The storage room was even more full than it appeared through the window. Against the back wall ran a long row of metal filing cabinets. In every other corner and crevice, stacks of cardboard file boxes, dust-covered and water-stained, towered over them. The room had to have years—maybe decades—of files.

As Millie stepped inside, her eyes widened as she scanned it all.

"Where... Where do we even start?" Millie asked, turning to him.

"Just pick a spot, any spot," Matthew said with a shrug. He closed the door behind her and headed straight for the cabinets. "Got to start somewhere."

Millie followed after him. They each claimed a cabinet, pulled open a drawer, and dug in. Millie flicked through the long line of folders while Matthew pulled a file and flipped through its pages, scowling in confusion as he looked over its contents.

"What am I looking for, exactly?"

"Anything about Petra Downey," Millie explained, pulling a file of her own, "or Miss Brodie, or deaths, or accidents, or... Anything suspicious, I guess."

"Anything suspicious, huh?" Matthew said, slotting away the folder. "Good luck with that. Somehow I doubt they're labelling things 'Death Cover Up' or 'Murder Most Foul.'" He chuckled.

Millie ignored him. For some reason, Matthew seemed more upbeat than usual—almost jovial. She dismissed it as nerves. Some people acted strange under the influence of adrenaline. She did her best to refocus on the drawer's contents, hoping that either of them was able to find something, anything they could take to the authorities to bolster her story. So far, it didn't seem likely. The open drawer in front of her was full of long lists of names. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be graduation rosters... For the school and the monastery.

"Why are the Order's records mixed with the school files?" Millie wondered, tilting her head to inspect a class photo from a few years prior. Girls pictured in black and white, standing in rows in front of Wickford. They looked to be nuns-in-training, still dressed in their grey pinafores and white mantles.

"Does it matter?" Matthew muttered, sounding disinterested. He was busy reading through another file, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He then sighed and tossed the file back in the drawer before slamming it shut with a clang and a curse.

"I suppose not," Millie muttered and gave up on the graduation lists. Matthew had already moved on to a new cabinet. Millie did the same, shifting over one and pulling open a new drawer. A sigh escaped her as she took a look at its contents. It was just pages and pages of numbers. Financial information, it looked like. Even more useless than the last—

"Found something."

Millie whipped her head around.

Matthew held a file aloft. His previous playfulness had fallen away, and his expression turned grim.

Millie abandoned her drawer and rushed to his side. He opened the file and laid it out for her on top of the open drawer in front of him.

Pulling it closer, Millie frowned. Though she had hoped for it, it wasn't Petra's name emblazoned on the label. The file was for an ANNE GERALDINE THOMAS, a name Millie didn't recognise. The first page listed her particulars: her age, her previous education, her address in London...

Millie shot a confused look at Matthew.

He shook his head and pushed the page aside, revealing the photos underneath.

Millie gasped as she recognised the woman in the photos.

She did know this name.

It was Miss Thomas' file.

And it appeared she had never made it back to London.

The photos had been taken from the upper floor of Wickford, looking down over the curve of the stairs to the grand hall below. Miss Thomas' was lying in a crumpled heap in the middle of the floor, a dark pool spreading from beneath her head. Even at the distance from which the photo was taken, Millie could see her eyes were empty.

It looked as though she had fallen from the upper landing.

Or...

Had she been pushed?

However she had ended up there, it was another suspicious death that had occurred on the grounds of Wickford.

But that wasn't the part that bothered Millie the most.

Not only had the nuns and school known, not only had they lied about it...

They had documented it.

"These are the sort of photos a detective would take as evidence for a murder," Millie breathed. "What does a school need these for?"

Matthew was quiet. "I don't know."

If he hadn't suspected something before, he had to now.

A burning heat began to rise in Millie. Anger. Betrayal. Fear. This was all too much. Her parents had sent her here to protect her from the danger of war, and instead, they had ended up pushing her into the arms of something far more diabolical.

She needed to put a stop to it.

She needed more proof.

Millie snatched the first picture from the file and pushed it into Matthew's hands. Then she shoved him aside and dove deeper into the open drawer. She searched for familiar names, but there was no sign of Petra's file nor of Miss Brodie.

But there were other files, other names...

Millie chose another at random. She skipped over the forms and letters, looking for more photos.

The first was a nun. Judging by the gravel underneath her broken body, she had fallen from the roof, just like Miss Brodie. No, not fallen. Millie was certain now.

Pulling out the photo, she passed it to Matthew before moving to another file.

Each file held more photos and more awful deaths. A teacher. Another nun. A student, a girl she didn't recognise. Two nuns. A man in a suit. She pulled photo after photo, grabbing at them blind until she was panting from the effort.

When she could do no more, Millie closed the drawer and leaned against the cabinet. She had found exactly what she had been looking for, but instead of feeling the rush of victory, she just felt... numb. There were likely more photos, more evidence, but she couldn't bring herself to go back for it. This had to be enough.

She glanced over at Matthew, standing there with a thick stack of photos in hand.

"Did... Did they all die at Wickford?" Millie whispered, staring down at them.

"It appears that way," Matthew replied, glancing at the photo on top.

It was the student, the girl she didn't recognise, bent back and impaled on the spiked iron fencing that lined the gardens closest to the house.

Millie shuddered, her insides twisting up like she was about to be sick. "What the hell is going on here?"

Matthew looked as though he wanted to say something, but he stopped and jerked around to look at the door.

There were voices in the hall. Voices that were coming closer.

Holding the stack of photos to his chest, Matthew slammed the drawer closed and grabbed Millie, dragging her behind one of the towering stacks of boxes. It was a tight squeeze, and Matthew had to squash her against the wall to keep them both out of view. His height curved over her, his arms against the wall on either side of her head, curled in to protect her. Millie wriggled, trying to get more space, but Matthew only pressed closer, pinning her in place.

"Quiet," he hissed. "Someone's headed this way."

Millie stopped struggling. With her cheek pressed against his chest, Millie could hear his heartbeat as clear as hers, both thrumming in time. Despite the dank room and cold plaster wall at her back, the heat of his body felt overwhelming pressed so close to her.

The door of the storeroom was thrown open. A tall, narrow nun stepped in, followed by a squatter one that was struggling with a key that had gotten stuck in the lock. They looked like they could be students, maybe one or two years older than Millie, though they wore the full habit of the 'real' nuns.

"What files did they want, again?" the narrow one asked. There was a shock of curly red hair poking out of the line of her veil.

The squat one finally freed the key with a victorious cry, then dropped it into her pocket, exchanging it for a scrap of paper. She squinted at it and pushed the glasses on her nose up. "Uh, Brampton. Hughes. Stiles. And... Thomas?"

"Right, right," the narrow one replied, headed for the drawer Millie had just abandoned.

Millie held her breath as she watched the nun slide it open.

Would they notice that they had just been there?

The narrow one's face scrunched up as she inspected the drawer's contents. "Whoever was in here last sure made a mess."

"So? Come now, we can't dawdle. The Mother has been so impatient as of late," the squat one said with an impatient huff as she leaned against the doorframe. "If it matters so to you, you can come back and reorganise it on your own time."

"Right, right," the narrow one said, though she still tidied the drawer as she searched for the files she needed. She plucked them out one by one, laying them out in her arms. Millie could only watch her work, hoping that the nun didn't stop to check inside and notice the photos missing.

"Hmm," the narrow nun said, hesitating. "Thomas' file isn't here."

The squat one straightened up. "It isn't?"

The tall one shook her head, her long fingers now flicking through the files. "No, it's... It's gone."

"It can't be," the squat one replied, stepping off the door to come look, too. "Sister Marion said all the files would be down here—"

"I know what she said, but it's not here—"

Millie swallowed hard. They hadn't taken the file, had they? She thought they had only taken the photos, but... Well, she didn't remember taking it, but she also didn't remember putting it back. She wished she could look through the stack that was pressed between her and Matthew, but they were so tight together it was impossible.

If they found a file was missing, if they started to grow suspicious...

They had to get out here.

Millie couldn't risk whispering, so she tried moving, in hopes that she could motion something to Matthew. He didn't allow it. He just pressed back harder, crushing her against the wall.

"Don't," he hissed, his voice right next to her ear. As he spoke, his breath cascaded down her neck.

Despite the heat of his breath, Millie shivered. She realised this was the closest she'd ever been to a boy. Her sister had once regaled her with stories of her dates—stories of dances and movies and dark, private corners. Millie had once dreamed of this kind of closeness, of wondering how it would feel when she finally got her chance. And here she was, though the circumstances were so far from her fantasies, tainted with fear and death...

And yet, it didn't stop her body from responding. It felt so wrong, with the photos of the dead pressed between them, but it was as though her body had gained a mind of its own. Her fingers twitched, eager to touch him. Something inside her stirred, pressing closer to the surface of her skin. Something hungry and wanting—

"Oh, you silly goat," the squat one bellowed. "It's right here."

Millie was yanked back into the present, burning with shame. She did her best to pull back from Matthew and shove down those other thoughts. She watched through the gaps in the file boxes as the squat nun pulled a file from the front of the drawer and plopped it on top. So, Millie hadn't taken the file by accident. She must've just shoved it back in wherever when she had gone to search through the others.

"It's not supposed be there," the narrow one muttered, still frowning as she added the file to her stack. "It's supposed to be filed under the 'T's."

"You said yourself that the drawer was a mess," the other replied, heading for the door. 

They had what they wanted, and they'd be gone soon. Millie suppressed a sigh of relief.

The narrow one just shook her head and closed the drawer. "It's such a shame."

"What? The state of our filing system?"

"No, not the filing system," the narrow one said, her voice sharp. "I mean, another life lost."

Millie's skin began to prickle. They had to be talking about the murders.

She wished she could leap over the boxes, grab hold of one of the nuns, and demand what they knew. But she couldn't, so instead, she strained her ears, listening as best she could despite Matthew's heart pounding so close.

"It's all such a waste," the narrow one continued. "Do you think it's worth it?"

The squat one was suddenly serious. "It's not for us to decide. The Mother thinks so, and that's what matters. As she says, it's a worthy sacrifice."

Sacrifice?

All of Millie's nerves lit up, sending shivering jolts across her skin.

What do they mean by sacrifice?

"Sister Marion doesn't think so," the narrow one said.

"Sister Marion doesn't like change," the squat one replied with a scoff, "or anything that threatens tradition."

The narrow one seemed annoyed now. "Tradition is all we have..."

They were almost at the door now. As she watched them go, relief washed over Millie. She finally let herself sigh. Though she wished she could follow after them to hear more, she really just wanted them gone. She and Matthew had to get out of there. Their tight positions were starting to get uncomfortable, and not for the usual reasons.

Plus, she was sure Sister Marion was now looking for her in earnest.

"Matthew," she murmured, reaching up to get his attention. "We need to go—"

But instead of a light touch, her fingers dug into his side, hard, as though her darker urges still had control.

Matthew sucked in a sharp breath and flinched. His shoe scraped over the stone floor.

Everything went quiet.

Had the nuns heard it?

Matthew went absolutely still. Millie squeezed her eyes shut. They had been talking, and they were halfway out the door. Maybe they hadn't. Millie hoped, prayed that they—

"What was that?"