Chapter 40

“Why are they all panicking?” Alastair asked Eloise one snowy morning in February. “The students, I mean. They seem like they’re freaking out about something.”

He’d noticed it all week—kids huddling in the hallways whispering to each other, passing notes in class and in the Main Hall—an air of, well, palpable anxiety. Things had been pretty quiet in the city since All Hallows’ Eve, but he’d learned by now that the reactions of children often bore no relationship with reality.

Additionally, they had no knowledge of the danger their former teacher, Mr. Montgomery, nor Headmaster Ozelius might have been in. Alastair had yet to tell Eloise about his vision either, surprisingly, making Sebastian the only one privy. Was he worried someone might think he was losing his mind? Maybe.

Eloise gawked at him like he had two heads. “Um. Ever heard of a little thing called Valentine’s Day?”

“Valentine’s Day? That’s what this is all about?”

Eloise laughed. “They’re all trying to figure out who’s going out with whom. They all take their dates to dinner in the city on the day itself. Parties in the Houses just like on All Hallows’. You remember, no? It’s a whole thing.”

“Oh. Not really.”

“What?” Eloise’s face, which Alastair didn’t think could reflect more confusion, somehow did. “You don’t remember this?”

“I dunno,” Alastair said. “I guess I just never paid attention. I wasn’t all that interested in the politics of school.”

It was true enough. When his fellow students were obsessing over this thing or that, Alastair usually found himself spending even more time alone in the Natural Gardens.

“I stopped a couple of kids from putting potatoes in the girls’ steamer trunks.”

Eloise laughed even harder now. “Potatoes? Egads, why?”

“That’s what I said. They thought it would be hilarious.”

“I mean, it is kind of funny, isn’t it?” Eloise said. “They’d open their trunks in hopes of finding a card or an invitation and find… potatoes?”

Alastair shook his head. “Perhaps I’m missing the social delicacies to understand the joke.”

* * *

Sure enough, when he took a closer look at the notes the students were passing at dinner that evening, he spotted elaborately decorated Valentine’s cards. Some looked almost professionally made—lace doilies glued in complex patterns; pen and ink drawings of the school at night with snow falling on the gardens—real snow, mind. Charmed to melt before it left the paper, but also to remain dry enough to not ruin the parchment. Rhinestones and beads spelled out the names of each card’s intended recipient. Once again, he found Eloise and slid onto the bench beside her.

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“I know I said I didn’t remember much of this, but I am certain we didn’t have this ‘tradition’ when we were in school. It must be new.”

She didn’t look up from her grading. “Some of it. They seem to like it.”

“It’s just funny that everyone’s acting like this is some timeless thing, is all.”

“Ally, why are you being so weird?” Eloise set her pen down with an exasperated sigh. “It’s just a cute Valentine’s thing. The kids like it. They get excited for a holiday. What’s the problem?”

“No problem—”

“Is this about Amaryllis?”

“What!” he shouted a bit too loudly. “No. It’s not.” But his tone didn’t convey sincerity, even to his own ears.

“It is.” Eloise pointed accusingly his way.

“Is not.”

“You should invite her to dinner.”

“She doesn’t want to go to dinner.”

“Everyone wants to go to dinner.”