Luca and I take our first steps into the old castle, and I drag the tips of my fingers over the smooth wood of its great front door. Danger may lurk ahead of us, but I’m determined to be the first one to see the wonders the castle holds.
Ian and Marcus mutter my name under their breaths, but Luca takes my hand, his scribe raised in his other. His boot steps echo in the cavernous space, while my sneakers squeak on the polished stone floor. Hallways split around us, but we head straight into a massive space with a soaring ceiling high above. Banners in dark blue and burgundy hang from the ceiling, while tapestries cover stone walls broken here and there by doorways. Massive wooden tables flanked by cushioned benches fill the space in tidy rows, with a single long perpendicular table sitting at the end of the long room.
“The head table, where Pack Marmora would have sat and feasted,” Ian surmises, pointing toward the long table.
Richly dyed runners in navy and the deepest red unfurl across the lengths of the tables, topped by heavy metal dishes and silverware. Heavy glass goblets dot the dyed linen, one atevery seat along the benches. Banners hang above the head table, embroidered with the pack’s crest in shimmering gold.
As I make my way into the great hall, my breath stalls in my lungs. The interior of the castle is truly a sight to behold, and to think it was once home to the pack that first settled the island hundreds of years ago is enough to slow my steps. Everything I lay my eyes on is a visual feast, a moment in time captured and frozen by the stormy magic outside the stone walls.
“Sienna has to see this,” I murmur, ghosting my fingers over one of the table runners, not daring to touch it. “She’ll be blown away. Just think what the rest of the castle might hold. I need to call her. This is a historian’s dream.”
I pull my phone out of my coat pocket and hit Sienna’s number, only to be met with no signal. I frown down at my phone, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; the storm of magic surrounding the castle must keep cell signals out. But I’ll need my techy beta to verify that. “No service,” I sigh. “Probably to be expected.”
My mates and Marcus check their phones, all of them shaking their heads.
“I’ve got nothing, too,” Luca says before clicking his phone shut and pocketing it in his tight black jeans.
“We should head out and call Cassian and Simon, then Sienna and the headmaster,” I decide. “They’ll all want to see this.”
I’m reluctant to pause my exploration, and clearly the others are too, but we make our way out of the castle and back through the storm of magic until the buzzing wall of power lies behind us.
I immediately call Cassian, breathless with excitement the moment he answers with a soft, loving “Junes?”
“We did it, Cass. We found our way into the castle.”
“Putting you on speakerphone. Say that again?”
“Say what?” I hear Simon ask on the other end of the line.
“I had a vision when we arrived at the castle. The spell let us through the magic that had previously made it inaccessible. We did it. We got into Marmora Castle. You guys have got to see this. It’s incredible. Can you come? Right away?”
“We’ll be there in twenty,” Cass promises.
“I’ll drive,” Simon counters. “And we’ll be there in fifteen.”
Cassian groans, but they both say their “I love you’s” before the call drops.
I call Sienna the moment my phone returns to my contacts screen. She answers on the third ring, clearly bewildered by me calling her on a Sunday.
“Juniper, what is it?”
“I have something you absolutely need to see,” I tell her. “The inside of Marmora Castle.”
Normally so erudite, she sputters. “I’m going to need you to start at the beginning.”
I tell her about my odd dream and the events of the day. “It’s utterly amazing, Sienna. You and the headmaster should come right away. We haven’t disturbed a thing. The castle is so well preserved, it looks like Pack Marmora could have left yesterday, not hundreds of years ago.”
“Martin,” I hear her call out. “Get your keys. Juniper found something.” She returns to our call, her voice breathy with excitement. “This is the historical find of the century! We’ll be there soon.”
“You’ll find us parked at the bottom of the hill,” I tell her. “Bring solid shoes. The way up is muddy.”
We disconnect the call and hover at the edge of the magical wall, eventually finding small boulders to sit on while we wait. As I stare back up at the castle, something dawns on me. Something that could change the lives of fifty very frightened omegas. I’ll have to talk it through with Sienna and the headmaster, but the castle could very well bethe solution to Graeme’s patched-together network of safe houses. If we move the omegas into the castle, the magic would protect them. They’d be safe from the torments of the Soldiers of Saint Aldous. It’s not a perfect solution, but if Sienna and the headmaster agree…
“Holy saints,” Simon exclaims, cresting the hill and coming to stand beside me, staring up at the wall of magic. “You figured out how to get throughthat?”
“Juniper had a very trying vision,” Ian tells Cassian.
Tattletale.
