I’m halfway down, still blocked from view of the main room by the stone wall on the side of the stairs, when a voice that is definitely not Royal’s calls up.
“Who is it?” demands the sassy, girlish little voice I recognize way too well by now. “I can’t keep an eye on you both, so Iwillshoot one of you if you try anything.”
“Magnolia?” I ask, hurrying down the rest of the steps and turning the corner into the main room. Royal’s standing with his back to me, his hands raised, his whole body tense. Magnolia is standing across the room, her back to the bookshelf, with a gun pointed straight at us.
“Are you with him?” she asks, waving the gun back and forth between us.
“Whoa, what the fuck, Magnolia,” I say as I slowly raise my hands, too. “Put that thing down.”
“Oh no,” she says, gripping it in both hands. Her eyes are wide, her hair a little messed up, and her hands are visibly shaking, but she clearly knows how to hold a gun. “I know what the Dolces do to girls down here—especially Darling girls. Do you really think I’d come down here unprepared?”
“I don’t know why you’re down here at all,” I say, glancing at Royal from the corner of my eye. I’ve finally found the limit to my curiosity, a question I’m too much of a coward to ask. The answer could break me in a way even he can’t heal, and I may be a masochist, but I’m no longer suicidal.
“I’m here for Sully,” she says, raising her chin defiantly. “I told you I had a gun.”
“I didn’t think you meant you had it on you right now,” I say. “We’re at school. You do know you’ll be expelled, right?”
“Not if you don’t make me shoot,” she says. “Now turn around and leave, both of you.”
“Gladly,” I say. “I was just looking for Royal.”
“Your brother’s not down here,” Royal says, speaking for the first time since I came down. I won’t think about what happened before I got here.
“I know that,” Magnolia snaps. “I’m not looking for him. I’m looking for information. And anyway, I’ve been through all the tunnels, even the one to your school, a million times. We used to play here as kids.”
“I thought your brother was in a mental institution,” I say, confused.
“He got out,” Magnolia says. “And I’m going to make sure he never goes back.”
“But he’s not here,” I say slowly.
“Of course not,” she says. “The tunnels only go in three directions. One goes to another door, one dead ends at another room, and one goes to the Thorncrown underbelly.”
“It does?” I ask, turning to Royal.
“It was the men’s college when Willow Heights was founded,” he says. “They have… Connections.”
I shake my head, focusing on the girl with the gun in her hand. “Then what are you looking for?”
“Something to help him,” she says, her chin quivering. “It all comes back to the Midnight Swans. He was being initiated, and something happened, and… And that’s why I stole Grandpa’s key, to come down here and see what I could find.”
Her breath hitches, and I hold out a hand toward her. “Put the gun down, Magnolia. Royal’s not going to hurt you. The person you need to talk to is your grandfather, okay? He’s the one who did the initiation. And if you want the book with the Swans’ information, it’s behind you on that shelf.”
She sniffs and squares her shoulders. “Why should I believe you?”
“The theme of tonight’s Homecoming,” Royal mutters beside me.
“You can trust me because I’m your friend,” I say to Magnolia. “I’m not going to rat you out about having a gun here if you don’t use it for anything stupid. So just put it away. And I’m a member of the Midnight Swans, so I know where the book is. I’ll show you once you put that down.”
“Put your weapons down first,” she says, poking the gun toward me. I drop my bag that has my knife in it, but she gestures at me again. “And the brass knuckles.”
If I wasn’t having a deadly weapon pointed at my face, I’d be impressed. I slip off the weapon and drop it near my purse.
“Now get it off the shelf,” she says, creeping backwards toward the other side of the room as I approach the bookshelf.
“Stop pointing the fucking gun at her,” Royal growls.
“Fine, I’ll point it at you,” she says, swinging back toward him. “You’re the one who deserves to be shot, anyway.”