“Is that legal?” Atticus looks appalled.
Raven shakes her head and says, “I don’t know.”
“Where will you go?” I ask.
She shrugs half-heartedly. “I could check in to a hotel for now, I guess.”
I would offer her my apartment, but it’s a hovel compared to what she’s used to, and I’m too embarrassed. Thankfully, Atticus speaks up. “You can move in with me,” he says. “I’m closer to campus anyway.”
“Are you sure?” Raven asks.
“It’s not a problem. Just so long as we don’t start any more fires,” Atticus says.
He meant it as a joke, but Raven hides her face in her hands and lets out a small groan.
“We need another book in the meantime,” says Atticus.
“Won’t they get suspicious if a second one goes missing?” I ask.
Raven lifts her face out of her hands and glances around. “One going missing might not raise alarms. Two? I don’t know if we can risk it. And after being the cause of its demise, I don’t really want to risk stealing another.”
She has a point, and Atticus knows it, too. I see it in his eyes.
We fall into silence, my head spinning, a hundred different theories colliding in my thoughts. Maybe that book reallywasdangerous. After all, it was locked up. Maybe there was a reason why it was hidden away in the basement. It contained a drawing that looked exactly like what I saw when I touched the wand. I’ve been reliving that dream ever since my first day of work, and now I can’t get it out of my thoughts. The image of the man on the pentagram comes back to me. Again, I hear screams, and I can almost smell the incense.
“Adelina! Adelina! Please!”screams the voice.
I wanted to forget, to push the images out of my mind, but I can’t. Finally I say, “Have either of you ever heard the name Adelina before?”
It’s a unique enough name. I’d hoped they would know any association with Sibylline, but they offer blank stares, and Atticus shakes his head.
Raven says, “I haven’t, no. Why do you ask?”
I lick my lips and take in a deep breath, mustering the nerve.I don’t want to frighten them, and yet I can’t keep this secret to myself.
“My first day at the museum,” I say, “I touched an artifact, this old wand that she used. It belonged to Hecate.”
Both Raven and Atticus seem impressed, though about different things.
“The goddess of magic,” Raven says, amazed, at the same time Atticus asks, “You had a vision?” His eyes are bright with curiosity.
I nod. “I saw a person, a Sibylline student, chained up on the floor, lying on a star just like the one drawn in the grimoire. There was blood, fire, and screaming. I think Adelina was using Hecate’s wand to cast a spell, a deadly powerful one, and it may have involved a murder that was somehow a part of the ritual casting.”
Raven leans forward intently but neither of them says anything. A hush falls over the table, making it seem as if the air itself is holding its breath.
“There’s more…” I pause, uncertain of what to say. “I’m not completely sure what I saw, but there was another presence in the room, something they’d summoned. I saw a shadow, but nothing else. It was alive.”
Atticus and Raven glance at each other, confused.
Atticus asks, “Like an evocation? They summoned an elemental? Or a spirit?”
I shrug. “It wasn’t human.”
“How do you know it was summoned?” Raven asks. “Did you see it happen?”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t see everything. I witnessed flashes. It was like a dream. I somehow knew that’s what was happening, but everything seemed as if it was happening at once.”
“And you think it was some sort of ritual, like the one we saw in the grimoire?”
