“It’s not optimism. I’m just being practical.”
“Doesn’t learning from the past help keep you from creating future mistakes?” Lexington asks.
Asher slides his dark gaze to him, unimpressed. “Who even are you?”
“I’m a friend of Elle’s.”
“Okay, well, next time I want your opinion, I’ll make sure to ask for it.”
Sighing, I take the book off the top of the stack and crack it open to the first page. “Jeez, just go, Ash. I’m not going to force you to stay here.”
“Lucy,” he barks over his shoulder at where she’s skimming through an encyclopedia at another table. “Are you ready to go?”
“I think I’ll stay here for a bit,” she says, not looking up.
Asher’s hands ball into fists. I’ll bet he wishes Foxe were here to use as a punching bag.
“Fine,” he snaps, stomping back over to where Lucy’s seated. He slams his ass into a chair, muttering something under his breath. She reaches up, threading her fingers through his hair, and he instantly softens at her touch, toying with his nose ring as he rests his head on the table.
A pang of envy splits my chest in two, so I glance away, refocusing on the book in front of me.
The first few I flip through aren’t of much use—they’re overall Fury Hill history, detailing things like how the infrastructure was initially intended to be built higher to deter lower-class citizens from venturing into the mountains. Avernia began as the center of town, but when deadly illness rolled through, eliminating a major portion of the population, the limits moved, and older plans were slashed and burned.
Like Sabrina said, Avernia Collegewasused as a triage center during those founding years, lending to the rumors about ghosts and hauntings that exist even to this day. A few entries talk about the student organizations—although only the Curators and Visio Aternae.
“Seems a bit odd there’s nothing in here about Death’s Teeth,” I mutter.
“Well, even the stuff about the founding families feels a little…contrived,” Lucy says, clearing her throat. “They practically write about the Duponts and Blackwaters like they’re the sole driving forces of the town while everyone else is background noise. And the Andersons…”
“Are cursed,” Aurora finishes from her corner.
Asher snorts, glaring at me. “What an exciting history we have here, Noelle.”
I roll my eyes, going back to the books. There has to be something that gives more information about how and why things turned out like this.
Mentions of Cronus Anderson and his strange healing remedies during the mass disease spread seem to be likely culprits; people often fear whatever they can’t make sense of. But to be honest, it’s not reallymyfamily I’m trying to find out about.
I scour the archives for anything on the other founding families: almost an entire line wiped out by paranoia, death worship, betrayals, and sin. That’s what it all seems to come back down to—the people of Fury Hill may believe they honor their gods, but really, everything they do is tainted by their vices.
Eventually, Asher and the others get up to leave, citing weekend plans that they want to get a good night’s sleep for, and then it’s just Lexington and me.
He’s playing some game on his laptop, not paying any mind to the copious amounts of research I’m trying to catalog.
A librarian makes his way up to the floor, carrying a leather-bound notebook under one arm. He pauses, glancing around, adjusts the round glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose, then scratches at his pale skin. “Did Ms. Wolfe leave?”
“Lucy went home, yes,” I answer.
“Ah. She asked if I had anything on the history of Fury Hill locked away in the back rooms up here. I found this, but maybe?—”
“I’ll take it!” I say, scrambling to receive the journal he offers.
“Please remember to return that to the circulation desk in the lobby,” he instructs, turning on his heels to head back downstairs. “Or else you’ll be suspended from school until it’s been retrieved.”
Giddy, I skip back to the table and flop down, placing the book gently on the wooden surface. It’s old and stiff, covered in athin layer of dust that indicates it hasn’t been checked out much before. Lucy had said she’d try to find something rare, and it looks like she delivered.
Leaning back in my chair, I crack open the spine, startling when a small rectangular packet slips out, falling to the table. They’re stapled together, and the packet is pressed so thin I’m afraid to touch it at first.
Lexington glances over as I stare. “Wait. That’s aPythiajournal.”
