“We saw her body…We saw—” She gulps in a shuddering breath. “They’re saying she was crushed when the tower fell, but…”
Atticus finishes. “She looked like she was murdered.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“There were these gashes on her chest. Like a knife or…” Raven curls her hand into a claw shape and scrapes the air, as if she’s tearing at her own flesh.
“Like an animal,” Atticus adds.
Raven lifts one shoulder, all the strength she has to shrug. “What kind of animal could have done that? Maybe a bear, or a tiger? But what would a wild animal be doing on campus? It has to have been a person, right?”
I frown. “So someone caused the tower to collapse to cover up a murder?” Sibylline, lying, covering something up. Now, that’s something I can believe.
The scene I witnessed in the records room still echoes in mythoughts.Can’t have another incident…That’s what the warden said. I wonder how many secrets lurk in the school’s past. I think about the vision attached to Hecate’s wand, and I wonder if maybe, somehow, that was just one more incident that no one knows about. I can still see it: the sigil and the screaming. My stomach clenches at the thought.
“What is it?” Raven asks when she sees me wince.
“Remember when I touched that wand?” I ask.
She nods, waiting for me to continue.
“Maybe this isn’t the first time the school’s covered something like this up.”
“Why? Is there something else we don’t know…” Atticus trails off.
Raven prompts me to continue. “What is it?”
“A few weeks ago, I was in the records room, in the Rosette, looking through admission records for Old Bones, and…I found a book from a hundred years ago.” I tell them about my vision. “The warden back then, he said something about an incident with a student, how they can’t have it happen again.”
Atticus lets out a huff. “What are they so afraid of?”
“This is just a guess,” I start, “but do you think it could have anything to do with the vision in Hecate’s wand? The conversation I witnessed seemed to be from a similar period in time. It could explain why the school is so secretive. I think something happened a long time ago, and it changed how they admitted students. They hid some secret, some event, and it’s linked to everything that’s going on right now. We just need more information.”
“I have something,” Atticus says, lifting a book from the chair next to him. It’s a leather-bound tome covered in dust. “Professor White gave this to me just before Arches fell.” He flips the book open and places it on the table. “Told me to study it.”
Raven’s eyes dance over the cover. “It’s in Akkadian,” she says, her words muted. “A language spoken in Mesopotamia.”
“I knew you’d want to see it,” Atticus says gravely. The leather-bound cover is imprinted with straight, grid-like cuneiform.
She reads, and her dark eyes sparkle with light. I listen while she mumbles the words, taking characters written in a long-forgotten script and speaking them aloud, casually, as if she were reading a comic. Her magic is a beautiful thing to witness. Sometimes terrifying, too.
“The text describes the trapping and binding of magical creatures,” Raven says.
“That makes some sense,” Atticus says. “Professor White mentioned that Arches was built with ancient spirits of the natural world, ephemeral creatures that were somehow bound to the original structure at the moment of its creation.” He pauses. “I wonder what happened to those spirits when Arches fell? Maybe there is some clue in the book, some text that will tell us what happens to a spirit bound to a structure that’s destroyed. Maybe you can search for that? There’s something here, some mystery in these old books and buildings, and I want to understand it.”
“Me too. I think something happened a long time ago, and it’s the reason why we weren’t admitted. Maybe I can search the museum for more information, and Raven, perhaps you can use this book or the library or both?”
Raven smiles, and her grin brightens the whole cafe. “I’ll get right on it.” She gives us a thumbs-up. “Thanks, guys. For being here.”
“Just say the word,” I remind her.“Nil sine magno labore.”
“Nil sine magno labore,” Raven echoes.
Atticus nods, agreeing. “Nil sine magno labore—oh! Professor White, are you all right?” he asks as an older woman in a tanovercoat and long skirt, covered head to toe in dirt, walks into the cafe. She has gray hair and a pencil sticking out of a bun.
“Atticus! Good! Just the one I’m looking for. Come with me,” she says. “We need to save the tower.”
The three of us exchange confused glances. The tower is destroyed—there’s nothing to save. But Atticus leaps to his feet to follow her anyway.
