Black Academy

Epilogue - Part 1

The courtyard was in darkness, silent but for the faint rattle of talk and music and laughter, and the underlying throb of a bass beat, and, very distantly, the echo of the city. No night prowlers now. Flynn was otherwise occupied. "Will you come back?" she'd asked him. "I don't know." He'd chewed on a knuckle, voiding her gaze. "It's unfinished business, Elsa. But what do I do?" At last he'd plucked up the nerve to look at her. "If the Black Academy goes down, so do you. You're one of them now." Elsa shivered. But she trusted Flynn. He wouldn't hurt her to find the truth, and real justice for Jess. They were friends. And Flynn would come back to the Black Academy. He must. Unfinished business. Besides, Rapunzel had wept bitter tears at the mere suggestion of Flynn not returning. Elsa didn't know if she could handle her roommate's operatic heartbreak if the wretched boy didn't show up next term.

It wasn't as cold as it had been, then again Elsa was used to the cold. Elsa counted the steps down to the courtyard: thirteen. Just as Bonnie had said, on that very first day. Funny, that. She wasn't thinking of her as Madame Bennett any more. A pale figure sat in moonlight at the edge of the pool. He didn't raise his head as she approached, but tore intently at something in his hand. As she drew closer, she saw shreds of velvety black drift into the still green water of the pool. "Aren't those rare?" Jack didn't smile. "Very." She sat beside him on the curved stone rim of the pool. Leda's shadow spilled on to the flagstones, made monstrous by the swan on her neck. At last he said, "Your dress is beautiful. You look, um . . . beautiful." "Thanks." She reddened, hoping he wouldn't see it, certain a blush would clash with the silk. "What do you call that colour?" "I dunno. Light blue? Dark blue?" He threw the last crumpled sliver of orchid into the pool. "Royal blue, I think."

"Nice," said Elsa. Trailing a finger in the cold, murky water, weed drifting against her skin, she watched the moon's reflection shatter and re-form. "What's going to happen to me?" He opened his mouth, closed it again, then said, "I don't know." "Oh, great. Neither does Sir Pitch." He gave a low dry laugh. "See, it's never been interrupted before. The ritual." She nodded, picked at trailing orchid roots. "I'm different. I know that." "Uh-huh. Very." Half smiling, he pulled up another orchid, ripping its trailing root from the stone. "They're not parasites, you know." "What?" "Orchids. They're not parasites, they're epiphytes. They live on other living things, but they don't kill their host. The two, they . . . coexist."

"That so?" He laughed. "Yes." "Are you in trouble, Jack?" "That's the first time you've ever called me by my name, do you know that?" He shrugged. "Some of the others . . . yes they're angry. But what they did was wrong – helping Madame Bennett, I mean. I don't have to be scared of them. Other way round, if anything." His grin was one Elsa didn't entirely like. "Well, they're not scared just of me, of course. They're scared of what's inside me." She shuddered. "And what is that, Jack?" Now she'd started using his name, it seemed difficult to stop.