Part One
Dum spiro, spero.
(While I breathe, I hope.)
—Latinproverb
Prologue
Know you her secret none can utter?
Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
Still by the gateway flits the gown;
Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
Faces of stone look down.
—Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, “Alma Mater”
She wanted tofly.
Under the cover of night, the girl slipped out of the dormitory, darting between the gazes of watchful gargoyles perched on rooftops. The clock in Arches Tower chimed twelve times. Midnight. She was already late.
Like any great beast, Sibylline College slept when darkness fell. Like all living things, it dreamed. Though the cobblestone streets were empty and the wrought-iron gates stood like sentries, the night itself seemed to breathe. A deep inhale, the chill breeze prickling against bare skin. A deep exhale, the soft hush of leaves falling from the trees.
With the bell still echoing, the girl slipped through a door left open at the base of Arches and climbed the tall and spiraling stairs that took her to the top of the tower.
“Hello?” she called when she stepped out onto the narrow balcony at the top.
Only the wind howled in response.
Below, the Gothic campus rested, gray and stony towers poking from the darkness.
The steps had taken her near the top of Sibylline, to the highest balcony any student could reach by stair or elevator, but there was still one place that stood above it: a narrow platform that could not be reached by conventional means, where a single statue of an angel stood. Only magic could take you to it.
Touch the statue.
Claim its power.
Join St. Adolphus Hall.
Every freshman with ambition to be a part of the secret society completed the task. The moment you made contact, you were imbued with magic, and for days afterward, everything you touched would become enchanted.
From her pocket, she withdrew a single slip of yellowed parchment, the deckled edge rough beneath her fingers. The enchantment was simple. A single word, spoken. A single word, forbidden to anyone else who did not attend the hallowed halls of Sibylline. A single word was everything, and this one would carry her across the gap between the towers…
The moment she said it, she was changed. She felt lighter, her hair floating about her as if she were suspended in water.
She jumped.
One second, two. Air time.
Hanging in suspension. Freed from gravity. Leaping farther than humanly possible.
She laughed, throwing back her head and reveling in the freedom as she flew through the air, her feet landing on the distant balcony. She teetered, nearly falling, before she regained her balance.
