He tapped a spot on the wall near the door, and the ceiling lit up until it was bright in the room.
“That didn’t help as much as I’d hoped,” Wally whispered. “I’m not sure seeing this clearly is going to make tonight any better.”
She had a very good point.
There were four beds, each with a chest at the foot of it, though I doubted any of our items had made it down here. Shit. I hadn’t taken that into consideration when I’d pushed for getting us all into one room. Not that I had a ton of stuff, but what little I had, I wanted to keep. Like the knife that my dad had made for me, and the wand I’d claimed as my own. We’d been told to put all of our personal things in our bags, and I’d done it. Now look where that had gotten me. So much for listening to the adults and having things turn out in my favor.
“All our stuff will be spread out amongst the other houses,” Pete said. “How are we going to get it back?”
“Well, it’s not like we’re going to break into our own houses to take our things,” Orin said, deadpan as usual, so I couldn’t be sure if he was being sarcastic or serious.
As I thought about what that would entail, I slowly grinned. “Yeah, I think we’re going to do just that. Technically we aren’t lifting anything, so we won’t be breaking rules.”
Pete turned to me and spluttered. “Seriously? You want to wander around the House of Wonder and steal our stuff back after they warned us that the house itself could be dangerous?”
I shrugged, a rush of excitement burning off any of the concern that wanted to nibble at me. Like remembering that the Sandman could now talk to me in my freaking head. Let’s see if he could keep up with me. If he wanted to follow me around, that was on him.
“Why not? No one will be looking right now. There’s a good amount of chaos out there as they get all these kids settled into their houses in whatever level of the basement they got stuck in. You can sniff our stuff out for us with that wicked nose of yours.”
Pete puffed up a little. “Yeah, I could do that. But we’ll have to get by the other mentors in the Houses of Claw, Shade, and Night.” He ticked each one off on his fingers. “How do you want to do that?”
“I’ve got a plan,” I said, although I had nothing of the sort. I pulled my pendant from my shirt, tucking it into my pocket. “Follow me.”
5
My plan to get past the other house directors and steal our own stuff was simple, probably because I’d come up with it in a matter of seconds. We’d start with the House of Night as a trial run. Wally and Orin would keep the directors busy with questions—easy for Wally in particular with her rapid-fire questions and memorized percentages of death and dismemberment—while Pete, Gregory, and I found their gear and lifted it.
Nice and simple.
Then we’d move on to the House of Claw next, leaving the House of Shade for last. I was banking on that one being the most difficult. Mostly because we’d be dealing with the Sandman, who’d see right through me and my plans if I wasn’t very careful. Especially since he could apparently mosey around in my head now. And if the other house mentors were paying attention, they could do the same to my friends. But with the exception of that one necromancer taking note of Wally, I was banking on the rest of them going unnoticed.
“Where exactly do you think they are keeping everyone in the House of Night?” Gregory asked. “Because if we can’t find the entrance, there is no way this plan is going to work.”
I led the way out of our room and into the circular center of the House of Unmentionables. A few kids milled about, and we got more than our fair share of odd looks. Of course, we didn’t fit in here. For that matter, Gregory didn’t fit in well either. He was far too good-looking to be accepted by the rest of the goblins.
Orin ghosted forward, his skin almost glowing in the dim light. “The House of Night was led to a doorway to the left of the House of Unmentionables. We need to get back to the main entrance and then take the path from there.”
I agreed. “There are designs in the wall. They’re hard to see, but they are there. One for each house. Orin, you lead the way up the path. Wally, behind him.”
“I didn’t see any designs,” Orin said. “I just took note of the placement in case your plan didn’t work and we needed to bail.”
I frowned to myself. Was it my connection to magic that allowed me to see the designs? “No one else saw them?”
“To be fair, I wasn’t looking around,” Pete said.
He fell in behind Wally, and Gregory was just ahead of me. “You always pull up the rear, Wild, why is that?” Gregory asked as we climbed the steep, damp hallway. We had no light, so in a matter of minutes we were plunged into complete darkness and had to go slowly, by feel.
At one point, I caught a flash of green from Gregory’s eyes. At least he could see in the dark.
“Because if we get jumped, the person will either come at us from the rear or the front. If the attacker hits someone in front of me, I’ll be able to move up and take them out.” I spoke without really thinking about the words until they were out of my mouth. “It’s where I need to be to help us all get through this.”
My hand came in contact with some of the crazy plants—the spiro dravia—and I jerked away as it recoiled at the same time. “Wally, that plant isn’t poisonous just to touch it, right?”
“Oh no, you have to render it down into a liquid form. If the liquid comes into contact with your skin, it has a seventy-eight percent chance of killing you in fewer than twenty-four hours. Not unlike a more common poison, arsenic, which has a ninety-five percent chance of killing you in fewer than twenty-four hours, only arsenic is far more detectable in an autopsy.”
I lowered my hand to trail it on the wall closer to my waist, just to be on the safe side. I didn’t remember seeing any of the plants lower down on the wall.
Ahead of me, the sound of footsteps stopped and I held my ground. Everyone else bumbled to a stop, Orin grunting, Wally and Pete apologizing. “We’re at the door,” Orin said. “There could still be people milling about.”
“Just take a quick peek,” I said.
Light cut through the darkness, just a sliver, and then it was gone as he shut the door again. “Two on the far side. One is that Rory kid you seem to know. The other is the blond girl you were next to when we first came in.”
Shit. Rory would be looking for me—no doubt because the Sandman had seen me wandering off toward the House of Unmentionables—and the other had to be Gen. For all her talk of alliances, she might be helping him. “Okay, slight change. I’ll slip out first and get them away from the open space. When you see it’s clear, you four go down to the House of Night and follow the plan. Get Wally and Orin’s stuff and take it back to our room. I’ll tackle my own stuff and meet you back here at the door, then we’ll deal with Pete’s gear.”
“On your own?” Gregory said. “You sure about that?”
I nodded even though they couldn’t see me. “Yeah, it likely was going to go that way anyway. I’ll meet you back here at the door in fifteen minutes. Okay?”