They look at us, and Quincy pushes past, flipping on another set of lights in the storage room. “You have ten minutes.”
My face breaks out into a small smile, and I squeal, moving to sprint inside. Quincy grabs my arm, halting me.
“This counts as causing trouble, you know.”
“But you’re letting me in.”
Her expression flattens. “Noelle, come on. Don’t be obtuse. Breaking and entering into the school’s archives is garnering unnecessary attention. Do you want more of a target painted on your back?”
“I’m still not entirely sure what the initial one entails,” I admit.
Sighing, she slides her hand down, wrapping her fingers around mine as she drags me into the room. I grunt, disliking the force even if the physical contact makes my insides warm.
How long has it been since she led me around like this, inviting me into a world she knows better than I do? Decades, I’d bet. Certainly not since she left home for Avernia and all but stopped speaking to me.
And when she did speak, her comments were biting. As if she were hiding things behind ire.
When we were kids, I begged her to let me in. To take me where she went. Now I can’t help wondering if that drove her away.
She deposits me in front of a long bookcase, its shelves filled with notebooks, some tattered and some newer. “This row starts with journals from last year and goes backward chronologically. The other side is past the 1900s. You want to learn more about your place at Avernia, take it from the primary sources.”
I slip the last book from its slot, reading the cursive scribbled on the front. “This is last fall.”
“The journals are a Fury Hill tradition aimed at preserving history in real time,” she says.
“How do we know it’s a primary source?”
Flipping to the inside front flap, she points at the name inscribed there and the familiar handwriting. “You can trust me,” she says, though it’s hard to tell if it’s only because that’s her name writtenhereor if she means in general.
A part of me wishes that were true—that I could confide in her the way I did when we were young, even if I was bad at keeping her secrets myself. She didn’t hold it against me back then, preferring to maintain silence instead of retaliating, but Quincy’s not the same girl she used to be.
And neither am I.
So instead I nod, pretending I don’t hear a double meaning at all as I tuck the journal beneath my arm. I feel her stare at me for a few more beats, and then she lets out a sigh, turning on her heel and heading for the open door.
I watch as she pauses, just long enough to say something to Sutton, who stands guard at the exit as if someone could come down at any moment.
Though I haven’t spent much time in the Apollodorus, I’d be willing to bet this area doesn’t get much foot traffic.
My throat burns at their interaction, and I force my attention elsewhere. It doesn’t matter who he talks to or is interested in, because he’s made it clearIcan’t have him.
That doesn’t mean I have to like it if it’s my fucking sister.
Lexington appears at my side, the sleeves of his skintight athletic shirt pushed up, revealing thick muscles in his forearms. He reaches for the journal I’m holding, turning it in his hands.
“What exactly are you looking for?” he asks.
“I’m not sure.”
And I’m not, really. If Death’s Teeth is as elusive an organization as everyone says, I doubt even the most detailed journals will have much data on them.
Still, I’d like to try and understand why the school—and town—seems to hate us so much. What kind of brainwashing you need to convince an entire population that a singular bloodline is to blame for everything terrible that’s ever happened and any terrible thing to come.
I suppose scapegoats are as much a part of the country’s history as anything else though. Really, the practice is as old as the air itself: Where there is power to be kept, there are people to be exploited.
My question is how do the student organizations come into play here, and what is with the cloaked figures I keep stumblingupon in the forest? Are they conducting rituals like Lexington suggested that I simply happen upon, or are they orchestrated to make me feel like I’m losing my mind?
To keep me quiet.
