I was in the middle of a burning building. It was so enormous it could be a palace ballroom. Only its beauty faded as the fire ravaged the inside. Pillars towered to the ceiling in what I imagined was once a dazzling display of finery and taste turned charred black. There was nothing but falling timbers, smoke, soot, and the unbearable stench of sulfur. The once glorious building was destroyed from the inside.
I swung my sword upward, blocking yet again as my faceless attacker lunged at me, flinging their sword high and aiming true. Only this time, I wasn’t taken by surprise. The pain in my side from the blade grazing me healed and I was ready to take this arsehole down.
There was nothing but a shadow over my attacker’s face. Their dark trench coat was draped over their back with the hood held high and covering just enough to shield them from view. I didn’t know who it was and I didn’t know what I had done to make them want to kill me.
‘These days my being alive is probably enough.’
My attacker looped around and swept a leg under the backside of my knee, swiping me right off my feet and forcing me to topple down to the ground.
Whoever it was, they were skilled. And they had magic.
Just when I thought this figure would strike me down the second I hit the burning embers on the floor, they backed off and held their sword in one hand. When they pulled their other hand out I saw a ball of blue light dancing in their palm, spinning around wildly and ready to lurch out once they raised her hand to fling it in my direction.
‘Is it a luxra witchling?’
I rolled to the side and just barely missed the electricity of my attacker’s magic. It created a hole half a yard deep in the floor and continued to search for me as I rolled out of the way. Finally, I was able to get up and dodge behind a pillar. I made sure I was hunched over. Good thing too. My attacker’s magic struck the pillar and sent it toppling to the ground. It hit another one to the side, causing it to fall and shatter to the ground alongside, followed by another. I heard the ceiling creak as it lost support.
‘You must be mad!’
Pieces of the glass ceiling fell to the ground in sharp shards, threatening to run us both through. I shot my crowning magic into the air and turned the shards into dust before it could harm either of us. Which I regretted the second I did it. I should have spared a few of them in hopes that they would skewer my attacker.
The dark figure was close to me yet again in a few strides, holding their sword high and funneling their sparkling blue magic through the sword. I raised mine and did the same, letting my scarlet red magic spiral around the blade as I swung it toward my attacker. I wanted to stop them dead in their tracks.
No such luck. Somehow, their blade was stronger than mine. My sword split in two pieces and the top collided with the floor, leaving me without any sort of weapon except my daggers and my magic. There wasn’t enough time to pull out the daggers. I let my crowning magic rip through my palms and tried creating a shield around my body. My attacker’s blade came down just in time to create a hole through the circling red sphere. They plunged it deep, letting their magic weave over the blade until they caused my shield to lose its strength.
I focused my attention on keeping the shield up as long as I could while I dug out the dagger Lothar gave me tied to my leather waist belt. I barely managed to get it out when the shield around me collapsed and my attacker pointed their sword directly at the center of my throat.
“Drop it,” they said with a deep voice.
I couldn’t make out who it was. Their voice was low, scratchy, and unlike anyone else I knew. I did as my attacker demanded and dropped the dagger to the floor behind the dark figure’s feet where I couldn’t reach for it.
“Get down on your knees.”
I placed my hands up and dropped down to the floor, thinking as hard as I could of anything I could do and coming up empty.
My magic wanted to burst right out of my body and protect me. I refused to let it. Something stopped me. I didn’t know what. This area was special. It needed to be preserved how it was.
‘How can that be? It’s already on fire!’
It was only a dream. A vision. I couldn’t tell what was causing me to hesitate but I knew I needed to keep the area safe. It was more important than my life.
My attacker swung their blade high behind their back, ready to chop my head right off my body and send my soul to wherever lycanthrope went after they died.
My magic wouldn’t allow it. Rodrick taught me how to use it inside my body without others seeing. So that’s exactly what I did. I wielded it to quietly float the dagger I dropped to the ground right behind my attacker’s back. The dark figure’s attention was on me. Not the dagger I threw behind them.
Just before the blade came down to cut my head right off my body I drove the dagger in my assailant’s back, digging it as deep as I could with my magic pushing it into their spine. I heard my attacker scream. It was a high pitched scream. I still couldn’t make out who it was. Or if it was a man or a woman. But they were only a little taller than me. That would either be an average-sized woman or a very short man. Regardless, they came crashing down to their knees before me and dropped the sword right out of their hand.
Just when I thought I had won and I might live to see a world that wasn’t burning all around me, a large stone pillar came crashing down, ready to topple right on me and my attacker if I didn’t move fast. Within the blink of an eye, I had won and would only live long enough to get crushed to death.
I sat up straight in bed. My ears pulsated from my heart hammering inside my chest. Scarlet red magic was circling the bed in quick streaks of light. I shut my eyes and repeated the incantation Rodrick taught me again and again, doing everything I could to get my magic back inside my body before it burned away my comforter. I had it under control within a matter of seconds and I was ready to hear Alina scurry from her bed and stare at me in a state of both shock and awe. But she wasn’t there. Her bed was nicely made, her bag was gone, and her trench coat wasn’t hanging on the black iron coat rack in the corner of our room.
‘So much for being so tired. It’s barely 3 pm and she’s already awake?’
The sun peeked through my blinds, reminding me of the times when the sun was my main clock. I lived by the moonlight now. Although, that didn’t seem to stop Alina from whatever it was that couldn’t wait. That was when I remembered that the second half of my exam in Alina’s class was that night. She probably needed the extra time to prepare properly.
After two more hours of tossing and turning I surrendered to the fact that until this mess was over and the curse was broken, I wasn’t going to have a single night of restful sleep.
‘Maybe Adeline knows a good sleeping potion that will let me rest.’
I got up, grabbed my trench coat with Margaux’s notebook about Blackatters still inside, and went down the stairs with one destination in mind. The library. If the answers were determined to stay hidden and everyone was keen on keeping secrets then I was going to go hunting for them myself.
The main courtyard was mostly empty. The only students walking about were the ones who I knew were my competition for higher marks in my classes because they always beat the sunset when it came to squeezing in extra hours to study. Although, my studies this evening were going to be of a different nature.
I walked to the library to find the door unlocked and the aisles lit by lanterns hanging from the sides. I never needed the librarian in the past given the aisles were usually marked well enough for me to find my way around but tonight would be different. Tonight, I needed to visit the archives.
She was sitting at a table in the far corner on a platform where she could see everyone that walked in and every aisle as it moved from side to side. Her hair was pinned up in a style that made her look as though she walked out of the Victorian era. And her clothing wasn’t much different either.
‘You fit the librarian cliché quite well.’
“Excuse me, Miss…” It oc
curred to me that I didn’t know her name.
“Steinly,” she said with a grunt. There was a guttural croak to her voice as though she had a toad caught deep inside her throat.
“Miss Steinly,” I repeated. “The Dean said he would grant me access to the library’s archives. I was curious if he informed you. I’d like to start my research there this evening.”
She pushed her rolling chair aside and pulled out a clipboard with names written all over it. Then she eyed me through her round-rimmed glasses. “Blackburn, is it?”
“Yes.”
She withdrew an enormous keyring with large metal keys dangling from side to side. Then she pushed her chair back from her desk as though I had caused her a massive inconvenience and walked to the opposite corner of the library. The bookcases moved out of her way as she walked. It wasn’t until I reached the other corner with her that I noticed they weren’t just moving aside. They were blocking the corner from view. I hadn’t seen anyone else when I walked in but Miss Steinly certainly wasn’t taking any chances.
She placed her hand on three stones lining the wall as if they were reading her fingerprint, just like I did when entering Rodrick’s study. When she pulled her hand away, she ushered me aside as the floor beneath my feet moved right out from under me. The tiles stacked one upon the other until there was a gap big enough for me to stand in. That was when I saw it. There was a black spiral staircase leading down underneath the library.
I remembered enough of my trip to the Tower of London as a little girl to recall what was buried under the Church of St Peter ad Vincula, the building the library was directly copying in the lycan realm. That was where excavation teams found countless bodies of those executed at the Tower of London. Including Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Lady Jane Grey. Women who, much like me, were betrayed by those who were meant to love them.
Miss Steinly grabbed one of the lanterns from an aisle of bookcases and lifted the front of her long black walking skirt to lead the way down the stairs.
“Are you coming, love?” she asked me with a raised brow showing every wrinkle in her forehead.
“Yes,” I muttered. When we reached the bottom, she stuck her lantern into what looked like a pillar only built halfway up to the ceiling. It sealed into place with a loud click. And with that, the entire room lit up in a bright golden glow.
I had to stop myself from gasping. The aisles of bookcases were very similar to the ones above us, but these had bodies piled along the center with books on either side. Only they weren’t human. They were the skulls of lycanthrope.
Miss Steinly must have seen the shock on my face because she snapped her fingers to bring me back to reality.
“Don’t disturb anything,” she said. “And if you do take out some of the archival work, place it right back where you found it in pristine condition. Is that understood?”
All I could do was give her one stern nod.
“Come up the stairs and tap four times on the trap door above you once you’re finished. I will come to collect you.”
She lifted the hem of her skirt as she climbed the spiral steps back upstairs. Then she walked through the hidden doorway and disappeared. The back of my throat went completely dry as the tiles magically placed themselves back to their original positions. I was left alone in the creepy archive that seemed to also serve as a crypt for long-dead lycan.
I didn’t have any time to waste. I had work to do before classes started for the day and I finished my exam in Alina’s class.
I walked down along the bookcases looking at the labels on each one. They weren’t marked by year or even events. They were marked by the Dean that occupied the academy at that time. And I had no idea who was the Dean of L.I.T. in May 1871.
I recalled looking through Edward’s notebook and his writings about Sybil. The Dean during that period was named Larkson. Could he have worked at the academy back to 1871?
I decided it was a good place to start and went searching through the old file folders.
The one with Dean Larkson on it had papers dating all the way back to 1866.
‘Bingo!’
I walked over to a small desk between the aisles of skulls and books. The box with all the files made a loud thud on the wooden table.
Someone stamped their foot from above me. It was Miss Steinly, warning me to keep quiet.
I took out a few of the folders and didn’t stop rummaging through the various papers inside until I saw the word I was looking for.
Vontex.
I opened the thick file to discover it wasn’t just a big heap of papers. It was filled with thin notebooks spanning two decades. One of them being the 1870s. I didn’t have to look far to find the one filled with entries from the leader of the Northern Vontex from that time period. They were sorted inside by domestic and foreign. I took that to mean the leader of the Northern Vontex wrote separately about happenings outside the United Kingdom.
I took the small notebook into my hand and smelled the age of the pages seeping from the parchment inside.
The bookcase scraped across the stone floor behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound. The bookcase was rearranging the books on its shelves, making sure that the shelf looked nice and tidy after I was done yanking out the box of files that I wanted.
‘If only my room could clean itself with magic like that when I was growing up.’
I turned my attention back to the logs before me. A man named Benjamin McGregor was the leader of the Northern Vontex from 1865 to 1882. He made numerous entries over the years about what he had seen. Stories I was itching to read and details I knew wouldn’t help me in the sleep department given I was having such trouble already. I forced myself to turn the page and not pay attention to the words etched on the previous log entries. If it wasn’t relevant to what I was looking for, then it was a distraction.
MAY 1871 was written at the top of a log twelve pages into the notebook. To my surprise, the events didn’t mean much to Benjamin McGregor like they did for me. He didn’t bother giving an array of detail. Only the most important and critical factors were included in the log.
Mission location: Paris, France
Enemy Combatants: Suspected Dolch Erbe disguised as Commundards
Causation: Oracle wheel sensed trouble inside Palais d’Orsay
Result: Violent encounter with suspects inside palace walls. A fire broke out. One lycan killed. One Vontex killed. One witchling. Several Communards killed.
Conclusion: The interior of the palace was used for dark magic and then burned as a part of an elaborate cover-up. The original intent is unknown.
‘Violent encounter? Does he mean there was a fight? Or some sort of battle?’
I noticed that most of Benjamin’s entries were that way. Concise, to the point, and not revealing more than necessary. But what he said was enough for me. The oracle wheel that now sat inside the Vontex’s large SUV told Benjamin that there was magic being used inside Palais d’Orsay. They battled with the Dolch Erbe, killed many, and even lost one of their own only for a fire to break out and the entire interior to burn to the ground. Just like Rodrick said it had.
The lycan could survive a man-made fire. The human members of the Dolch Erbe under the guise of Communards couldn’t. The only way that fire could have killed a member of the Vontex was if it was magical fire like the fire I created in my dorm room. I could still hear McKenzie’s screams every time I spoke the incantation before bed.
The entry wasn’t in any way conclusive. I couldn’t prove that Musée d’Orsay was home to the original site where the curse was cast. But it gave some evidence that my hunch might be correct. The Dolch Erbe wouldn’t have gone to such drastic measures to cover it up unless they wanted to make sure the intent for the location was never discovered.
Dust fell from the ceiling and landed on the page I was reading, reminding me that students were starting to stir awake and walk about above me. I didn’t have much time. There was one more thing I wante
d to do before heading to Alina’s class.
I pulled Margaux’s notebook out of the large interior pocket of my leather trench coat. I pushed the archival books aside and opened up Margaux’s before me on the table, knowing that this was one of the only places in the entire academy where I might have enough privacy to study my own kind in secret.
When my eyes grazed the first entry where Margaux’s writing began, the ink moved. It turned into nothing more than illegible scribbles. Her writing was completely unreadable. The ink continued to move and form words at the bottom of the page. The words ACCÈS REFUSÉ appeared across the page. In other words, ACCESS DENIED.
I scoffed.
‘All this trouble and a lecture from Rodrick only to run into a dead end. Figures.’
Well, not entirely. I had the information from Benjamin’s logs. But then again, those were written in simple ink. Margaux’s notebook was protected by luxra magic. My crowning magic was more powerful when I used it right.
I pulled the notebook in closer and let my palm hover over the page. My scarlet red magic slithered through my skin and gently caressed the paper. To my shock, that did the trick. The notebook might have been encrypted with magic but it couldn’t shield itself from crowning magic.
I removed my hand to see an array of notes before me about my species that I had never read before.
‘Margaux clearly did her homework.’
The sound of a heavy heel tapped on the ceiling above me. The tiles from the floor moved once more. Miss Steinly walked down the steps and came to collect the lantern.
“You’d best be going,” she said. “A few professors are scheduled to visit the archives for their lesson plans and I doubt they would want a student present during the exam period.”
Rescind: (Lycan Academy of Shapeshifting: Operation Shift, Book 4) Page 7