This morning I woke up a full hour early for the run because Andie had flung themself against the door and was using all their weight to hold it shut, despite what sounded like a significant effort to open it from the other side.

Obviously I went into full fight or flight because what the FUCK was trying to get into our room at 6 o’clock in the morning. I went from asleep in bed to flat on my belly on the floor planning our window escape in like under a second.

“What’s out there?” I hissed at Andie.

“What?” Andie said, lurching as the door was shoved forward. “I don’t know, probably Willowa students.”

And it was at about that point that I remembered I was in my Palefish dorm room supposedly perfectly safe, not on the road hunting cryptids. Which actually rose more questions than it answered.

“What?” I said.

Andie gave me a funny look. “It’s key week,” they said.

“What the fuck is key week?” I said back as the doorknob rattled.

Andie shoved backwards hard. “You don’t know about key week?”

“Obviously not,” I snapped. Like obviously I don’t know about key week, I didn’t know this island existed until like a year ago why would I know what key week is?

Andie grimaced as the door bonked the back of their head, so I went to the door, banged my fist against the back side and shouted, “Go the fuck away!” There was a peel of laughter and the sound of feet pelting off down the hall, and whoever was trying to get into our room was gone.

Andie slumped back against the door, exhausted.

“Thanks,” they said. “I forgot key week was starting. That was close.”

“Close to what?” I demanded. I getting a little bit pissed because I’m sorry, but if you’re going to scare the shit out of me with people banging on my door at god awful in the morning, somebody better be dying.

“Sorry, it’s a Palefish tradition,” they said. “You know that key Philip Angevin wears around his neck?”

I stared at them. “Who?”

“Philip Angevin,” Andie repeated, and when that did nothing to help me they laughed. “Oh you know Phil. Saint Niveus senior? He’s like… tall?”

I stared at them, working very hard not to be furious.

“Okay, well he’s a senior at Saint Niveus. They won key week last year so he…” they trailed off, apparently realizing how annoyed I was, and finished, awkwardly, “he wears it.”

I tried to take deep breaths because at that point I was aware that I was definitely going to lash out at poor Andie who did not deserve it at all.

I said, as patiently as I could, “I’m gonna need you start from the beginning. What is key week?”

“Oh, it’s a game,” Andie said. “Every year in October the three colleges fight to get their hands on the key. Whoever has it at the end of the week gets to keep it until next year.”

So I asked what I thought would be the most obvious question: “what’s the key to?”

Andie blinked at me, confused. “Uh.” They shrugged. “No idea.”

“…so they’re just fighting over a key to nothing?” I said.

There was a long painful moment of quiet. Then Andie finally said, “Yup.”

“Okay,” I said, getting back into bed. “Sure. Wake me up in an hour.” And that could have been the end of it but then, after a moment of reflection: “So wait, who was at our door?”

Andie made a face. “Oh, well…” they seemed weirdly apologetic. “I mean the competition to get the key can get pretty cut throat so upperclassmen sometimes use minnows to like…” they seemed to search for a word. “I dunno, help them.”

I didn’t get it. The whole thing just seems dumb as hell to me.

Andie seemed to see this on my face, because they added, “The colleges are really hard to get into, right? I mean, getting into Saint Niveus or Willowa is brutal, and all you really have is a single year to impress them. But if you can help the upperclassmen get the key, it’s like a total foot in the door. They’ll take you under their wing, you know? Introduce you to the right professors, make space for you in the right classes. That sort of thing.”

I took a moment to consider that, and then said, suspiciously, “…okay, but what were people doing at our door?”

Andie was looking distinctly uncomfortable now. “So if you get… uhhh tagged I guess, you’re out of the game,” they said. “So I’m guessing someone is… trying to get us out of the game.”

I was absolutely nonplussed. Baffled. “What?”

Andie sighed. “A lot of people at my old school didn’t like me,” they said in a rush. “And everyone pretty much knows that I really want to get into Saint Niveus, so they were probably trying to get me out of the running. Or something.”

I stared at them.

“Sorry,” they said. “I mean, it’s not a big deal or anything, you’ll probably get into Saint Niveus anyways, like you were already chosen for SECRET CLUB I CAN’T WRITE ABOUT. I’m sure you’ll be okay.”

I laughed disbelievingly.

“Sorry,” Andie said again, misunderstanding.

“No,” I said. “No, that doesn’t matter, I don’t give a shit about Saint Niveus.”

Which is true, I don’t give a single shit about Saint Niveus. What does sorta piss me off is the lengths these kids will go to screw with each other like Jesus Christ what kind of insane petty bullshit is this?

Andie was watching me with big fearful eyes and my blood was boiling, so I got up and opened our door and looked down the corridor to see if there was anyone still out there.

There wasn’t. I slammed the door.

By the time we made it down to the run, there were already people with big black ink handprints on the exposed skin on backs of their necks, faces, or arms.

“Quick reminder!” Professor Alban, the PE teacher, called as we all stretched and huddled before the run. “Key week is strictly forbidden, and has been for the last five years! Anyone caught participating risks disciplinary action, and upperclassmen suspected of including minnows in their schemes risk suspension or worse!” There was a half-hearted grumble of acknowledgement and Professor Alban huffed. “Alright, off you go, run along.”

On the run, as we were all trudging along the edge of the orchard, I heard Marina saying “I mean, Sorely can’t just cancel key week, it’s one of the oldest traditions on this island, like obviously we’re not going to stop playing.”

“Of course you say that,” Lynlea replied. “You’re gonna use it to get into Saint Niveus.”

Marina tossed her hair. “I’m already in Saint Niveus,” she said, which as far as I can tell is in fact true. Like, she was for sure at that secret middle of the night feast I’m not allowed to talk about.

I don’t think I understood how big of a deal this whole thing was though, until later, after dinner when Rook, Bass and I were slogging through fountain square in the drizzle. Across the square, Philip Angevin was leaving the library with what turned out to be a whole guard of Saint Niveus students, wearing the key proudly around his neck. Now that I knew about it, it was pretty obvious. He did nothing to hide it — an old iron key hung on top of his neatly buttoned tailcoat.

And then, suddenly, a whole band of hooded Willowa students flooded up from the direction of the orchard, bringing with them a thick wave of fog, which rolled up at their heels and slowly engulfed the square.

Bass was delighted, watching the magic fog billow in. (“This is a neat bit of magic, I wonder who did it?” fuckin nerd lol)

I was not delighted. Neither was Rook. We’ve had enough fog to last us a lifetime I think. We closed ranks instinctively, and I felt better once his back hit mine.

Out in the fog the sounds of a scuffle were breaking out — several screams and some ominous thumps. When the fog cleared, Philip Angevin didn’t have the key. We could tell because all the Saint Niveus kids were yelling at each other. Several of them had fresh black ink handprints on them.

“You okay?” Rook asked, just me, those dark eyes searching my face, and my little heart contracted horribly.

“Are you?” I said and he smiled wryly and UGH why couldn’t I have just talked to him last year?????????

But even after that incident — which genuinely felt like some guerrilla warfare ambush shit — I thought this was all going to be irrelevant to me. Like I figured I’d watch it all play out with vague interest and then next week sorta forget that it happened. Alas.

On the way back from the bathroom to my room tonight, I’m in my pajamas and slippers, towel drying my hair, and someone tall and skinny in a ski mask lurched out from the curtains over the window at the end of the hall and tried to shove me against my door.

Now, it’s not like Neal and Julian taught me lots of badass fighting skills or anything, like I’m definitely not John Wick, but I’ve been in enough tight spots at this point to start lashing out when someone comes for me.

And when that person happens to be fucking Ichabod Crisp like… I mean Jesus Christ poor kid. I fully punched him in the face and the gut before he finally got all his flailing limbs under control enough to back away from me. “Ichabod?” I realized as he pushed up the ski mask to see if his nose was bleeding.

“Sorry,” he said nasally, and I laughed, because literally what is going on, like seriously? Some kid is gonna jump me outside my dorm room over a rusty old key? This place is insane.

And that might have been the end of it, except that Andie had heard the scuffle and opened the door. I’ve never seen them look so fierce. They took in the scene in like 2 seconds, seized Ichabod by his collar and dragged him into our room.

“Who sent you?” they demanded, flinty-eyed.

“Oh c’mon Andie, you know I can’t tell you,” Ichabod whined.

“The hell you can’t,” Andie said and dipped their hand into their pocket. When they brought it back out their palm was inky black.

“Ah, c’mon,” Ichabod moaned as Andie reached threateningly towards Ichabod’s cheek with their black handprint. “It’s bad enough I totally failed, I can’t also tell you —”

“Was it Marina?” Andie demanded. “Is Marina trying to take me out of the game?”

Ichabod blinked. “What? Marina? No, I was sent here for Shiloh.”

There was an awkward beat of quiet.

“By who?” Andie asked, blankly.

“I can’t —” but Andie reached their black handprint closer and Ichabod finally yelped, “alright, alright it was Willowa! They’re trying to take Shiloh out of the game!”

Andie stared at him for a long time. They made a face. “What?” They looked up at me. “Why????”

Which like… LOL I don’t fuckin know Andie, you tell me.

“I dunno,” Ichabod said. “They didn’t tell me why. They just said that if I gave her the black handprint they’d help me get into Professor Ellesburg’s sorcery classes.”

Andie rolled their eyes. “Well, you can tell them you failed,” they said flatly. “And you can tell anyone else who’s lurking around our doors to fuck off, too, alright?” and with a little shove, Ichabod slouched out of our room.

It was awkward in our room for a few minutes. Andie busily went about wetting a rag from the pitcher of drinking water on their desk and then carefully wiping the ink off their palm.

When they finally spoke, they didn’t ask me what I expected: “why did they choose you for the secret society?”

I shrugged. “I dunno,” I lied, because actually I’m pretty sure they chose me was because Robert and his friends knew that Lana has a special interest in me, they just didn’t know what it was. But I wasn’t gonna tell Andie that. “Why’d they choose you?”

I was literally just deflecting, but Andie suddenly couldn’t meet my eye. “I come from a really old family,” they said, but lots of kids here come from really old families, right? Ichabod, for one, and no one chose him to join any secret societies. (At least as far as I know, there could be more than one, who am I to say?)

“I just don’t get it,” Andie said. “Why does Willowa care about you?” I was rolling my eyes and preparing some kind of glib answer when they asked, “You hunted before you came here, right? Who did you hunt with?” and I had something of an oh moment.

I wasn’t exactly told to keep it a secret that I hunted with the Hawthornes, but no one really needed to tell me. I don’t know how far the rumors about Julian’s death went, and I don’t need to find out.

But idk maybe if Rook or Bass told someone that I hunted with a couple of dog saints all last year that got me enough attention to have Willowa sending inept black handprint assassins after me hahahaha.

I’ll ask them in the morning. Though honestly, even if someone in Willowa does know something about me, I don’t know why they care about whether or not I participate in key week.

Baffling. Like, I don’t get normal college sports, okay? This weird key week situation? Utterly baffling.