I jump up and scrub my hands over my face to wake myself up. Layla. I need to help Layla. This is my fault. I snuck out that night. I got Layla involved. I stare at the fire, all the awfulness of these couple of weeks coming into focus. Layla’s in the dungeon. Aunt Jo is dead. Someone’s trying to murder me. And Dad is god knows where, potentially being hunted and running for his life.

“November?” Ash says softly, and appears in Layla’s bedroom door.

I don’t jump this time. I want to apologize for what happened to Layla, tell him I tried to stop the guards, but an apology doesn’t fix anything. “Blackwood threw Layla in the dungeon” is all I manage to say.

“I know.” His gaze is intense again, and I don’t blame him. “When I heard at lunch that Blackwood had removed you two from class and that you never returned, I came here looking for you both. But I only found you, sedated on the couch. Which told me Layla was most likely in the dungeon and that you’d likely been sedated because you were trying to prevent the guards from taking her.”

I nod and exhale, relieved that at least he knows I attempted to stand up for her.

“Tell me everything about your conversation with Blackwood,” he says. “Don’t leave anything out.”

I recount the meeting for him almost word for word, start to finish. He lets me speak, not commenting until I’m done with the story.

“Something’s weird about it,” I say. “There’s no reason for Blackwood to punish Layla in front of me. It would have been easier just to leave me in class.”

As Ash considers what I’m saying, I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. “Maybe Blackwood wanted you to hear it, to know about Dr. Conner discovering the missing match and about the piece of glass,” he says.

“But why?” I ask. “Unless she wants me to know because she’s also the one who told that guard to look after me? Could she be the faculty member Layla was speculating about who’s fighting back against the Lions? But how does that make any sense if in the same conversation she dragged Layla to the dungeon?”

He shakes his head and I fidget. We’re both quiet as we analyze the situation.

I look up at him. “Did you find out anything about that cut on Felix’s hand?”

“Yes and no. He didn’t have any classes where he might easily have come by the cut, which makes it suspect. But I couldn’t really get many details on him, either. He may not be a powerful Lion, but he’s still a Lion, and no one feels safe speaking against them right now.”

“I get that,” I say. “The question is, what happened to the glass after it left this room? And is there any way to get Layla out of that dungeon?”

He shakes his head. “We’d have to find it first. The dungeon is either under the castle or possibly under one of the outer perimeter walls. That’s why they use the sedative anytime someone gets locked up. They don’t want us to know where it is.”