The lights flicked on. Jude stood by the wall switch, his hand still resting on it.
A thin haze of smoke hovered against the domed ceiling of the conservatory.
The center column was missing. Or at least the arrow-speared metal globe statue atop it was missing.
Cici let out a piercing scream.
Plum, Sofia, and Marlowe fought out of their blankets and rushed around the edge of the room until they reached the fainting couches.
Shelley was holding her upper arm, a small stream of blood trickling through her fingers.
Cici wasn’t looking at her bunkmate. Instead her wide brown eyes were fixed on the center of the room.
“You okay?” Jude asked Shelley as he skidded to a stop behind Plum and her friends.
“I’m okay.” Shelley winced.
Plum turned, following Cici’s gaze.
In the center of the room, near the liquor cart, Sean Bentham was trapped.
The central statue of the conservatory, the large metalwork globe, had toppled.
The arrow that bisected the globe had speared Sean in the chest, going clear through him and bending against the marble floor underneath.
Blood was everywhere.
Sean was slumped forward, as if he’d been in the act of sitting up when the spear pierced his chest.
With the open bands of the metal-stripped globe around his torso, it looked like, well, it sort of looked like—
Plum wanted to laugh in disbelief but ruthlessly crushed the instinct, knowing it wouldn’t be exactly healthy to start laughing right now.
But it looked—
“He’s in a cage,” Jude said.
At least Jude wasn’t laughing. “Is it just me?” Jude turned wide blue eyes to the three friends. “Doesn’t it look kind of like he’s in a cage?”
“Yes,” Sofia agreed, her voice soft with either disbelief or horror.
Or both.
Silence reigned as they all considered the implication of Jude’s observation.
“He’s in a cage because . . . because of—” Sofia couldn’t finish the sentence.
But they all finished the thought in their heads, and as one, the group turned to look at the birdcage, where the floof-headed hen slept.
A white piece of paper stood out in stark contrast to the bamboo and wire, affixed to the door.
“That’s new,” Jude said, his voice conversational. Deceptively calm.