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“You realise you’re expected to pass the exams to qualify,” Braith flicked a blonde curl off her neck.
Rhian narrowed her eyes. “I know that.” It was Monday morning and the deadline to apply for the scholarship loomed. Of all the people who could be waiting in the financial services office, why did it have to be Braith?
Braith snorted. “You’re type are all alike. You think just because you have an ability, you can skate by.”
“It’s not like that.”
“No?” Braith lifted her brow. “Beth ydy e fel? Ydych chi’n gallu deall mi?”
“Whatever.” Rhian sat in one of the dozen plush green chairs. Braith never missed an opportunity to show off. Not only was she fluent, but she was among the top of the class. Rhian slumped. What chance did she really have to be selected for the scholarship, her grades were far from stellar and unless she could master pronouncing her ignition words by tomorrow she was certain to flunk her composition exam.
Emmanuel entered the office, wide eyed and slack jawed. “Rhian…”
She stood. “What’s wrong?”
“It — “ He looked at his hands shaking his head, “Its Afia, she’s gone.”
Fear tickled down Rhian’s neck. “What do you mean gone?”
He shook his head.
It couldn’t be. Rhian shoved the scholarship form into her bag. “How do you know? Did you tell the office?”
“Katie told me, she’s in the nurse’s office, she is an absolute wreck. Ms. Landeg is contacting her parents for her. She’s going home.”
“I don’t blame her.” Rhian muttered. First Katie’s best-friend and now her roommate, Rhian made a mental note to have Gretchen make wards for their room. “But Katie’s been off since Julia, maybe she’s jumping to conclusions, Afia may have stayed out in town.” The possibility sounded weaker aloud than it did in her head.
“I hope so.” Emmanuel stared down at his empty hands. “No one’s seen Afia since Sunday morning.”
“Malu cachu,” Braith muttered. “I saw Afia last night.”
“You did?” Emmanuel’s eyes lit up. “Where?”
“She was having a row with Gareth outside the gym.”
Gareth, doesn’t that figure. Rhian’s palms grew hot, she clenched them in a fist. “If he hurt Afia — “
“Hurt?” Braith shot Rhian the same look she gave when Rhian’d butchered her ignition words in composition class. “I doubt that, aren’t they dating or whatever? Sounded like a lovers spat is all.”
“Lovers? You’re mental.”
“I’m only saying.” Braith swatted her hair. “They’re your mates, you’d know better than me.”
“Gareth is not my mate.” Rhain simmered as she felt Emmanuel’s hand rest on her shoulders.
“Can you tell us where Afia went after?” Emmanuel’s calmness made Rhian feel remiss for letting Braith rile her.
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“She went off with that Yorkshire girl.”
“Gretchen?”
“Is that her name then? I’m talking about your roommate, don’t you two talk to each other?”
Rhian wrinkled her forehead. Gretchen hadn’t said anything last night about Afia and Gareth fighting.
Emmanual’s posture slumped.
“Don’t worry, Grez and I have crafting next, I’ll ask her about Afia.”
Emmanuel wet his lips and nodded, but his eyes were dull and without hope. “Afia’s ability…” He leaned his head in. “What if she touched something belonging to the killer?”
The word killer ran ice down Rhian’s spine. “I thought a spider was responsible.”
Emmanuel shook his head. “Gareth was right about one thing, if there really is a monster out there, someone put it there, and I think it’s likely someone is controlling it. If anyone could figure out who’s doing this, it’d be Afia. And now she’s gone.”
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Gretchen wasn’t in crafting class. Nor was she waiting outside composition when it ended. Rhian had alerted her form teacher, but was told to go about her business. As if that was possible. Rhian glanced at the empty bed across from hers. A giant spider preying on students — it was madness. They were in Wales not bloody Australia.
She shuddered and hugged her pillow. Gretchen had become her closest friend since she began school here, if anything happened to her — or Afia. This must have been how Katie felt. Students have been disappearing for weeks, why wasn’t the school doing anything. Rhian flung an orange ball of fire at the wall. Blue light rippled from where it hit. It extinguished.
The administration had been thoughtful enough to put up a fire protection ward, but not competent enough to stop students from leaving the building. Lights out was in less than an hour. She couldn’t sit and do nothing. What happened to her friends was her business.
Rhian kicked out of bed, and plopped down at her desk. She opened the heavy text on composition and began leafing through the index for spider. If Gretchen came back before she’d finished then it’d be time well spent studying for tomorrow’s exam. And if Gretchen didn’t — Rhian found the page and ran her finger down to the ingredients list, an egg, sugar, fly meat, dew drops…she’d have everything she needed for a spider hunt. Friesfro — bugger it. She got to work.
The egg and sugar proved to be the most difficult to get. She’d found a dead fly on a window sill in the dormitory halls and dew drops were common for spells, Gretchen had some stored in their mini-fridge. Eggs and sugar however, were mainly reserved for darker magic — and, cake but students were forbidden from baking outside of the culinary science elective so any delicious reasons she might have concocted were futile. If she had Braith’s skills, Rhian could have probably crafted a chicken to lay her egg, but she didn’t and she wasn’t about to ask Braith for help so instead she lurked outside the cafeteria. The doors were of course locked.
Rhian paced. She had no sense of time outside of her room. Mobile phones were forbidden and the halls lacked clocks. Lights out could be any moment. She gave the handles another twist and pull. No luck. If she could find a way in she’d not only gain access to the kitchens but also outside. Soft spoken Sabina had heard the spider dwelt in the sacred forest over the river — though faculty had turned up nothing.
Rhian placed both hands over the metal handle and focused on her anger. She remembered what Emmanuel had said about Afia being able to figure out who controlled the spider, and Braith placing Gretchen with Afia. If Afia had found out and told Gretchen, then that could be why they were taken. And she had a good idea of who took them.
The metal remained solid. Rhian shivered as her body temperature dropped. She placed her hand on a wall and siphoned more heat from the building’s electrics. The lights flickered. It wasn’t working. She stopped.
“What are you doing, Rhian?” Alaric Strumbottom’s voice played in her head.
She looked around. Don’t think anything weird, don’t think anything weird…
Alaric walked out from a corner chuckling. “Saying bod yn mynd, be gone, is enough to kick a telepath out…but your way works as well.”
Rhian backed away from the door. “What are you doing outside the dorms? It’s almost lights out?”
“I could ask the same to you.”
“I need an egg.”
Alaric studied her with sparkling blue eyes and rubbed his chin. He could chisel stone with that jaw. It was no wonder Gretchen fancied him. Bod yn mynd, bod yn mynd…
He smiled and shook his head. “Will pickled do?”