I shift my gaze from Aarya to the tangled tree branches, trying to process what she’s saying. This has all been so foreign to me that the difference between students and faculty having weapons didn’t occur to me as a particularly huge deal. However, anything that freaks Aarya out is enough to send your average person into a faint.

Aarya snaps her fingers in front of my face and I look up at her. “Conner’s bedroom is attached to his office through a door behind his desk, so if he thinks you’re after him, chances are he’ll wait for you in his office, where his weapons are stashed, and then you’re as good as dead.”

I stare at her, stunned. I don’t doubt that she’ll find a way to hurt me with the information I just revealed about my family, but she actually told me something she didn’t have to. Somewhere under all her meanness, she actually has a conscience.

“And if I ever hear that you’ve repeated what I told you, Ember, I’ll make you suffer,” Aarya says, and turns around.

I gulp and she climbs to a higher branch and disappears into the blackness of the trees.

Chapter Thirty-eight

ASH DROPS DOWN onto the sky bench. There’s so much I need to tell him about Conner and my growing suspicions about what’s been going on in this school, but instead I just frown.

“I need to ask you something,” I say.

“We should get out of here first,” Ash says.

I ignore him. “Do you know where the dungeon is?”

“What?” he says like he’s not sure what I’m asking, but his eyes search me the way they do when he’s looking for something specific.

“I’m serious. You told me no one knows where it is. But do you know? Did you lie to me?” But he doesn’t need to answer, because I can see the recognition on his face.

He exhales quietly. “I didn’t want you to think that the way to solve this was to get Layla out of the dungeon. It would have put you at risk.”

“Because you were the one who made the deal to put her in there in the first place?” I say, and give him a demanding look.

“It’s not that simple. Let—”

“You let me worry about her like that when you knew all along what was going on?” My tone is getting more indignant by the second.

He rubs his forehead. “If you’ll let me explain—”

“How am I supposed to trust you now, Ash? How do I know you didn’t lie about everything else?” I expect that he’s going to argue with me, try to convince me there was a good reason for him to lie and that everything else he said was true. But he just stands there.