When The Snow Falls

It took a mere two minutes for him to be accepted into the Pudding Club. Liam led him back to his room where he located the blank form. Daniel hastily filled the form in and handed it to Liam who took a brief look over it and stamped it with the air of someone wanting to get a painful task over with.

"Welcome to the club. I'll start arranging your initiation ceremony as soon as possible," Liam promised him after tucking the form into his blazer pocket.

"When will that be?"

Felix's prediction had to be right or else Daniel was going to have some strong words with him.

"Next Wednesday," was the answer.

That agreed with Daniel's needs. He had a week and a day to solve everything. Maybe the Pudding Club would have ceased to exist by that time.

"Did you catch all of that?" he asked Felix once Liam had left and he'd heard him go down the corridor. There had been no time to end the phone call so he'd left it connected.

"I most certainly did. You are very in demand. I'm jealous," Felix commented. "It's lucky that you have some time before then to find certain things."

Daniel ignored the first part. He really didn't have time to work out if Felix was flirting with him. The second part reminded him that he had been going to ask Felix about what he had taken before Liam had interrupted.

"The prefects drugged me on my first night in order to search for something that you took. What is that?"

The answer was not helpful.

"It's useless without the other three parts. Everything to do with the secret society has been split into four parts to ensure that one prefect can't have a change of heart and give evidence about the drug taking. Tradition is powerful. I took Liam's part because it was the easiest to obtain."

The caution taken by the secret society was understandable. He had wondered before about how the secret society had survived for so long and through a new set of prefects every year. It had been carefully planned to eliminate the possibility of any of them stepping out of line.

"Liam had a ledger of the drugs used and their classes. It was half a page so one of them must have other information connected to it like the source or dates," the supposed amnesiac continued. "I don't know what the other three have. I was planning an excursion to the other two's rooms, but I obviously didn't get to it before I had an 'accident'. Can you pick a lock?"

Daniel didn't like where the conversation was going. If he was caught, he was definitely going to have an 'accident' and he might not be as lucky as Felix was. It was unlikely that they would choose the same method again. If he had to search all three prefects' private bedrooms, that was three opportunities to get caught. Whilst he could pick a lock and search quickly thanks to his experience in his previous life, he wasn't confident about it considering the cost of getting caught.

Then he noticed something about Felix's previous statement. He had one quarter of evidence, yet he had only mentioned planning two other excursions.

"I can pick a lock, but I have something to ask you. Which other prefect's bedroom have you broken into?"

Felix coughed awkwardly.

"As a matter of fact, I broke into someone's for a different purpose right after Jack's death. I hadn't started properly investigating yet. I went in for something specific and immediately left."

Daniel wondered why Felix was being so mysterious about his visit to an unknown prefect's private room. However, there were more pressing questions to ask.

"Where did you hide the ledger? If you hid it in our room, they can't have found it."

Felix's reply was frustrating.

"I did hide it in our room. They just missed it because it's a good hiding place. Can you check if it's still there?"

Daniel had searched around Felix's side with no results. He couldn't have missed it and he'd searched his own side as well. He had found a lot of hidden objects in his past life that had solved cases so it was odd that he couldn't find something hidden by Felix.

"Where did you hide it?" he asked with gritted teeth. He wasn't in the mood for any snarky comments from Felix.

Luckily for his frustrated mood, Felix didn't tease him and just answered simply.

"Down the radiator under my desk. That's why it's been disabled. I adjusted yours as well so it wouldn't seem out of place."

"You're the reason why this room is so cold," Daniel sighed in exasperation before crawling under the desk to check.

The clues had been there the whole time. The room was oddly cold. Christopher's room had been much warmer compared to his and Sunny had said that he should tell maintenance about the broken radiator. He should have wondered about it more, he had just attributed it to Kingston Royal Academy having old architecture. He switched on the torch on his phone to look down the back of the radiator. There was a slim plastic wallet sellotaped in place. He could make out a list of drugs through the blue plastic. There was quite a range.

"In my defence I didn't know that I was getting a roommate until the day before," Felix said apologetically. "Sorry about the cold temperature."

"It's still here," Daniel announced.

"Of course it is. You need to find the other three parts before we have a good chance at destroying them."

Daniel g.r.o.a.n.e.d at the thought of sneaking into three prefects' bedrooms. They were definitely going to be on high alert once he got hold of one piece of evidence. The only one that was going to be slightly easier was David Wang's, the Golden Lion prefect due to the fact that Christopher was in the same house and could help him out, directly or indirectly.

"What have you done with the cat?" Felix changed the subject adroitly.

The cat's head was still in the parcel under Felix's bed. In the rush of finding out everything, he hadn't had a chance to bury it discreetly.

"I'm planning its burial," he said hastily. "Can you tell me who sent it so I can know which prefect might be slightly on my side?"

There was a short period of silence.

"No. If I reveal that, I have to reveal something that I did."

"Felix..." Daniel sighed. "Tell me-"

He was cut off by Felix ending the call. What had happened between Felix and the prefect?

There was another knock at the door and he breathed a sigh of relief when he recognised the knock. It was only Christopher. A second later his cousin strode in with a triumphant look on his face and closed the door behind him.

"I know who sent the parcel or at least, who the box and wrapping belong to," he informed him.

The visit to Felix had caused Daniel to forget that Christopher had offered to help out with the mutilated cat issue. He hadn't been expecting much anyway so it was a happy surprise.

"Who is it?"

Christopher leaned forward secretively and Daniel couldn't blame him for not feeling comfortable discussing something important as this too loudly.

"James Mackenzie."

Whilst Daniel had no idea who the parcel was from, he hadn't been expecting that name. Then again it did make sense. He was a prefect, had known about the cats in the wardrobe and wasn't Liam. Raven met the criteria.

"How do you know it's his box?" he asked curiously.

"He's well known for burning incense sticks in his room and smells of it himself. I was trying to remember where I smelt it before and thought of incense because it doesn't smell quite like aftershave and deodorant. Do you think he's the one that sent it?"

"Probably. I just don't know why."

Felix had said the sender had a conscience and wanted revenge against him at the same time. What had Felix taken from his room?

"Do you know if he does anything else strange in his room?"

Christopher wasn't in the Violet Rose house so it was a difficult question to ask. However, Christopher was his only real school connection that he could use. Felix was clearly not going to tell him.

"Daniel, he's infamous for being weird. What kind of things are you thinking about?"

He couldn't disagree with that reputation. He'd only interacted with Raven once and that had been enough to show his strange personality.

"Does he keep anything odd in his room that has gone missing recently?"

Christopher pulled a face.

"I haven't exactly been in there... actually, I did hear that he went around the Violet Rose dorm looking for a rabbit last month. In September when the first term started, one of the year 7s said that he saw him playing with a rabbit in the fields once and another said he saw a rabbit cage in his room. Nobody believed them because no one takes Year 7s seriously, but they could be telling the truth."

Something flashed through Daniel's mind and he made a connection between the facts. Raven used to have a rabbit that he kept in his room, Felix had taken something from a prefect's room and black pudding had been served at the Pudding Club before the end of the term after Jack's death.

Additionally, Felix had been very unwilling to tell him what he took.

It all added up to one thing.

Felix had used Raven's rabbit to make black pudding.

It explained why the cat had been mutilated needlessly. It was Raven's way of giving him a warning and getting Felix back at the same time.

Daniel was revolted by both of them.

Admittedly Felix hadn't got anyone hooked on drugs and led them to their death, but it was still an odd thing to do. At the very least, he solved the minor mystery of where Felix had got the blood to make the black pudding from. He couldn't say it had been weighing heavily on his mind though.

"No, those year 7s were telling the truth," he said with a shudder. "It's definitely Raven that sent the cat."

"What are you going to do now?" Christopher asked with nervousness evident on his face. "You can't go against the prefects."

Daniel laid a hand on Christopher's shoulder. His cousin was proving to be more useful than he'd ever imagined.

"Can you break into David Wang's bedroom for me?" He requested with his best non-evil smile.

Christopher knocked his hand off his shoulder.

"What? Even if I had the guts to I couldn't sneak in anyway, he keeps the door locked."

"So you have tried."

His cousin flushed red and Daniel knew he'd hit on something.

"It was a dare. My roommate said he'd tidy up if I had the balls to get into David's room and bring back proof. I obviously failed and that's why his side of the room is a mess."

"I can teach you how to pick a lock, would you do it then?"

"No! I'm not risking getting caught," the blond protested.

Daniel knew he would have to pull out the strongest persuasion tool in his arsenal to get Christopher to help him.

"I'll tell Annabelle you are being uncooperative."

It took Christopher five seconds to crack.

"Fine. I'll get you into the dorm unnoticed, but you have to break in by yourself and I don't know anything about it you get caught."

He held out his hand and Daniel shook it. It felt strange that investigating a potential murder case and drug ring were the elements needed to bring them together.

***

Once Christopher had left Daniel sent a text with a rabbit emoticon to Felix. It would be sufficient to let Felix know he was aware of the theft and murder. Felix's reply was a sad face and a cat emoticon. When he received this, Daniel rolled his eyes. Neither of the two were in the right for their animal murders.

He checked the time and decided it would be a good idea to visit the library again, this time for something different. His aim was to look into the history of Kingston Royal Academy. The secret society's luring in and subsequent blackmail of Jack had made him wonder if it was an actual tradition and he wanted to check if there had been any other deaths at Kingston Royal Academy.

Mr Collings had been appointed fairly recently so he hadn't been any help so he was going to have to find out the information himself.

His search started in the history section where he picked out two prospective books and he took a detour to find a book about drugs. It would be interesting to see who had taken out those books. He hit a stumbling block when he located the right section to find Raven standing there reading a book.

Daniel took a step back and Raven turned around to look at him. Daniel wasn't sure what to say. Raven wasn't his biggest threat but he wasn't innocent either.

"Seeing as you're here, you must have worked it out," Raven said. "Well done and be careful. I'll keep my door unlocked for a week to help you."

He dropped the book he had been reading into Daniel's arms and walked away. Daniel stared after him and then at the book which was on illegal drugs.

It appeared that there was a prefect who was on his side.