Nobody but this school's cursed teachers is ever going to find us here. When their footsteps have retreated up the hallway, I pull my knees up and put my head down, trying not to cry again as the fabric strips I'm bound with chafe my wrists and ankles. When I get a handle on my shaky breathing, I test the makeshift ropes around my wrists. I won't be able to get those off so easily, so I let myself drop sideways and arch my back like a constipated seal to get my fingers on the knots around my ankles. A couple minutes of picking, and those come free. Circulation returns to my feet, which have gone numb in their stockings. If I'd known today would end with me getting caught regardless, I'd have worn shoes.

I wrestle ineffectually with the bonds on my wrists again, then force myself to my feet and promptly run into a wall. I stagger backward. By some miracle, I manage to collapse against cold stone beside me instead of cold stone floor, sparing myself a likely concussion. When I've regained my balance, I begin to feel my way along the wall with my shoulder. My toes find the door the hard way. That's what I'm looking for. The doorjamb, as I'd hoped, is a rough-cut stone corner. I lean back against it and turn its file-like properties against the "ropes" tying my hands.

My tactic works. When I can snap the fabric's final threads, I extract my hands and rub my wrists until I can feel my fingers properly. Then I resume my exploration. I run into another wall. Taking inventory of my clumsy body reveals more than just residual incoordination from the infirmary drug. It must be full morning outside by now, I got only a nap's worth of sleep last night, and even pausing for a moment has called me out as drop-dead exhausted. No wonder my thoughts aren't functioning, either.

I'm going to injure myself trying to explore at this rate. I also have at least another day before the cult's dove-book resets and is able to take another student. I let myself drop, and pass out almost immediately. The room is still dark when I wake up again. I run an inventory of my senses. There's no light anywhere, and no footsteps outside. No strange smells. No fire and brimstone. No claws groping for my ankles to drag me down through Hell's nine circles for the crime of being me. Though this place could use a little hellfire, to be honest. It's cold as winter's backside in here.

I blow on my hands and rub them together, an attempt to regain sensation that's about as effective as lighting matches to warm a hall the size of Melliford Academy's. Mental images of the school strike me with a new idea. The door. I feel my way over to it, managing not to run into any more walls. The door of this cell is wood, a revelation that lights my hopes for three taps of a cultist's pen before reality does its thing and returns to rain on my parade. Burning something so big down here, with us trapped in a room behind it, is a sure way to suffocate both me and Barnabas before I can say "Firestarter." I count my matches to console myself, and promptly wish I hadn't. I've only got five left.

Maybe I can deconstruct the hinges. I feel across the door with stiff fingers, but whoever built this cell was less of an idiot than I've been, and put the hinges on the outside. Also the lock, naturally, and I've got nothing on me that's wire-like enough to jimmy through any gaps in the door. I could search Barnabas's body, but the teachers said he's about to wake up. I don't want my first impression here to be groping someone. I sink down against the wall again and make finger-claws through my hair. I should've gone rogue when Exie suggested we rescue a student I've scarcely even met. I agreed to this because Exie cared, and while I don't regret it, strictly speaking, it was Exie's plan that fell through. I'd rather have...

My own thought trails off. Rather have what? I don't have a plan. I know that's the point, but I'd probably have burned something before even trying to get into the infirmary, and it's hard to imagine how that might have changed anything. Maybe someone outside would've seen the smoke and come to save us. Or maybe they already know. Maybe there's no one close enough across the open countryside to see it anyway. Not that it would matter; we could climb the willows and get over the wall somehow. I could've had time to pack my things. I should've focused my attention on escaping this place the moment I saw Colson II. I'm sure I could've made it out and made it home.

Home.

Why am I trying to get home? Home is the place that sent me here.

My mental images of escape stop the moment I'm over the wall. Maybe I could find a town and try to bribe my way to the nearest city. But I've got nowhere to go from there. I can't go back to my parents after this—if I do, I'm setting my father's office on fire, too. I don't know how to live on my own. I've got relatives who would take me in, but no money to reach them, and virtually no skills that could land me a job lucrative enough to let me save up. I can burn the school down, but if any of the teachers survive, they'll just get me caught and charged for arson. I have no alibi. No way to keep them or my parents from simply tracking me down again. The person with all those things is Exie.

I have no plan. Going rogue feels right until I look more than five hours past the consequences of my actions, at which point everything is terrifying and I don't know what to do. I have no Exie beside me to ask. I don't know if I would ask her. She's gone the opposite direction and sold her soul to the system—so thoroughly, she won't even ditch her family to run away like she's been planning to for years. That system isn't the answer, either. But then I don't know what is.

I should've just stayed under the bed. That might have sacrificed Barnabas a second time, but at least I'd be alive.

I am alive. We still have time. And even if I'd escaped, there'd have been nothing stopping me from becoming the doves' next victim. They already got Clarice. It's only a matter of time.

I'd have been up against better odds, though.

The doves might have gotten Exie instead. I can't investigate this place without her. Right now, as far as I'm aware, she's still out there somewhere, still alive. Still sane. Still trying to solve this all, if she hasn't given up and abandoned me for sabotaging her plan.

But that plan was never going to work. We're up against an entire institution. They've been doing this for decades. They've seen worse than me. Three of us—two now—were never going to be enough to take down this school. We're just a bunch of delinquent teenagers, and at least some still believe this place has their best interests in mind. That might have changed after this morning, but if I can't get out of here, I'll never find out either way.

A noise behind me makes me jump in my skin. My hands flail for a weapon, but I succeed only in playing the harpsichord across my own ass and abdomen as I confirm my pockets empty. Well, except for the matches, which the teachers miraculously didn't relieve me of, and which miraculously didn't take their own leave while I was hauled through the school's dungeons like a sack of animate potatoes. I pull one out and strike it just as a groan across the room takes on a familiar voice. Barnabas pulls an arm over his eyes in the sudden light.

"Sorry," I say automatically. The chivalrous thing to do then would be to blow out the match, but I stand there like a dumbstruck chicken until it reaches my fingers, does what any self-respecting fire should, and bites me. I drop it with a yelp. The blow with the floor snuffs it out. Four matches left now.

"Who's here?" says Barnabas, his voice trembling.

"Me."

There's a pause in which I realize I should probably elaborate, but Barnabas beats me to my own introduction. "Des?"

He remembers my name. I must've made an impression when he returned my key after me and Exie's first failed nocturnal expedition. Or maybe my reputation has preceded me.

Of course it has. This guy was close with the popular kids.

"Yeah," I say. "Are you... sane right now?"

Great proof of my own sanity, right there. I scramble for different words, but I'm only good with words when I'm angry.

Barnabas, once again, beats me to the line. "What happened?"

"You're going to have to elaborate on that."

I hear him push himself off the ground. He shifts to the corner, where his shoes scrape. He's pulled his knees up.

"What's the last thing you remember?" I ask, because I think I'm going to have to help with this one.

"Going to bed."

"Before or after a meeting with Massingham?"

"What?"

I take a breath and let it out again. "Okay. Different question. Did you notice what happened to Colson?"

A sharp intake of breath. I knew the popular kids noticed and were trying to ignore it. Unless Barnabas is just sharper than the rest of them. Given that Exie chose to work with him, I wouldn't be surprised.

"Okay," I say again. "To cut a very long story short, this school is a cult and they're trying to raise a fallen angel. They're sacrificing students to accomplish that."

Barnabas's voice jumps half an octave. "Sacrifice?"

"Not kill. It's... kind of hard to explain? There's a book, and they use the pages to... this isn't going to make sense without the longer story. Do you want to hear everything, or just the short version?"

"Just the short version for now," says Barnabas. His voice is trembling again.

"Cool. Well, you went the same way as Colson. Me and my friends found the thing that made it happen, and burned it. You screamed, the teachers tried to redo the ceremony, I burned a bed, and we ended up here. They're going to come for one of us again tomorrow, though. Unless we can get out. Sorry."

Barnabas doesn't reply. As the silence stretches this time, my temptation to light another match burns up through me, hotter and brighter with each passing moment. I just want to see his face. Or his body language. Silence and darkness are not my friends.

But if I waste my matches, I won't have any to get us out of here, sabotage another ceremony, or fight back against the teachers of Cultiford Academy. Nevermind that I'm pretty sure the teachers would tie me up again if they dragged me off for my own demon mind-wipe. I doubt I'd get a chance to light a match anyway.

I never tried to plan alongside Exie. Only fought her plans, or went along with them until they fell apart beneath me. I should have tried harder, sooner, somehow. Before I ended up in a place with nothing to do but sit around regretting everything.

I catch myself on that one. I have things to do here. I'm not dead yet. I still have four matches, and Barnabas is awake now. Awake and sane. Even if he doesn't have lock-picking tools on him, I can't lose much by talking to someone who's spoken directly with this demon.