Peter woke from a deep sleep with a start, surprised to find himself awake and alert. Though it had been two days since the fight with Chris, he was still exhausted: the tiredness had lifted only a quarter inch or so, out of his marrow but still spread out across his bones, under his skin.
He looked around his dorm room at Ravens' Hall. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary: Night hung like a black curtain beyond the balcony door; his desk was pristine for once, books all in neat piles as an attempt to please Cai; and neither the door to the hallway nor the balcony outside showed any intruders—they were safe.
What had jolted him? It was 2:17 a.m. As he lay back down, a whispering presence made itself known.
Jesse.
Peter had defiantly tagged Jesse's door with his own sense, so he'd know when Jesse came back. He sat back up in bed. Should he go and see him?
Cai pushed at him. Peter closed his eyes and stretched out his senses.
It hadn't been Jesse in his room that had woken him. No, it was something else.
Jesse was scared.
Peter didn't understand how he knew, but he knew.
Cai knew it as well.
The hallway was empty. Peter couldn't hear anyone talking or walking around. For the first time since the fight, Cai helped, showing Peter where the spiderweb-like charm hung in the wide staircase going down. Peter ducked under it, hoping that he didn't set it off.
Jesse's hallway was also empty. Now he saw the big charm just opposite Jesse's door: a dream catcher, watchful and strong.
Whoever had set it up already knew that Peter had left behind his presence on the door. So he stepped up and touched it anyway.
Jesse hadn't been here. No one had been in or out recently.
But his sense of Jesse was strong.
Peter closed his eyes and let himself feel. He felt a tug, and knew that it wasn't just him—Cai was directing them.
Down.
Peter didn't want to go downstairs, into the basement. Dread clenched his stomach. It was too late for Jesse; it had always been too late for Jesse.
But you didn't leave a fellow raven warrior behind. Peter squared his shoulders and went back to the staircase, no longer caring if he set off any alarms. Down he went, through the cafeteria, past the kitchen, down the dark hallway marked, "Staff Only."
There, at the other end of the building, was another staircase. Thick black silence choked the stairs. Peter knew, if he bothered looking, there would be charms and spells on every step, blocking light and sound. He wiped his sweating palms on his flannel PJs and started down the steps.
Cai ruffled up his feathers, prepared to fight, but also to flee as well. He didn't want to go down the stairs any more than Peter did, and was prepared to fly away. But Jesse was there, and in trouble.
Peter had never seen Cai so torn before.
Even with the light hidden, Peter still made it to the bottom of the stairs without a problem—the darkness cleared just a few inches ahead of him as he pushed through it. The floor was poured concrete, rough and unpainted. Instead of a long hallway, there was a short one, with only three doors. The walls were wooden, dark, and scratched, as were the doors. Black iron holders for huge bolts lay empty and unrusted, ready to lock someone in.
As soon as Peter stepped toward the first door, it opened.
The painful cries of a hurt raven filtered out.
Peter knew it was Jesse.
Though he only heard them for a moment, he knew he'd remember them for the rest of his life.
Prefect Aaron stepped into the hall, quickly shutting the door and cutting off the sound.
"Peter," the prefect said with a sigh. He didn't seem surprised to see Peter. His skin looked pasty and gray in the harsh lighting. He wore his black-feathered raven's cloak over night-dark robes. He seemed as tired as Peter felt.
"What are you doing to Jesse?" Peter asked. His voice squawked in the short corridor.
"He was trying to run away. We're clipping his wings, so he remembers to stay put," the prefect said matter-of-factly.
"Why?" Peter asked. "Why can't you just let him be?"
"Peter—" The prefect closed his mouth and shook his head. "I know you don't understand this. But it's for the good of the clan."
"It isn't," Peter said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Cai cawed loudly in agreement.
"Was it better for Chris? No. It just drove him crazy. And you're doing the same thing to Jesse, I swear."
"No, we're not," Prefect Aaron said sharply. "We're trying to save him, Peter, I swear to you. We are."
"How many turn out like Prefect Kitridge?" Peter asked. "And how many like Chris?"
"Most go on to lead productive lives," the prefect said.
Peter got the feeling that either the prefect had never asked, or Ravens' Hall truly didn't know. Either way, it wasn't a statement of truth.
"You've got to let him go," Peter said. "You've already captured him, scared him, hurt him. Please, please don't break his wings."
"You're too late, son," the prefect said. "It's out of my hands now."
"No!" Peter said, pushing forward. He had to get to Jesse, had to try to save him somehow.
The prefect pushed back with surprising strength. "I can't let you go in there, Peter."
"I can't leave him behind," Peter said with gritted teeth.
"Sometimes you have to let go, walk away," the prefect said, gaining ground, pushing Peter back against the far wall of the corridor. "For the sake of your soul and the sake of the clan. You have to let some souls go."
"How can you live with yourself? How can you do this? Jesse!" Peter called out. Tears started leaking out of his eyes but he didn't care. He needed to do something.
"Stay hidden. Stay safe. Those aren't just words, Peter. Those are the rules we must, we must, live by. If we are to survive. And Jesse, Jesse would fly in the face of all of that."
"No, he wouldn't," Peter insisted, his strength weakening. He slumped against the wall. "He just wanted to leave. He wouldn't have told. Not ever."
"If he broke one rule, there's no guarantee he wouldn't break others," Prefect Aaron said, stepping back. "Leaving like he did made him a rogue. A half-breed. And we do not suffer the half-breed."
"You didn't—" Peter couldn't even ask the question.
"No. Just clipped his wings. Reminded him that we could, and would, find him, no matter where he hid." The prefect nodded in smug satisfaction. "He won't be leaving again, not quite so soon."
"What happens to him now?" Peter asked, staring at the door over the prefect's shoulder, the door that hid Jesse's suffering.
"In a day or two we'll splint up his fingers."
Peter was nearly sick to his stomach. A day or two? "You'll just leave him like that, scared and in pain, for that long?"
Ravens didn't have the best sense of time; Cai, for example, remembered being cut off from Peter as if it had gone on for a week or two, instead of just a few hours.
A raven in pain like that would remember it as if it had gone on for years.
"He knows he's safe, Peter," the prefect assured him. "And he isn't alone."
Peter merely snorted at that. Safe? With his torturers? "So this is what you actually meant by never leave a fellow warrior behind?" Peter sneered.
The prefect didn't respond.
"Can I see him?" Peter asked. He didn't want to. Cai really, really didn't want to. But he had to ask.
"No," the prefect said sharply. "If you go through that door, you will suffer the same fate as he does."
Peter paused, torn. He wanted to see Jesse, to reassure him. But he couldn't hurt Cai that way.
Prefect Aaron looked at Peter, then at the door, then he deliberately stepped out of the way. "It's up to you, Peter. Go through that door. Challenge the prefects in there." He paused, shrugging his raven cloak off, letting it sink heavily to the floor. "If you get out in one piece, you'll both face me."
The prefect started to shift. He wasn't changing into a raven, though.
For the first time, Peter saw a true raven warrior. The prefect grew in stature until he filled the hall. A shell grew over his nose until it became a hard beak. His feet pushed out of his shoes, covered with scales and talons.
It was his hands that fascinated Peter the most: fingers shifting into feathers, each sharper than an obsidian knife, long and deadly.
"Can you take me as well?" The prefect's voice was deeper than usual, and resonated through the enclosed space.
Peter wished he could. Cai did too. But all Peter could do was form the glass armor—he couldn't move to the final warrior stage. None in his generation could. He also wished he could go beyond that blank door, the door that hid Jesse and his pain, and destroy the room beyond, tearing up whatever instruments of torture they had in there, ruining the place so that it would be impossible to hurt another raven in there.
Then Peter took a deep breath and stepped back. No. Chris had been wrong. Jesse, too. Peter couldn't challenge the prefects, not now, not ever. Not unless he wanted to end up broken and clipped.
Cai turned his back on Peter and wouldn't look at him, curled up in a miserable ball in the rear of Peter's mind.
Peter's shoulders slumped and he turned away. He ignored the prefect's triumphant caw.
He wasn't about to challenge anyone. He was going to toe the line, watch his place, and get out of here in one piece.
Or two, really.
He and Cai were going to survive.
* * *
Peter didn't see Jesse again. Graduation was only two short weeks away. He barely looked up from his books to eat. He took his presence from Jesse's door, and didn't seek him out. He practiced endlessly in the Warrior Room, going through forms alone or with anyone who could come, driving himself into exhaustion so he'd sleep. When he didn't, nightmares of hurt and crying ravens destroyed what peace he found.
Cai came around, of course, but there was a distance between them.
Peter told himself that was good. Walk, don't fly. He needed to survive out in the rest of the world, hidden and safe. He stopped trying to make charms for extra credit, returning all his supplies back to a smiling Prefect Aaron.
At the end of the school year, as Peter boarded the bus to Denver, to fly back to Seattle, he told himself that he'd see Jesse the next year. Let the summer cool off the hurt. Maybe Peter could look him in the eye after a few months break.
But Jesse wasn't there when Peter returned: He'd graduated. Not a lost boy, no, just eighteen and on his own.
Peter made it through the next two years as well, though he felt like maybe he was the lost boy.