MacCrone purses her lips and draws a sigil in the air so quickly I don’t have time to decipher it. With a puff of breath, she blows the sigil toward Morgan, and it hits him square in the face. He coughs a few times, then takes a deep breath. His swollen eyes stop running, although his face remains a mess of smeared makeup.

“Neat trick,” he says. “I need to learn that one.”

“There is much you need to learn.” MacCrone straightens her shoulders and regards me with a steely eye. “Now, about your accusations.”

“This whole norovirus is a big lie, isn’t it?” I feel a whole lot more courageous standing next to Morgan.

MacCrone’s gaze gets extra squinty, but she doesn’t deny it.

“It’s got nothing to do with you.” MacCrone leans against the wall, so casual and unperturbed, I’m surprised she doesn’t whip a machete off her utility belt and start paring her fingernails.

“You’re supposed to be protecting us, but considering there’s a bunch of kids who haven’t been seen in days, it doesn’t seem you’re doing a very good job of it.” Morgan goes for the jugular.

“And you were poking about in my dad’s office,” I add. “What were you looking for?”

“For Truth, child. You think I’d have a key to your father’s office if he didn’t want me in there? Kids these days, think they know everything. Do you even know why your dad was away?”

“Svalbard, of course, and whoever broke in got past six battle mages and managed to do a lot of damage. Not that they got what they wanted.” My words seem to have a pretty big impact since MacCrone releases a long, low whistle.

“It’s safe, then. Good on the Turunens,” MacCrone says. “But six. Six is a lot. Six is too many.” She seems to be rambling to herself. Her right hand traces the black ink running up her left arm, pushing up the sleeve of her black sweater. MacCrone doesn’t have dragon scales on her arm, just tattoos, symbols like none I’ve ever seen before. Morgan stares, transfixed by the ink.

“What is it?” I ask. “Why will no one tell us what’s going on!?”

“If students are going missing, we deserve to know the truth.” Morgan sounds as frustrated as I feel.

“The truth?” MacCrone snaps from her reverie and rolls down her sleeve. “The truth is that whoever got past six battle mages is not to be trifled with by recalcitrant children—unless they want to end up as swamp gas.”

I have no idea what recalcitrant means, but it sounds like an insult, one I’ll be sure to look up later and add to my own verbal-weapon stash.