“Did you feel that?” Seth looked up at the night sky and stretched out his hands, palms turned upward.

“Feel wha—” The raindrop that landed right on my forehead answered my question.

Seth swore under his breath and grabbed my hand, speeding up so that I had to jog to keep up with him. “We need to get back.

They’ll know we were out when we come back soaking wet.”

“This was so worth it,” I echoed his words from earlier, using an exaggerated deep voice. “Honestly, for all I care we could get expel ed for this and I wouldn’t be mad.”

Seth made a face at me but didn’t stop speed walking.

The rain was pouring now, running down my face and into my col ar. Neither of us had a hood, so all we could do was get back to the castle as fast as possible to avoid arriving there completely drenched.

“I’m having bloody déjà-vu,” Seth said as we hurried down the same road as last time, the dark woods around us no less scary than they had been then.

It was around eleven o’clock by now, one hour after curfew and definitely enough reason to get punished, especially since we hadn’t asked a teacher for permission beforehand.

We made it back to the school by ten past eleven, out of breath and with our hair sticking to our foreheads.

“If someone sees us, we’re screwed,” Seth whispered as he pulled open the door to the gym and held it open for me.

I followed him, my wet shoes half slipping on the floor, and pulled the door shut behind me as silently as possible, leaving the brick to make sure the others could still enter after us.

My heart was beating out of my chest as we snuck through the abandoned hallways. While the castle had become a familiar friend over the past week, it was an entirely different entity when all the lights were out. Shadows loomed in the alcoves where we had sat and laughed just a few hours ago and the eyes of the photos on the walls seemed to follow us, some curious, some disapproving.

I almost ran into Seth when he suddenly stopped short just before we reached the entrance hall. “Why are you—” I began, but he immediately shushed me and pulled me back into the corridor.

The sound of quiet footsteps echoing from the walls made me tense, but I quickly relaxed when I looked over Seth’s shoulder to see who was there. Noelle was making her way up the stairs, swaying slightly and gripping tightly onto the handrail. She was just as soaked as we were, but she had been smart enough to take off her boots to avoid leaving wet footprints. Seth and I were about to start moving again, but froze, still huddled in the hallway, when a second pair of footsteps suddenly rang out.

From our vantage point, we could see the entire hall, including the two staircases leading upstairs. That was how we spotted Mrs. Whitworth before Noelle did.