Chatoyant College Book 13: Chapter 32: Missing Messages

Corrie looked at Dawn, surprised by her statement. “You think they know more than they’re saying?”

“Who?” asked Edie. “The administration?”

“Yeah, whoever sent the email.” Dawn pointed to it. “The Office of Communications. Or the administration as a whole, probably. These people are just the ones who send emails. Maybe it’s even the guards who are hiding something.”

“Or the magic professors,” Corrie said. “But what do you think they’re hiding?”

“Well, they found the body,” Dawn said. “So they know what it looks like. They must know his cause of death, even if they don’t know exactly why it happened. They have to know if it’s similar to how Elrath died. You all saw the roped-off area and all the blood on the ground where Elrath was killed, right?” When they both nodded, she went on, “Was there anything like that this morning, Corrie?”

“No,” she said, thinking back to her run—she was sure she would have noticed it if it had been there, and she was sure she’d run past Sayer. Had she seen anything at all there? Not that she could recall. “Everything looked normal, and I definitely went past Sayer. But I can only see two sides of the building on my run—if he was on the other side, I might have missed it.”

“What time did the email come?” Edie asked, walking closer and peering over Corrie’s shoulder.

“Seven-thirty,” Corrie said when she found the timestamp. “I was just coming in from my run then. So they could have cleaned everything up before I got out there and taken half an hour to figure out what to say in the email—that’s not unreasonable.”

“They say they found him in the morning, but not what time,” Dawn said. “And if there was time for rumors to start, then maybe it was really early in the morning, like two AM.”

“But who gets up earlier than Corrie and is starting rumors?” Edie asked.

“There are people who get up earlier than me,” Corrie said, thinking of Byron. There were probably some other people on campus who got up early, whether for exercise or just because they were wired that way. “Or they could have been staying up that late.”

“That’s more likely,” Edie said.

“I wish I had Elementalism today,” Dawn said. “Maybe they would come to class and tell us more, like they came to Charlie’s class for Elrath. But I’m sure there are people in my other classes who knew him, so I guess I’ll see what I can find out.”

Corrie nodded. “Maybe Professor Strega will tell us something.” But that was unlikely unless Sean had been killed in a magical way. Then again… how often were people likely to die on this campus without magic?

But if he’d been killed with magic, wouldn’t the professors have found out right away? They had that system to monitor campus for magic. They had to know something. Maybe if Professor Strega didn’t say anything in class, Corrie would ask her afterward.

“I have to get ready for class, too,” Edie said. “I’ll see if Ginny says anything. But she probably won’t.”

Corrie nodded. “I’ll see you in Intro to Lit.”

“Edie, want to get breakfast?” Dawn asked.

“Yeah, but it’ll have to be quick. Let me get dressed.”

Corrie waved vaguely at Dawn as she left, then continued to sit there in her towels, staring at the email. Dawn was right—this was frustratingly vague on details. But it was still better than what had gone out about Elrath. Between the email and the fact that they had probably cleaned up the remains, the administration had learned something about how they’d treated Elrath’s death.

Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe the only difference was that Sean was human, and they felt they actually had to address his death.

Corrie remembered Charlie wondering whether the first death could have been a suicide, and that was why the administration didn’t want to tell students what had happened—they didn’t want anyone copying it. Maybe they’d failed to prevent that, even though Elrath obviously hadn’t killed himself. But what if Sean had?

She didn’t have any classes with Troy this semester, and she wished she did. If he was friends with Sean, then he might know something. But he was probably already talking to the administration, like they’d asked. And chances were, he knew nothing.

Or if Link had been involved, he would tell them nothing.

She sighed and closed her computer so she would stop staring at it. Edie, about to open the door, stopped and said, “Do you want to come to breakfast, Corrie?”

Corrie shook her head and pulled off her towel turban. She’d probably hopelessly messed her hair up already. “I’m not hungry. I’ll grab something quick before class.”

“Okay. See you later.”

Corrie waved as Edie left, then moved slowly to pick out clothes for the day, unmotivated to move any faster.