AS I BRAID my hair in front of my vanity mirror, I’m shocked at how spent I look—dried out, as Emily’s mom calls it when you’ve cried so much that you don’t have anything left in you. At home, if I felt destroyed over a guy or a bad test, I’d go to Em’s house and she’d let me do my crying, and then we’d eat junk food and watch movies until we passed out on the couch. Here, with my crying done, I’m preparing to hunt down information about killers who might be trying to blot out my entire family. I’m not even sure how to process that.

Layla knocks lightly on my bedroom door and I open it.

“I’m ready,” I say, and she hands me my cloak.

I put it on and follow her into the common room, where Ash is on the floor peering through the crack under our door.

“Is he waiting for the guard to pass?” I whisper.

“We’ll barely have a second to spare. So keep up and stay silent,” she whispers back.

I nod at Layla, letting her know that I get the gravity of the situation and won’t screw it up.

Ash stands, counts seven seconds off on his fingers, and silently opens the door. We all jet out and he closes it behind us without so much as a creak. And we’re off—down the hall and into the stairwell. Ash doesn’t bother to listen at each floor like I did when I was alone. He must know where the guards will be.

We reach the bottom of the stairs and stop. The guard in the foyer is walking into the vine courtyard, and the instant the door closes behind him we run across the stone floor into the hallway near the teachers’ lounge. We follow it all the way down to where it dead-ends at a door. The shadow cover is good here, and the only sound is our breathing. However, if someone were to turn the corner there would be no place to hide.

Layla pulls out some kind of multitool that looks like a more complex version of the molded paper clips Ines used in our last challenge. She gets on her knees to access the lock better and slips the tool into the keyhole as I stare down the hallway. Metal clinks and my heart thuds before my brain verifies that the sound is coming from us and not from a guard.

Not four seconds later, Layla pulls the door open. We slip through into total darkness. I put my hand up and my fingers graze the heavy curtain that covers the doorways here. This door leads outside? I hear the lock click back into place and I hold my breath.

Ash pulls the curtain back by an inch, and in the dim moonlight I catch a sliver of the outer wall that surrounds our school. Layla taps my wrist and we’re moving again, through the curtain and along the tree-lined building. We pass two doors and stop at the third. Layla pulls out her lock-picking tool. I definitely don’t remember any of these doors from the inside floor plan. I’m not surprised that there are parts of this castle you can only access from the outside, but I do wonder how bad the punishment will be if we get caught sneaking into them.

Through the trees, I get a better look at the outer wall. It towers over our four-story castle, with round turrets that rise up at each corner. Trees line the outer perimeter and create a tall canopy, just like in our inner courtyards. I wonder how many people have tried to climb their way out of here over the years. I’m sure there is some sort of trap at the top of that wall, and from that height, there’s no way you wouldn’t get seriously injured if you fell from it.

Layla stands up and opens the door an inch. She nods and we follow her through. And to my surprise, I find myself in a huge kitchen with an arched ceiling crossed with wooden beams. Shelves along the walls are filled with hundreds of jars of spices and stacked plates. Pots of every size hang from iron hooks, while rolling pins and serving platters are left out on a long table to be used for tomorrow’s cooking. The kitchen has always been my favorite room in every house, and this one looks like it was plucked from a fairy tale.

The sound of a key sliding into a lock across the room snaps me out of my awestruck moment. I run after Ash and Layla to a door against the right wall. Layla lifts the latch and we practically dive into the dark room.

Layla eases our door closed just as we hear the outside one swing open. Ash pushes us all flat against the wall. My shoulders are pressed between his and Layla’s. It’s significantly colder in here than outdoors, and I’m sure that if there were any light my breath would be visible. I inhale deeply to slow my heart and anchor my feet in a position where my weight won’t shift.

The latch on the door lifts and I hold my breath, not daring to move a millimeter. Dim light spills into the room, and so does an ominously long shadow of a very muscular guard. If he pushes the door open too far, he’ll hit Layla, and if he comes in past the door, he’ll see Ash for sure.

He moves forward, his candle illuminating the room, and I find it nearly impossible to believe that he doesn’t hear my heart. Light flickers off the shelves of cloth-covered ceramic pots. But just as quickly as it appeared, the light diminishes, and the door closes, casting us back into darkness.

Layla was not kidding when she said we’d barely have a second to spare. If she hadn’t opened a single lock fast enough or if there had been even a moment’s delay somewhere, we would have been screwed.

Ash’s shoulder pulls away from mine as the outside door closes and locks. I exhale like I’m a deflating balloon. To my left, Layla strikes a match and lights a candle.

Ash heads for what looks like an oversized wooden armoire, with four square doors and one tall, narrow one. My heart thuds. The cold temperature…Oh, please no. I shake my head, like maybe I can convince Ash by telepathy not to open the tall compartment. Next to the armoire is a long table, and I feel my eyes bulging as I take in two sets of what look like bloody clothes and shoes and a stack of antique hospital tools.

Ash undoes the hooked latch on the tall compartment. My brain screams at me to close my eyes, but I can’t manage to look away. And just as I feared, the X guard is standing upright inside, frozen white with his eyes half open. I take two bumbling steps backward and cover my mouth with my hand.

Layla brings the candle close to his face, accentuating his frozen features.

“No bruises or cuts,” Ash says in a hushed voice, and inspects the guard’s hands. “His knuckles don’t have any marks, so there wasn’t much of a struggle. Maybe he was outnumbered?”

“Nothing to suggest he took a hit to the face, either,” Layla whispers, and leans in to get a closer look at the gash across his neck.

“That’s odd,” she says. “The cut isn’t a clean line. I couldn’t tell in the hallway when he was covered in blood.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Did someone use a serrated blade?”

“No,” she says, and frowns. “The wound isn’t uniform enough for that, either.”

Ash leans closer and his eyes widen. For the first time ever, he looks rattled. “Glass, Lay. I would bet anything that it was glass—sharp enough to cut deeply and easily, jagged enough to make a much sloppier cut.”

My chest tightens, and his reaction suddenly makes perfect sense. “The broken glass from my room. Do you think…,” I say, and my voice trails off.

“Yes. Someone must have gotten a piece of it before Pippa could dispose of it,” Layla says, nodding.

“Wait…I don’t know if this is a big deal,” I say, “but Felix had a cut on his palm in poisons class. I remember thinking that it wasn’t there in fencing the day before, which was the day I was actually looking for cuts because of the blood message on my floor.”

“Ash, look into Felix’s schedule and see if you can find a reason for that cut, would you?” Layla says. “See if he had any classes between fencing and poisons that involved fighting. Or if there was another occasion where he might have gotten a cut. ”

Ash nods, but he’s still studying the guard with a look of concern.

“We should check his back,” Layla says. “If you two can tip him forward, I’ll take a look.”

They both turn to me, and it takes every last iota of my self-control not to tell them that it’s never going to happen. But there’s no time for me to be squeamish, so I force myself forward. Ash already has one hand on the guard’s right shoulder and one hand on his chest to support his weight.

I reach my hand into the metal-lined icebox and tentatively touch the guard’s left arm, which is hard and covered in frost crystals the way old ice cream containers are.

“You ready?” Ash says.

I gulp. “Yeah.”

I press my other hand to the guard’s chest and Ash tips him forward. I stumble under his weight and regain my balance, helping Ash bring him to a horizontal position. We crouch on the floor, supporting his stiff body.

Layla takes a good look at the back of the guard’s head and runs her hand over it, presumably feeling for bumps that might have knocked him unconscious. “Nothing,” she says, and runs the candle over his back. She stops near his left shoulder blade.

“Huh,” she says, and we both look at her. “He’s got a tattoo, but there’s some bad scarring on top of it….”

I lean forward, getting a better look at the scar, and shudder. It appears to be from a burn.

“Can you tell what it was?” Ash asks.

Layla brings the candle near his skin and bends closer. For a few seconds she goes silent and concentrates, moving the candle around to get different angles.

Then she stands up and chews on her lower lip. “Go ahead and put him back,” she says, and I start lifting him before she finishes her sentence. We stand him upright and tuck him back into the metal box. Ash grabs the icebox door and latches it.

I wipe my now-wet fingers on my pants and wish I could run full-speed toward a shower. Not that there are any here. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning and ask Pippa to bring up hot water for a bath. I shake out my hands in front of me like somehow that makes a difference.

Layla’s eyes seem far away, locked in concentration.

“Lay?” Ash says. “You know I hate it when you leave me in suspense like this.”

But she doesn’t respond. She just starts to pace around the small room like she’s having a conversation with herself.

I can tell by Ash’s face that patience is not his strong suit. It actually makes me feel a little better, though, about all those times Layla has gone silent on me.

After what feels like forever, Layla stops and faces us. “What if we got it wrong?” she asks.

“Got what wrong?” Ash replies, exasperated.

“The guard,” she says, and waves her hand at the compartment where his body is. “What if when he told November ‘You’re next,’ it wasn’t a threat?”

I look at her sideways. “What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying is that he took a huge risk by speaking to you,” she says. “I told you at the time that guards never break that rule. So why would he threaten you verbally when there are so many nonverbal alternatives?”

“Layla, what kind of tattoo did he have?” Ash says.

But Layla only lifts her hand and silences her brother.

“Don’t forget that he reported me to Blackwood and Conner the night I found Stefano’s body,” I say.

“Right. And Conner told you that the guard went about his schedule differently that night, which we all agree is strange,” she says.

I stare at her, trying to follow her logic.

“Layla,” Ash says more insistently.

She doesn’t look at him but stays focused on me. “We already suspect that whoever killed Stefano was actually trying to kill Matteo and frame you, another Bear, for the crime—a perfect crime, since it would have eliminated two Bears at once.” She nods toward the freezer. “This guard had a Bear Family tattoo on him. He took a different route that night, sure, but somehow wound up at your room the same time you did. Then he gives you a message and winds up dead the same night, in front of your room.”

I take a step backward and my heart starts to pound. “Pippa thought highly of him,” I say in a hushed voice.

“Only another piece of evidence to prove my point,” Layla says. “Think about it—this guard had no choice but to report you the night of the murder because you saw him. But what if you were supposed to see him?” Layla says. “What if he was trying to get a message to you that night, only you closed the door too quickly?”

I fidget with my hands. “Oh god…you’re saying that he wasn’t threatening me at all, he was warning me? Keeping track of me?”

“Protecting you,” she says. “And if that’s the case, which I very much think it is, then there is every likelihood that’s how he died.” It’s as if her words have punched me in the gut.

“You’re saying someone may have been coming to slit my throat?” I can’t wrap my mind around the idea that it’s extremely possible that guard died for me. I feel sick and sad all at once.

“Yes,” Layla says, and by her heavy tone I can tell she feels the gravity of it, too.

Ash rubs his forehead.

“But why?” I ask. “Why would the guard decide to protect me?”

“I think she’s suggesting that he was likely connected to one of the faculty members, otherwise he would never have taken the risk to speak to you. That someone told him to look out for you,” Ash says, and I can hear the worry in his voice. “Which means whatever pieces we’re missing in this whole mess, whatever is going on here, probably goes beyond the students.”

For a moment we just look at one another, the heaviness of that conclusion sinking in.

“I was hanging out with Stefano the night before he was murdered,” Layla says, and her voice is soft. “He thought the Lions’ network in the school was expanding, that soon there would be no safe place for the Bears or any Family that opposed the Lions. Well…maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it means that someone, some faculty member, has decided to fight back against the Lions through the school.” I can hear the approval in her voice.

“You were hanging out with Stefano the night before his murder?” Ash says in such a strange way that I look at him. “And he was giving you intel about the Lions?”

“Yes, and yes,” she answers, and even though it’s dim, I can tell she’s blushing. She avoids looking at her brother directly.

As I stare at her, the dots suddenly connect. Holy shit. If Layla was hanging out with Stefano at night, it must have been after I went to sleep, because she was in her room at curfew. That means she snuck out. And they would have to have been close if he was telling her secrets, much closer than Ash realized. Was Layla dating Stefano? By the look on Ash’s face, he’s thinking the same thing.

I suddenly feel terrible. I was freaking out because I got his blood on me while searching under that bed, and I was talking about him as a dead body. And all the while, Layla had lost someone she cared about. Maybe a lot.

Ash and Layla stare at each other.

I speak to cut the awkward tension between them. “But why, Layla?” I ask. “Why are the Lions after me, of all people, first trying to pin Stefano’s death on me, then Nyx, then sending someone to slit my throat? And likewise, why is someone protecting me?”

“Right,” she says. “That’s the question. And if we don’t find out the answer fast, I think we’re going to regret it.”

Ash stays silent, still staring at his sister.