“A what?”
“Pythia’s journals. She used to write on this really fine carbon copy paper, staple it together, and leave them like little pamphlets all around campus.”
I trace over the bold signature carved into the front and glance at the dates below it.
My heart stops dead in my chest.
Eight years ago.
Autumn.
The same year I came to visit Quincy.
It could be a coincidence, I suppose. Stranger things have happened.
I turn the page, intrigued anyway.
And immediately wish I hadn’t read any of it at all.
Looking up at Lexington, I swallow hard, pushing down the bile rising swiftly in my throat. His gaze meets mine, concern lining his eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asks, leaning close. “It looks like you’re about to pass out.”
Shaking my head, I press my fingers to the page, nausea pumping through my bloodstream. The scratch of pencil marks on the paper almost transports me in time, and I’m back in the forest as I read the entries, desperate to find my way out.
— The rule of three applies tonight: it’s the first time any sophomore class has had three founding family members enrolled at once. Prophecy coming to fruition.
— Targets drugged, moved to Tartarus. Continuing death’s rite ceremony.
— The group has pivoted. Incarnate now the center of their attention. Their pick for Incarnate—S will be claimed physically as theirs while they wait for a Maiden and sacrifice.
From there, the entries begin to feel a little more personal, less clinical, like whoever was watching the events unfold had suddenly gotten much closer.
My stomach lurches as I read through, reliving each entry not as something I’ve concocted from my imagination but from my own memory.
— His screams of agony are unbearable. Even more so than the wailing from the sacrifice. They’ve claimed him and now take turns brutalizing the rest of his body, purifying it to appease their god. He’s unconscious. Bound. Incarnate without his Maiden.
— They’ve moved him outside the cave, close to the lake. They toss him in—a test. Lake Lerna never releases its offerings.
— Shadows dance across the waters, and somehow, his body is returned to the embankment. He is violated further, a testament to their pick. They think they’ve made Death proud.
I press my hand to my mouth, bile teasing the back of my throat.
— A figure moves in the distance, obscured. Is this who fished him out?
— Intruder approached by sacrifice, who has somehow escaped the Elders’ restraint. Sacrifice attacks, trips—or is pushed? Hard to tell.
— Sacrifice tumbles into Lake Lerna and does not resurface.
Does not resurface.
A pair of wide, terrified eyes flashes across my vision like a lightning strike. Eyes that kept me up for weeks after they sank into Lake Lerna.
Eyes that, upon reflection…
Look a lot like Sutton’s.
I’d begun to suspect after he relayed his experience in the observatory, but I didn’t want to pry. Didn’t want to confirm the terrible,horribletruth.
