“What’s this?” Quinn asked, bouncing on his bed. He lifted the blankets to reveal a roll of clothes stuffed underneath.
“The teachers came by to check we were in our beds, so I made it look like you were asleep,” Trey said.
“You need to improve your sculptural skills. I’m not this fat.” Quinn yanked out rolled-up slacks and socks and tossed them at Trey. A pair of his boxers hit Trey in the face. Quinn fell on the bed laughing. Trey pounced, putting Quinn in a headlock until Quinn slapped the wall and begged for mercy.
I rolled my eyes, even though seeing them joking around together like normal teenagers made me happier than I ever could have expressed.They’ll look after each other once I’m gone.“If you’re all done being idiots, we can get to work.”
Trey wiped dark hair from his brow and scrambled across to help me, while Quinn went back to tossing his clothes around the room.
In a rare display of thoughtfulness, Trey had snuck down some cocoa from the dining hall. He warmed it on the radiator and passed it around while we turned each page carefully, searching for something, anything, that would help us.
I noticed now that Ayaz had added notes and circled things that hadn’t been marked before. His notations seemed confused, erratic – like he was trying to figure out some puzzle between the pages. Whatever they’d done to his memory must’ve messed him up real bad.
I swear that you won’t have to wait much longer for answers, Ayaz. I swear that I will give you back what was taken from you.
* * *
The next day was a Saturday, so Trey and Quinn didn’t have class. Apart from meals and lacrosse practice, Trey stayed inside with me the whole day, poring over Parris’ book. Quinn paced around the room annoying us until Trey threw a book at him.
Quinn rolled his eyes as he pulled a leather jacked over his school blazer. “I’m going for a walk.”
“You shouldn’t run off,” Trey glowered from the desk. “We’ve got work to do here – you could be helpful.”
“I am being helpful.” Quinn slammed the door behind him.
I worried about him all afternoon while Trey fumed beside me. He returned long after dark, sweat slicking down his brow and wet leaves clinging to the hem of his slacks.
“You dropped this, Hazy.” He tossed something on the bed.
I picked up the object. It was the molds we’d made of Ms. West’s lab keys. Most of the soap had dissolved, but the metal keys were still perfectly intact. “Where did you get this?”
“In the lockbox in the cave,” Quinn slumped down on his bed with a self-satisfied grin. “I can’t believe you never thought to go see if they were still there. I went down to see the cave-in for myself. There’s a sigil on one of the stones – I think it’s the type that’s designed to call those gross shadow creatures that were in the gym and that Courts used to attack Hazy in the cave.”
The god’s servants.“I bet that was how the Eldritch Club got to Zehra so fast – they sent those shadows after her. But the god said they will obey me now, so hopefully we don’t have to worry about them.” I reached for my phone to text Deborah. “I can’t believe they were still there. You’re right, we should have checked immediately. This key is just what we need to get Deborah into Ms. West’s lab, if we could find it. Sadie said Ms. West moved her lab from the icehouse.”
“Confirmed,” Quinn grinned. “I checked the icehouse myself as soon as I found these. No lock on any of the doors anymore. Apart from a couple of old freezers, it’s completely cleared out.”
I whomped him across the head with a pillow. “You shouldn’t have done that alone! But yes, thank you for finding the key.”
“See.” Quinn gave Trey a pointed look. “I was beinghelpful.”
“For once in your life,” Trey muttered.
I rubbed soap off the key with the edge of my hoodie as I texted the news to Deborah. “Do you think this will work in the new lab?”
“She probably changed the lock,” Trey said.
“With what?” Quinn shot back. “It’s not as if anyone at this place can just drive down to the hardware store.”
“Don’t be stupid. We get deliveries here all the time. Otherwise, where would we get fresh food and new pencils and shit.”
“Can we maybe stop bickering about it and get back to searching for something that’ll help…something like this.” I jabbed the page in excitement.
Most witches or magicians favor the cat as a familiar, due to their superior intelligence and predatory nature. Other animals such as bats, crows, and lizards are also common. The familiar carries the secrets of the witch and may even be used as a conduit for their power. Some witches have even, upon death, passed their souls into their familiars.
A powerful magician may choose for their familiar not one creature but many – a herd of malleable minds akin to those of the humans they seek to control. The rat, therefore, makes the perfect such familiar, as they think and act in a form of hivemind reminiscent of the human sheep who have not yet woken up to our true position in the cosmic hierarchy. Rats make the perfect spies, the ideal servants, and the most loyal soldiers. However, one must be careful to remain on their good side, for they have been known to consume the flesh of a magician who treats them unfairly and asks of them more than they are willing to perform.
“That sounds like it was written by a conspiracy theorist,” Quinn said. He hiked his pants up to his nipples and cried in a high-pitched voice, “‘The rats are the army of a cosmic god. Wake up, sheeple!’”
