you."

The girl nudges her companion again. "You should document that on the noticeboard."

Two students groan. Another calls across the room, "You haven't won anything yet, Gilbert. Stick to the rules."

I narrow my eyes. "Rules for what?"

"Don't worry about it, sweetheart," says the girl. "You've done your part for the day. Thanks for boosting us."

The boy puts a hand on her shoulder and turns her away. "This will count as interference if it goes on much longer. Stop goading her."

Out the corner of my eye, I see Exie's hand make a swipe for me and miss as I stride sharply after the pair. They pull up as I block their way. "You're taking bets," I say. "Tell me what you're betting on, cowards."

"That is none of your business." The boy has crafted his expression into a careful facade of boredom. Unless he's actually bored. Having an ally at his side has emboldened him, clearly. "Step aside, please. I don't wish to be disqualified."

I don a savage smile, plant my feet, and cross my arms. "Now that sounds fun."

He rolls his eyes, but the girl beside him looks almost delighted at the chance to carry on the argument. "This won't get you kicked out of school, sweetheart. Don't waste your energy on silly goals now. Keep your eye on the prize. There are still more windows to smash ineffectively in all of our classrooms."

Anger boils up through my gut like liquid tar. I know this is the time when I should walk away. This situation will only escalate if I don't, and I know I've made a fool of myself before when I let a rich kid bait me. But pride and the temptation to wipe that snide smirk off this girl's face is strong enough to override every rational argument.

"Well, that just proves that I have free will now, doesn't it?" I say. "Better than lying down and taking my own brainwashing like a good little lap dog."

A delighted laugh escapes the girl. "Brainwashing! That's a new one. Gil, you should write this all down. She's unhinged."

"I'm saner than the rest of you combined. You really think this place is so benevolent that they'd take money from a load of rich folk to lock up their problem children? They're just here to pad their pockets."

And feed those problem children to a demon, jumps about on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it back just in time. Exie's worked too hard for me to blow the cover on her investigation now. Especially if we can't trust these people not to run to a teacher with anything we say.

The girl shrugs. "Or it's insurance on the school in case someone sets fire to the rafters. As for that brainwashing, I'm perfectly sane, and I've felt more at home here than in any school I've ever been to. Nobody needs to brainwash problem children when it's so much more effective to just treat them like people. Unless you've got it twisted enough that you think anyone who's nice to you must have an ulterior motive."

"It's a front, and you've evidently swallowed it."

"You must find so much paranoia exhausting." The girl's face turns to mocking pity, and it rocks me so much harder than I want it to. "Take a breath for once, sweetheart. Not everyone who's out to help you is an enemy in disguise."

"Then explain Colson."

The whole room goes silent. We're still standing just outside of it. I can see around the two popular students' shoulders, and it's enough to watch several others in their posse exchange nervous glances.

"I don't know what you're raving about, sweetheart."

"That was an awfully long pause for someone claiming ignorance. You've noticed. I'd bet you've all noticed. You and your little squad, too. There's something foul here, and he's just the first to have fallen to it."

"Or the first to crack from being away from home for so long." The girl tries to return to that pitying look, but she just ends up looking constipated. Her eyes dart a little. I know I've found my opening, and I drive my wedge ruthlessly. I've probably already gone too far. Exie might hate me. But my talking has begun escaping my own self-control.

"Do you really believe that? Homesickness looks like that kid in the room back there, though I'd scream too if I was rooming with someone who's gone sick in the mind. They're just nice here to lure you into a false sense of security, princess. And the moment you let your guard down, you're all done for." I'm bullshitting now; the girl's faltering expression is addictive. No amount of guard can protect someone from a fallen angel. Or at least, I'd be shocked if it did. "You want to call me paranoid? Then ask Colson why he has a paper bird in his pocket. Ask Mrs. Hardwick about the history of this school. Ask your good friend Barnabas how far back it's been erased. This place is rotten on the inside. It just puts on a good show."

"Alright," says Gilbert with slightly narrowed eyes. "Let's put that to the test then, shall we? Barnabas, I'm intrigued."

Reality jolts me back to myself like a collision with a stone floor. He's here. I didn't realize he was here. Barnabas himself is at a carrel desk on the other side of the student common room, his back to us, head down and shoulders hunched. He's gone completely still, unless he was like that already.

My mouth ran off on me, and now the consequences are catching up. I've just dragged someone into this who only got involved through a fair trade with Exie. I've put Barnabas on the spot in front of half the student body; another dozen students have gathered in the hallway since me and the popular kids began our spat. And if Barnabas defends himself, he may well expose Exie's search anyway. My panicked heartbeat spikes further as I find her again. She's backed against the far wall of the room, like I've turned to carrion and she doesn't want the smell on her clothes. Her glare cuts me to the bone.

"Barnabas?" says the girl in a syrupy voice. "You've been quiet all day. Is there something you'd like to tell us?"

Barnabas says something without turning around, too quiet for any of us to hear.

The girl takes a step back into the common room. "Louder for the rest of us, love."

"Justice is the only hope of the unworthy."

My heart drops to the Lambsdon catacombs. That's meant for me. He's angry at me, which means I've thrown an ally under this stupid argument's carriage wheels. Other students are frowning in confusion or concern. Barnabas pushes his chair back and gets to his feet, gathering up the notebook in front of him. For the briefest of moments, I swear I see a drawing of an angel. Then Barnabas turns.

Barnabas isn't home anymore.

I stagger backwards. The body that no longer belongs to a conscious human being locks eyes with me from across the room. His eyes are stricken. Dead. He's breathing, but I've never seen a person so far from human since I came face to face with Colson II. My heel catches on itself or an imaginary ridge of architecture, and I crash to the floor, skinning both palms on the stone. Barnabas II looms larger in my vision, though he hasn't taken a step yet. He hasn't even moved.

"Hope for justice," he intones. "And maybe you will find an endeavor worth your pitiful existence." His gaze sweeps the room with the devastating finality of a priest daming a whole congregation for their sins. "Your judgment is coming."

He begins to walk towards me. I can't think. My body scrabbles for purchase on its own, leaving blood streaks on the stones as panic starts to swallow me whole. The popular students aren't in front of me anymore. I'm alone in the path of Mastema's second minion, close enough to see that the angel in his notebook was not the only one. He's drawn angel wings all over the cover of it, and in the middle of its back face, an ornate circle holds a slit-pupiled eye. Barnabas II clutches the notebook to his chest as he approaches me, like it's a life raft in a heaving sea. His eyes don't track my motions. It's like he's staring straight through me at something infinitely worse that only he can see.

Somehow, I make it to my feet. I dive sideways, but Barnabas II doesn't come after me. He walks past like I've ceased to exist, and carries on down the hallway. At the crossroads, he turns the corner that leads to the school's church.

In the deathly silent common room, another chair scrapes. A second student has gotten to her feet. She's a frail-looking thing I've seen huddled outside the sun's reach in class, but I've seen her more recently than that. She was in the chapel this morning, just one row behind Colson II. She too glared at me when I overstayed my welcome. The girl turns. A small sob escapes me. Her eyes are stricken the exact same way.

"Your judgment is coming," she murmurs like an echo. She too walks towards the chapel.

The students left behind begin to lose it. The popular kids whirl left and right like other dangers will jump out at them from the room's sconces or walls. But the sudden outbreak of motion and panicked voices only highlights the calm of several other students in our midst. People draw back like minnows around a pike as one of these lifts his head.

"What's wrong with you all?" snaps another boy nearby.

The one I'm watching turns slowly to look at him. Or past him. He's staring at nothing just like Barnabas II. "I saw the water," he murmurs. Then he turns away again. In an instant, the angry student has him by the collar, and shakes him like a rat.

"What's wrong with you?" he screams. "Tell me or I swear I'll crack your head open on that fireplace lintel!"

The demon minion he's shaking doesn't lift a hand. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't do anything. He just looks his attacker in the eye, and all color drains from the angry student's face. He drops the minion's collar like it burned him, and staggers back with a dark patch seeping through his pants. He's literally wet himself. Nearly hyperventilating, he whirls around and bolts out of the room. A pair of girls follow him, stumbling as they cling to one another.

I can count the minions. Everyone has drawn back from them as one sits back down, one goes back to a semblance of studying, and another makes for the doorway of the room with the same gallows-bound look as all the others. He's sickly pale, with the false, haunted calm of someone who's borne witness to something no mortal human should. I understand now what Exie saw in her brother David. I understand now why she's here. I understand all that and more, but one truth eclipses all the rest.

From where I stand, I can count six minions. That's not to say there aren't more, but something deep inside me says there won't be. We didn't hear the screams. The school's doors must have blocked them. But if I count the night of Colson's death, the time since Melliford Academy claimed its first victim has been exactly six days.