We eventually leave the judged students with their bodyguards outside the school walls, where they won't be visible from any of the building's windows. I'm glad we lay them out under a blue sky, dotted with puffy white clouds like some old lady's ornamental wig. The last thing we need is a bunch of unconscious, freshly exorcized students catching colds and needing medical attention. We don't have the means yet to transport them to any towns nearby.

I don't even know if there are any towns nearby. All maps we've seen have a blot or gap over this area, and the only exception predates the Sectant Expulsion. Not exactly an up-to-date record of local human habitation. I resign myself to the fact that that's probably a question for after the demon's defeat. If we win, we'll have all the time in the world. If we lose, where we flee won't matter anyway. Those who make it out alive will be more concerned with just getting as far away as they can.

"Won't the teachers notice that these guys are missing?" I ask Exie, with a nod towards the students we've left to guard the judged.

She shakes her head. "We're hoping to hide people all over the school. Well, in places that will divert teachers away from the staircase, at least. You two will need to get to the second floor."

I groan. In ye olde fairy tales, people simply climb walls of ivy to reach the upper floors of ancient buildings, but we're in no such luck here. Even if Melliford Academy had a convenient vegetative sweater, I wouldn't have the arm strength to climb it. I'm no waif, either, and I've heard ivy is less robust than people give it credit for. That leaves the only second-floor entrance we've ever found: the secret staircase that claimed Colson II.

"Getting you in is the bigger problem," says Exie. "We found the tunnel entrance in the library, but that's a long way from the staircase. We'd have to sneak you both in, and I don't like the chances of getting caught somewhere along the hallway."

"Wait."

I squint at absolutely nothing, not because it helps me remember anything, but because it feels like it should. It doesn't take much thought to confirm what I've realized anyway.

"Exie? Don't worry about us getting in. I have a way, and it's only a few doors down from the staircase. If no one's found it, that is."

Exie gives me a look of trepidation.

"We'll figure something out if they have," I say. My time in that prison cell might have converted me from complete whirlwind to at least partial planner, but I've never been one to adhere to any particular worship system. I'm just not as committed to the Church of Chaos as I used to be.

"Alright," says Exie. "Where do you need us to divert the teachers from, then?"

"North wing."

"The classrooms?"

"Yeah. If they're out of sight of the staircase, that's good enough."

Exie nods slowly. "Okay. Once you're on the second floor, you'll have to move quickly, though. There are a lot of rooms up there."

I expect her to press me for more of a plan, but she doesn't. I'd almost forgotten what having someone's trust felt like.

I elaborate anyway. "If a teacher comes upstairs, we can just hide in one of the rooms. If they're bedrooms or offices, there's probably plenty of furniture."

Closets, bedframes, tables, and desks, not to mention behind curtains or into secret bookshelf passageways. We're not going to find the latter in the non-time we have for exploration, but going to ground is one thing I feel I can manage on the fly. I locate Barnabas to check how he feels about this, but he's stepped back to let the two of us keep scheming. I guess we've garnered a bit of a reputation.

"You know," I say, "if we get out of here alive and mentally intact, I'm throwing a chair through my parents' window and ditching that place once and for all."

"Where are you planning to go?" asks Exie.

I stop short of making some flippant reply. I do actually have an answer to that. I had a lot of time to think while trapped down in that cell with Barnabas. "I'm thinking of contacting my sister, in Coprana. She moved out before me, so I'm guessing she'll have pointers." I decide to risk returning the question. "What about you?"

"Can I come with you?"

I blink. "I don't see why not."

Which is a stupid, roundabout way of saying I would fling myself in the Dervin Channel in midwinter if it bought me such an arrangement, but Exie doesn't seem to take offense.

"Just as long as we get David first," she says.

"I figured that was a given."

She hugs me, then lets go before I have time to overthink my reply. "Ready?"

"Not going get any readier. Unless you have more matches. I'm running out."

With a wry smile, she sticks a hand in her pocket and comes up with an entire fistful.

"And you accused me of wanting to burn the school," I say.

"Deny that."

"Nope." I'd still torch this place at the drop of a hat. "We should get back into the tunnels."

We return to the tunnel entrance and follow Haven's lead back towards the library. Half of me expects to find a student-teacher fight awaiting us, but Exie's been one step ahead of me all along. She's stocked the library's end with a gaggle of the nerdiest students in our cohort: the kind that wouldn't arouse any suspicion if they simply hid out with their book hoards and played scared. Shouting and raucous laughter reach us from beyond the library doors, giving something plausible for the nerds to be hiding from.

"The book-guards aren't here?" I whisper as we slip past the hinged bookshelf and crouch low among drifts of literary material. There's no sign of either librarian.

"We diverted them." Another sly smile from Exie. "They don't take well to their books being absconded with."

Exie Raising-Hell Quinnell. The expansive warmth of pride swells my chest. As if to spite me, a draft smacks me over the back of the head, raising goosebumps up and down my arms. I look up to find a student peeking out the gaping base of a library lancet window. Someone's managed to systematically dismantle the bottom of its stained glass, a disturbance that makes me wince despite myself. I'm guessing that's our route outside.

"Good luck," whispers Exie. We both linger for a moment, then kiss goodbye and jump apart like nobody was supposed to see that. Exie turns me around and pushes me towards the open window. I look around for Barnabas. He's already outside. Between his help and Exie trying very hard to guide me without touching my ass, I make it through the window after him. Soft garden soil greets me on the other side. I pull Barnabas aside and scuff out our shoe-prints—Exie was kind enough to have a student fetch me shoes again after we got out of the tunnels. I don't expect the teachers of Melliford Academy to know us well enough yet to identify shoe styles and sizes, but I'm not taking chances.

Barnabas looks to me for further direction. We skirt the school wall, crouched below the level of its windows. I'm dearly glad the north wing is directly ahead rather than all the way around the building. The last thing I want to do is run past the school's front doors like a cockroach on a carpet, trying not to get spotted and whacked by a broom.

When we reach the wing, I stop Barnabas and peek around the corner. I'm rewarded immediately by the fruits of my previous renegade activities. The window to my "secret" hideout is still as I left it: open. This time, it's not the only one. Of the classroom orifices some ways down the wall behind it, two also stand ajar, and the smell of sulfur wafts towards us from one or both of them. I pull back and hunker down. Now we wait.

The sun has crept a tangible distance down the sky—a half-hour, by my best estimate—when an almighty crash makes both me and Barnabas jump in our skins. I peek around the corner again as a teacher's voice rises to a shout somewhere from the same direction. The school's lawn twinkles with shattered glass around an upturned chair. That's our signal.

Me and Barnabas dive around the corner. Whatever's going on inside the classroom keeps anyone from going to the windows as we dart to my hideout room and scramble inside. Barnabas is across the room before I've finished making the window look like it's closed behind us. He cracks the door open, then pulls out a tiny pocket mirror on a wire and pokes it through.

"Smart," I whisper, sidling up beside him. The tiny mirror reveals a view of the hallway, where a teacher drags a drunk-looking student off and away. The moment they're out of sight, a familiar curly-haired head pops out the classroom doorway and waves. Me and Barnabas bolt for the secret staircase. We're just in time. The door thumps softly behind us just as someone yodels a war cry outside. There's a teacher in view again. With no more way to leave our hideout, our only option is up the stairs.

I keep expecting to hear teachers thundering down towards us as we creep in the opposite direction. The manufactured trouble in the rest of the school must be bad enough to keep the whole fleet occupied, and thank the Lord for it—if we come face to face with a teacher at this point, I'm sure my pounding heart will simply fail on me. I have no desire for a cardiac arrest at the age of seventeen.

We reach the staircase's second door without incident. This is progressing almost too smoothly, but the hallway beyond is also empty. There's no sign of the angel-decorated door. Me and Barnabas duck low again and scoot to the far end of the hallway. It's not the end at all—only a well-concealed corner into a tunnel of a hallway with a windowed exterior but no view of the school's interior. There's a lot more to this second floor than you'd think just looking at it from below.

We've got nothing to do now but search. We find our way to the chapel end of the balcony, but it ends there without sign of promising doors. I test each handle on our way back. Some are open, but they lead to offices and bedrooms, like the teachers that live and work and carry out cult rituals here don't feel the need to lock their living quarters. I guess when you all work for the same demon, that might produce a certain kind of camaraderie.

We find the angel-wing door at the other end of this elongated hallway. I test the handle, then task Barnabas with picking the lock. That's another few minutes gone. Beyond it is an empty room. Barnabas props the door open and keeps watch while I venture inside, but even the most thorough search doesn't turn up so much as a loose wall-stone. I find no books. With that candidate ruled out, we're going to have to do this the hard way.