Chapter 38

“What are you doing here?” Alastair asked. “It’s almost four.”

Sebastian was breathing hard, as if he’d been running or… rushing to escape. “Could ask you the same thing.”

“Headmaster,” Alastair said, reminding Sebastian that if anyone had the right to be out and about, it was him.

“Yeah. Okay. Right. Well, I was out visiting friends. I have friends,” Sebastian said in a defensive tone that suggested he probably didn’t. “We stayed too late out at the pub.”

“Out carousing?”

“Sure.”

It seemed unlikely, but not impossible. Perhaps Sebastian had a secret wild side.

“Come have one more,” Alastair said. “I’ve got more brandy.”

“Feels like a trap.”

“No trap. Come on up. You asked why I’m out here. Well, the answer is simple. I can’t sleep. Had a strange dream. Join me for a drink, and I’ll tell you about it.”

Sebastian gave him a puzzled look, then scanned the hallway behind him. “Should get back to Aurum.”

“They’re all asleep, Shelley. Come on.”

“Alastair, this feels like something’s wrong,” Sebastian said, voice low.

“Might be,” Alastair admitted. “You’ll understand in a bit.”

“Fine.”

Sebastian reluctantly followed him upstairs, and Alastair lit a fire and poured two glasses of brandy.

“Not too much,” Sebastian said. “I’ve had a lot already.”

Alastair held the glasses up to the light to inspect their contents, then strode over to the chairs by the fire and handed the one with the least brandy in it to Sebastian.

“What weird dream?” Sebastian asked, taking the drink.

“That’s just it,” Alastair said. “I don’t know if it was a dream… exactly.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Well, I saw Ozelius. He was not doing well. He’s trapped in some kind of dungeon by a cloaked maniac who won’t let him out.”

Silence filled his office. “Huh. You’re sure you didn’t just have a nightmare? Just an aftereffect of hearing that Monty was in trouble?”

“Very sure.”

“So you think it was what, a vision?”

“Or something like it. Who knows what kind of deep well might have been opened by Ms. Shadow’s Scrying tonight.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Sebastian agreed. “I’ve heard of splash-over magic. Could be you got hit with some.”

“Right. That’s what I’m thinking, because it was far too real to be a dream. He’s in trouble.”

“Well, that would explain why he hasn’t written. He with the dwarves? With Montgomery?”

Alastair shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like it. Magical signature’s human. I couldn’t tell where he was, though.”

He left out the worst part, where the thing had looked up and seen him. That was too creepy to share on a cold winter’s night.

Sebastian drank his brandy thoughtfully. Then he asked a question that seemed so far from the subject, but truthfully, couldn’t have been more on target, “Do you regret coming to Emberstone?”

“Sometimes,” Alastair said, staring down at his glass. “My life was peaceful back at Glimmerglass. Routine and calm. Here, there’s a lot going on.”

“There is.”

“What friends were you with tonight?”

Sebastian sighed and put his glass down. “Honestly? I wasn’t.”

Alastair looked up at him.

“Nothing like that,” Sebastian said, answering the unspoken question. “I was with my family.”

“Past three in the morning?”

“Yes. If you must know, my mother’s sick.”

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“I hope she—”

“Not the kind you get better from,” Sebastian said tersely. “Do me a favor, Meade. Don’t tell the students.”

Alastair nodded. He understood. It was important for the students to believe their teachers were above the burdens of normal life. He had to hand it to Sebastian in light of this news. He’d done a fine job of keeping it together, though it explained some of his outbursts as of late.

“That’s where I’ve been going nights,” he went on. “Not out carousing, not doing Dark Magic, not—Night Coven or whatever else you might’ve imagined. I’ve just been going home. Plain and simple. They live in town, you know.”

“I know.” Alastair wasn’t sure what else to say. He’d never met Sebastian’s mother—had only seen her in passing at school events growing up. But he knew she was young—younger even than his own parents.