The room erupted in shouting.
“I knew it!” Eli yelled. “This is BS!”
“Who told you that?” Leila said loudly.
“Who’s going to die?” Cailyn asked. “Because if it’s a bunch of murderers—”
“I don’t want—”
“Can we go home? I’m scared.”
“Let’s run away now, before—”
“Everyone SHUT UP!” Tristan roared.
The voices subsided.
“What do you know?” Tristan asked Evvie. “Tell us as much as you can. Who’s in danger?”
She shook her head miserably. “I don’t know. No one would tell me. But I hate this place, and I don’t want to be here any longer. We need to do something!”
“Yeah, we do,” Eli said grimly. Pulling on his coat and shoes, he stalked from the Subroom. Before he left, he threw a significant look at Trey.
“Hang on a minute!” Tristan shouted. “You can’t just—”
But Eli had already vanished through the barrier, where no sound would pass through.
“Wait—Trey!”
Though Trey’s dark eyes were troubled, he followed Eli through the barrier without question. Tristan dashed after him.
By the weak light of his lantern, he glimpsed Trey sprinting up the tunnel toward the main hallway. As he raced to catch up, he thought he heard footsteps behind him; when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw nothing but darkness.
Tristan reached the dimly lit marble hallway just in time to see Trey turn down the stairs to the lowest level of the school.
Feet slipping on the polished marble, Tristan hurtled down the hallway. Trey was faster than he was, but there was little chance Tristan would lose him now—he had to be heading for either Delair’s classroom or the mine…
Skidding down the final hallway, Tristan dashed into the mine tunnel. He knew he had chosen correctly when he heard muffled voices, and he slowed, moving quietly now.
Before he caught up with Eli and Trey, Tristan heard something like metal clanking loudly on stone. It happened again; he thought wildly of Delair’s pickaxe and wondered if they were trying to steal Delairium for some reason. But no, the metal was clattering as though rolling along the floor—it sounded more like they were throwing something against the wall which then fell and rolled away.
Then he rounded the corner, and his lantern illuminated a bucket filled to the brim with gold marbles.
Tristan’s heart leapt into his throat.
“What the hell are you planning to do with those?” They had no idea how dangerous it was to hoard magic like that.
Eli picked up a marble and hurled it at the wall.
When Tristan lunged for him, intending to wrestle the bucket of marbles from his grasp, Trey threw him to the ground and pinned him there with his knees. Trey was several inches taller than Tristan, and heavy enough that Tristan couldn’t struggle free.
“We figured out that if you throw marbles enough times, they eventually explode,” Eli said coldly.
He threw another marble, and another.
The next marble exploded when it hit the wall, with a flash of sparks and a bang like a gunshot. Chunks of rock burst from the wall, smashing into Tristan’s legs and raining dust through the tunnel. When the debris cleared, he could see a basketball-sized hole in the wall.
“What are you—” Tristan broke off, coughing. “What are you trying to do? Are you planning to kill yourselves?”
Eli froze with a marble in his hand. Slowly he turned and glared at Tristan. “What are you talking about? We’re just trying to stop the teachers from whatever messed-up thing they’re doing.”
“Why here?” Tristan wanted to keep him talking, to distract him long enough to think of a way to get the bucket of marbles away from him.
“Because something is hidden down here,” Eli said, “and I bet that’s where the teachers have gone. We’ve been watching it for a month now, and Drakewell keeps disappearing into this exact tunnel. If we can block it up and trap the teachers down there, maybe they’ll tell us what they’re doing. If not, it’ll give us time to escape this madhouse.”
“How did you get the marbles?”
Eli laughed coldly. “You’re so naïve. It’s not hard at all to steal things in class—the teachers are so trusting. Bit stupid, really.”
“Someone’s coming,” Trey snapped.
Tristan heard the footsteps as well, and he twisted where he lay smashed beneath Trey's knees, trying to see who had followed.
“Was that an explosion?” Leila’s voice said.
Though he still couldn’t see her, Tristan sagged with relief, letting his cheek rest on the cold stone once more.
“Stay back!” Eli shouted. “These marbles explode when you throw them—you don’t want to get hurt!” He grabbed a handful from the bucket.
“Why are you squashing Tristan?” Leila asked Trey. “I thought you were more sensible than Eli. Do you want to get us all killed?”
His dark face flushing, Trey removed his weight from Tristan.
Tristan scrambled to his feet and brushed rock dust from his face. Leila stalked up beside him, and they faced off Eli and Trey, sizing each other up. When Leila reached for Tristan’s hand, he nearly flinched away, but then he felt the cold, metallic marble she pressed into his palm.
“This must have rolled away while they were distracted,” she breathed.
“Thanks,” Tristan whispered back.
He wondered if he could use the marble to lend himself the same unnatural strength he had attacked his bully with, back at Juvie.
Holding the marble behind his back, he tried to concentrate on the spell, tried to forget the way his heart pounded in fear.
Just as the marble grew hot and malleable, Eli lifted the bucket and prepared to dump its entire contents into the tunnel leading off Delair’s mine.
“Don’t do that!” Tristan shouted.
He leapt forward.
As he lunged for the bucket, the still-hot marble slipped from his grasp and clattered into the bucket.
“NO!” Tristan yelled. He ripped the bucket from Eli’s hand and flung it down the side passage.
A second later, the whole tunnel exploded with a deafening BOOM.
Tristan was thrown off his feet as fire and rock ricocheted out from the tunnel.
He crashed to the ground, landing painfully on his hip; rocks slammed into him from every direction.
Shielding his eyes from the flying chunks of rock, he could see nothing but flashes of light. The two lanterns flickered out, one by one, and then rocks were raining down on Tristan like the avalanche all over again. Dust saturated the air; every gasp of breath coated his lungs until he couldn’t breathe for coughing.
As the rocks settled, Tristan heard someone else coughing, and then Eli choked out, “Trey? Trey! Are you okay?”
Though he was not buried in rocks, at least as far as he could tell in the dark, Tristan could do nothing but lie there. Every inch of him hurt so much he wanted to scream, but when he tried to call out to Leila, the dust in his throat smothered his voice.
What could have been minutes or hours later, many hurried footsteps pounded down the tunnel. Lantern light flickered nearer, and soon a clump of professors tore around the corner.
When they spotted the wreckage, they stopped as one.
Groaning, Tristan tried to push himself up. Eli had crawled over to Trey’s side and was dragging rocks off his legs, while Leila lay pinned beneath a large rock, blinking helplessly at the professors.
“What is the meaning of this?” Drakewell bellowed. “Get up! Now! What have you done to our school?”
“They’re hurt, Professor,” Merridy said, her voice high and panicked. “We need to help them.”
“Hurt trying to destroy the academy! Hurt trespassing in the tunnels, where they were explicitly forbidden to go!”
“It’s all right,” Delair panted from somewhere behind Drakewell. “It’s just my mine. Some of the kids have been helping me work down here, so they’re allowed in this part.”
Striding forward, his face skeletal in the dim light, Drakewell grabbed Tristan by the arm and dragged him to his feet.
Tristan yelped as every battered muscle seized up.
“Fairholm! I should have known you were involved. Explain.”
While Drakewell shook Tristan’s shoulders, sunken eyes flashing, the other professors hurried over to inspect Leila, Eli, and Trey. Alldusk lifted the boulder off Leila’s legs, and Eli clutched Trey’s hand while Grindlethorn took his pulse.
“Is he alive?” Eli asked faintly. “Is he g-going to be okay?”
“He’s alive,” Grindlethorn said gruffly. “No thanks to you lot.”
“Fairholm!” Drakewell shouted once again.
Tristan winced. His throat was still caked with rock dust; when he tried to speak, all that came out was a croak.
Swallowing, he tried again. “I’m sorry. It was a—an accident.”
Eli gave him a brief, surprised look.
“What happened?” Drakewell shouted.
No excuses sprang to mind. They were in a part of the academy forbidden to students, with marbles still littering the floor, and half the tunnel had collapsed in the explosion.
Drakewell threw Tristan aside and rounded on Eli. “What about you, Fritz? What do you have to say for yourself?”
Eli’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed; he glanced sideways at Tristan but did not speak.
“I’ve had enough of you delinquents!” Drakewell shouted. “You’re each going to work off three hours of punishment with me every single evening, until you decide to tell us what happened here.”
“Headmaster,” Grindlethorn muttered, “I really think we ought to take Mr. Patrick here to the hospital room. He needs urgent attention.”
“Off with you, then,” Drakewell said coldly.
When Grindlethorn and Gracewright carried Trey from the tunnel, Eli moved as if to follow, but Drakewell stopped him with a piercing glare.
“Can’t their punishment wait until after Christmas?” Quinsley asked. “Surely we have more important things to do over the next couple weeks than supervising their work.”
“No,” Drakewell snapped. “Do you want to encourage their criminal behavior? Be grateful I’m not shipping them off to mental hospitals this very minute!”
“But—” Leila said.
“Get out of here!” Drakewell shouted. “To bed, and if I find any other students in the halls tonight, you’ll never see the light of day again. Do you understand?”
Tristan, Leila, and Eli broke into a run as they fled the site of the explosion. Adrenaline and fear overwhelmed Tristan’s pain, and he was turning down the hall toward the Subroom tunnel before he knew it.
“Do you think Trey is going to be okay?” Eli asked in a small voice
“He won’t be if you don’t head straight back to the Subroom,” Tristan said.
Eli winced. “I talked him into it. He didn’t want to cause trouble, but…”
They slowed as they turned down the dark tunnel. Tristan’s lamp had been blasted to pieces in the explosion, so they had to feel their way blindly along the passageway.
“Why didn’t you tell the truth?” Eli asked softly. “You could’ve gotten out of trouble if you told them you were trying to stop us.”
Tristan sighed. “If they’re as evil as Evvie thinks they are, I didn’t know what they would do to you if they decided you were a threat.”
Eli was quiet for a long time. When they reached the Subroom door at last, he paused before stepping through the barrier. “Thanks.”