“Miss Merchant, we must hurry to campus.”
“Wait!” I’ve got to make this question worth it. But Teddy’s gritting his teeth like the world might end if I don’t spit out my next thought.
“Your question?”
“When I first came here, I—I didn’t wake up on the edge of the island. I was just suddenly at Gigi’s house, which is in the middle of the island. The first thing I really remember is waking up and getting dressed for school on my first day. But my head was clear. I knew everything I had to do, and I had this sense of where I’d come from and why I was here. I knew the name Cania Christy, and I knew Gigi. But, when I think about it, I don’t know how I could have known anything.” I look at him. “So how did that work?”
“That’s what you want to spend your last question on?”
“You rushed me!”
“You want to know more about vivification. You don’t want to know what’s become of Mephisto? Or who’s about to take control of Cania Christy?”
“There’s someone else in control?”
“You don’t want to know why your friend Molly allowed herself to be killed?” he continues in disbelief. “You don’t want to know if, after you destroyed the Stone boy’s vial, he’s gone Upstairs or Downstairs?”
“Now that you mention it…”
“You don’t want to know if Mr. Zin and his father are being punished for what the two of you did? You don’t want to know what punishment you’ll endure now that you’re back?”
God, I’ve really messed this up. There’s so much to know here, and it’s like I’m always a step behind. Teddy’s already glancing up-island, looking desperately through the trees toward something I know nothing about. So many secrets for such a small island.
“Just answer the question, Teddy,” I say in exasperation.
“I wasn’t there,” he reminds me, “but, as I understand it, you were vivified sometime in the early morning of your first day of school. Dr. Zin brought your vial to Gigi’s house, where Mephisto was waiting to vivify you and Star Wetpier was waiting to…” he hesitates, “rewrite your past. Your recent past.”
“Star Wetpier. The history teacher?”
“She’s a demon. Everyone who works here is either a punk— that’s what we call new lost souls—or a demon of some rank. Demons have powers, you see. Star’s gift is to rewrite the past. When you were in the initial fog of vivifying that day, she fed you details that kept you from questioning why you were here.”
“That’s a lot of work to get a coma victim into a snobby school for dead kids.”
“If you come with me, I’ll explain more.”
Teddy grabs me by the arm, and we’re running again. He tells me, in short gasps as we race to the road, what’s been happening in our absence. He knows because he’s bound to Mephisto, his master, who has brought him up to speed, like, telepathically or something.
“The underworld has been in an uproar since you and that Zin boy jumped off the cliff.” He charges on. “Mephisto has fallen from the status of devil to archdemon, which is still far above a demon but is, nonetheless, below where he once was. He’s been removed from Cania Christy.”
“What?”
“Gone. Until he can prove himself again, which will require him to rebuild his legions, he cannot lead this school.”
“We’ve got a new headmaster?”
“Don’t be too excited,” he warns. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Prepare for madness on campus. Everyone’s arguing, switching sides,” Teddy explains. “Alliances are forming and breaking. It’s chaos. And, yes, it’s all your fault.” He barely pauses for emphasis. “The powerless punks, scheming succubae, darkest demons— everyone that served Mephisto is questioning him. Your escape was like nothing seen before. Many of Mephisto’s followers lost faith in him—”
“Faith in a devil!”
Teddy shoots me a glare. “Everyone needs to believe in something.”
We bolt out of the woods and onto the road. The massive iron gates to Cania Christy loom ahead. I hear the commotion Teddy’s been warning me about: warring staff members trading sides and creating volatile new alliances.
“You should be safe now, though,” he says. “The demons won’t battle you. And the parents have all left.”
I happened to escape on one of the few nights of the year that parents are allowed to visit their kids—and my cries for help as I raced out of Valedictorian Hall, chased by Villicus and Pilot Stone, did not go unnoticed. Not that any of the parents raised a finger to help me. No, they closed their blinds and turned out the lights.
“What does that mean, I should be safe?”
Teddy’s breath is fast. “The parents see you as a threat. You killed one of their own. Pilot Stone.”
“He had it coming!”
“If that settles your conscience.”
He did have it coming. Pilot’s scheming ways could have jeopardized my life. It was him or me. None of the Cania parents would understand that. I’ve been an outsider among wealthy people all my life—first back in Atherton, and most definitely here. It’ll be a cold day in Hell before they take my side above one of their own.
“The new headmaster is about to arrive. I can feel him.” Teddy pauses to focus on whatever he’s feeling. I’m never going to get used to living among mystic oddballs like Teddy. “Oh, it’s him,” he says, seeing something I can’t imagine. “He’s the replacement. I should have guessed.”
“Who?”
“A liar. A terrible being. A devil we will destroy. Someone you should stay away from.”
“Who?”
Ignoring me, Teddy pushes through the gates of Cania Christy. We stumble into the closest thing to pandemonium this side of Hell. It’s late afternoon. In the half day that separated my departure from my return, the order of Cania Christy has collapsed into chaos as the school has found itself without a leader. An absent headmaster wouldn’t be a problem if the staff and faculty weren’t composed entirely—save Garnet Descarteres, my art teacher and Ben’s ex-girlfriend—of Mephisto’s legions. In his absence, they’ve gone off the rails. I watch as secretaries, Trey Sedmoney, and a teacher named Levi Beemaker board up Goethe Hall’s stained-glass windows. Below them, housedads, chem teacher Dr. Naysi, and my sculpting teacher ol’ Weinchler curse and throw anything they can get their hands on at the building. Near Valedictorian Hall, the janitor is fielding attacks from a cafeteria lady, who has broken a makeshift switch off a tree and is brandishing it.
“It’s so loud!”
At the opposite end of the quad, near the shore, student noses are pressed against the glass in the dorms, where most people must have been when the madness erupted. I search the crowd for the one face I most want to see. But he’s not there.
“It’s a wonder the parents escaped this madness. Come, to the quad,” Teddy says, pointing into the eye of the storm.
I follow him with my head down. Not just because I want to avoid the fighting faculty. But also because I get the sense that, among the student body, there’s a warrant out for my arrest. The coma girl who shouldn’t have been allowed here in the first place has caused more trouble than she’s worth.
I call after Teddy, “Why are they fighting like this?”