Olympia rose from her feet and made her way around where I knelt over the journals to a shelf behind my desk. Reaching up on tiptoes, she pulled the dusty cerulean book from one of the high shelves. It was the basic birth and death records of the House. Each Patriarch or Matriarch for hundreds of years had meticulously recorded each birth and death within the House upon those pages. It was something to be pulled out for ceremony, to make a show of recording the birth of a baby or the death of a loved one. I’d never used it much for research since it held hardly any more than names and dates, but if any book contained information regarding Adelaide’s lifespan, it would be that one.
“Adelaide of Avus, late 1800s,” Olympia rattled off after getting a glimpse of the first journal I still held in my hands, the one marked 1891. “Let’s see. Here. Born 1876, died…2023. Age: 147.”
I froze, my hand hovering over another journal. Slowly, I turned until my gaze met my cousin’s.
“That’s impossible,” I said again.
“That’s what it says,” she cried out defensively as if I was placing the blame for this ancient mystery on her.
“I’ve never heard of anyone living past a hundred.”
“Well, her daughter did too.”
“What?”
I stood up abruptly and crossed the room to peer over my cousin’s shoulder at the special gold inlaid pages reserved for members of the Patriarch or Matriarch’s immediate family.
“Vivian of Avus. Born 1907, died 2045. Age: 138,” Olympia read from the record. I shook my head, every logical bone in my body rejecting the information being read aloud. “Adelaide’s mother lived for 102, look.”
Olympia shoved the book in front of my face and I read the dates as written but shook my head the whole time.
“It isn’t possible,” I repeated, pacing away with my hands on my hips.
“Her mother didn’t live that long though,” Olympia pointed out, brows furrowed. “Only 83 years, that’s more normal. Maybe there was just a weird period of longevity at that time. What was going on then? In the late 1800s?”
“The last major uprising happened then,” I replied, mind whirring with possibilities as I searched my memory for the timeline in question. “Resources were diminishing and we went a couple of Cullings without anyone being marked. The priests were investigating the phenomenon when the rebels stormed the First Ring. That’s where that symbol came from, that uprising.”
“It can’t be a coincidence.”
It couldn’t. But what was the connection?
“Anything else?” Olympia asked, turning her attention back to the record book and whatever else was written there.
“I don’t know,” I replied, shaking my head as I scratched my chin. “The uprising was all anyone really recorded. That and–”
I froze, then whirled suddenly around and made a beeline for my desk.
“What?” Olympia asked.
“Eximius,” I replied, breathless. “Eximius was going mad.”
I flipped the diary to the first page and looked down at the date.
1891.
I shook my head, blinking rapidly and feeling like my brain was short-circuiting. Olympia was right. This couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, but I didn’t have the slightest clue what the connection could be.
“So papa Simi goes crazy and suddenly all the women in his family start living a crazy long time?” Olympia asked, seeking verification.
I pushed back from my desk and stared down at the journal with hands resting on my hips.
“I guess so,” I agreed, though I still wasn’t willing to connect the events. I couldn’t see how they could possibly be related.
“Milo,” Olympia said slowly.
I looked up to find her wide eyes glued to the page in front of her. I crossed the room once more and looked down at whatever had gotten her so spooked. When I read the words on the page before me, something in my very soul shuddered.
Nascha of Avus. Born 2302.
