Page 80 of Shadow Caster
Minnie was nodding. “Okay. Yes. That sounds good. Thank you.” She sounded lost and small.
Her gaze slipped over Harper’s shoulder and met mine through the window. A slight frown marred her forehead.
Harper followed Minnie’s gaze, and her smile dropped. She patted Minnie’s hand and then strode over to the door. She slipped out and closed the door firmly behind her.
Minnie was watching, her jade eyes wide with interest.
“What are you doing here?” Harper whispered.
“I came to see my friend.”
Harper shot Master Payne a quick smile before returning her gorgon glare back to my face. “Minnie needs calm and quiet and stability right now. Things you can’t give her. Where have you been the past two weeks anyway?”
Her words stung. “I have a trial coming up. I have to train.”
“Yeah, you do. You have to do shadow cadet stuff. You don’t have time to be here for her, not like I do.”
“Miss Bourne,” Master Payne said. “I hardly think it’s up to you to decide who Miss Faraday’s friends should be.”
Harper’s gaze snapped to Payne’s. “With all due respect,sir, right now I’m the only person qualified to make those decisions. I’ve known Minnie most of her life. We grew up together. If anyone can help her recall who she used to be, it’s me.” Her stare bore into mine. “Can you honestly say I’m wrong? Can you promise you can be here for her as much as she needs?”
A vise squeezed my lungs, taking my breath, because she was right. As much as I wanted to stab her in the eye with a blunt pencil, the bitch was right. I swallowed my rage, my impotence, and my sorrow.
“Take good care of her.” The words were broken glass.
Harper’s body relaxed, and the harsh lines on her face softened. “You know I will.” She retreated into the room with Minnie.
“Are you all right?” Master Payne asked.
But my mind was going off on a tangent, working on a new problem, one that I could help with.
I couldn’t be there for Minnie, but maybe there was a way to figure out what had happened to her. “Where did they find her?”
“Excuse me?”
“In the library? Where in the library was Minnie found?”
“They’ve done a sweep of the place. They didn’t find any clues,” Payne said.
I looked purposefully into his gray eyes. “Maybe they were looking in the wrong place.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have a theory, but we need to get to the library. Now.”
Twenty-Five
It was a hunch. A stupid hunch, but if I was right then we’d know some things for sure. If I was right, there could be clues that the administration had missed.
Payne accompanied me, and the gargoyles on duty in the corridors slinked by us, leaving us be. He was a tutor, and I was in his care, so not technically breaking the lockdown.
The library was empty except for the librarian, Madam Florina. She looked up from her book as we entered and then quickly shoved the paperback under some papers. Probably a dirty romance novel.
“Carter?” Her cheeks reddened. “What can I do for you?” Her gaze slid to me in my shadow cadet black and blue. “Oh, a student out during lockdown?”
“Miss Justice is with me, Irina. Can you show us where Miss Faraday was found?”
The librarian nodded enthusiastically. “Of course. Follow me.”
