Free The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman

the low guardrail, with ropes prepared for the accused’s neck and ankles. Inchfawn was unrolled from her sheet and tied to the chair. Her hands were bound behind the chair, and the gag taken from her mouth.
    A kick set her rocking.
    ‘You will not scream,
wretch
,’ said Frecks, putting on a deeper, more ominous voice in her guise as Willow Ermine. With wind whining in the chimneys and waves crashing hundreds of feet below, it was deuced eerie. Amy’s hackles rose.
    Inchfawn opened her mouth, but swallowed a cry. Without any of her glasses, she looked like a different girl.
    ‘Lydia Inchfawn, Dorm Three Desdemona, you are accused of treason against your House Sisters,’ declared Amy, finding her own hollow voice for Kentish Glory. ‘It is proven that you did collaborate with the Hooded Conspirators who abducted your House Sister, Princess Kali Chattopadhyay. Furthermore, you did perjure yourself before Headmistress…’
    ‘Who is that?’ asked Inchfawn.
    ‘Silence,
weasel
,’ boomed Frecks. ‘You will hear the charges.’
    ‘…you did perjure yourself before Headmistress, to hinder attempts to pursue the Conspiracy and rescue Princess Kali. These things are known. Now, sentence must be passed… and
executed
.’
    This was the trickiest part of the plan. And it depended on Amy. Even if Inchfawn guessed who was behind the mask of Kentish Glory, there was a thing she did not know about Amy Thomsett.
    She could float and she could reach out with her mind and make others float.
    Since making a poor start with Headmistress’s pen, she had been practising and was more confident.
    ‘Ha ha, very amusing,’ said Inchfawn unconvincingly. ‘Now, if you’ll untie me, we can all get back to bed… and nothing more will be said, all right? No need to trouble Headmistress – or the whips! – with this raggishness.’
    Frecks and Light Fingers hefted up the chair, and set it on the guardrail, holding it steady.
    Inchfawn squeaked.
    The accused was tilted backwards, over the edge.
    A grassy strip separated the outer wall of Old House and the cliff edge. Depending on the wind, a person falling from the roof might bounce on that ledge or miss it entirely. Whichever, they would plunge to the shingles. It was remotely possible they’d be impaled on the flagpole which still stuck up from the broken-off tower.
    Frecks and Light Fingers struggled with the weight. Light Fingers had only lent her chair to the Moth Club on the condition it be returned safely. It was a prized possession, one of the few things she had brought with her to School. It had accompanied her to the dressing rooms of all the great theatres of the kingdom. Amy felt a responsibility for the furniture.
    She reached out with her mind, feeling the shape and weight of the chair and its prisoner, then took a firm hold on the lump they made together. The chair juddered a little, as if trying to free itself from the other girls’ grips. Now Amy made it
lighter
and herself
heavier
. Anchored to the roof by her increased weight, soles sinking a little into soft tar, she held the chair as if invisible strings ran from her eyes to its points of balance.
    Amy raised her arms – her wing-like cloak spread out – and took all the weight on herself.
    Frecks and Light Fingers let go of Inchfawn.
    The chair wobbled, but did not topple.
    Amy let out the invisible strings and the chair tipped backwards.
    ‘No,’ screeched Inchfawn, fat tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘It wasn’t my fault, you beasts! They said no one would be hurt! I was made to do it! It was… a whip, I tell you. A whip!’
    Just as Frecks had theorised, the Hooded Conspiracy ran through School.
    The chair was floating now, like a large balloon. Amy didn’t think Inchfawn even noticed. If she looked down, she would see dark sea and the white froth of breaking waves. That would be enough to stop most people’s hearts.
    Amy began to reel the blubbing culprit in.
    ‘What have we here?’ drawled a