Dorian doesn’t answer. He pulls on the lock, and the gate swings wide with a heavy groan. “The lock’s broken,” he says.
It’s true. With the door open, the bent latch is clearly visible.
Dorian looks worried, his eyes darting.
“It’s old. Maybe it was just rusted,” says Atticus. He raises the lantern and leads the way again, deeper into the tunnel, into the unknown.
Dorian watches me carefully as he tugs on his glove. “No one’s been here in a long time,” he says, his way of assuring me.
“It’s still creepy.”
“It’s just a door,” he says.
“If you say so…”
Behind me, I hear something, a soft hiss, and I whip around. Darkness stretches behind us, an inky-black void that seems to go on for infinity.
“What is it?” Dorian asks.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
“No, nothing,” Dorian says. “What was it?”
I don’t know.
I certainly don’t believe in ghosts, but Iamafraid of rats.
And what if Warden Stone appeared out of the darkness and caught us trespassing? I cock my head and listen as the seconds tick. It’s the hollow sounds of the wind wailing in the distance, and I wonder if my imagination is working overtime. Something about this whole place doesn’t sit right with me.
“Never mind,” I say, spinning around to follow after Atticus. He’s ten paces ahead, and I rush to catch up, Dorian right behind me.
“If we don’t find anything soon, maybe we should head back,” he says.
Atticus looks over his shoulder at us. “This will all be sealed off tomorrow. We won’t have another chance.”
“I know, but there is something about this place that worries me. What kind of school, even a magical one, would need a gate like that?” Dorian asks, stopping yet again. “And by the way, there aren’t any books down here. Not that we’ve seen.”
Looking at our surroundings, Atticus lifts the lantern high and illuminates the ceiling. High above us, covering the stones like a cage, is a grid of iron bars and grates, layers of thick metal. Moss hangs in strands from the straps, like fingers poking through the gaps. The image reminds me of a novel I once read,The Count of Monte Cristo,and the Château d’If, the isolated prison at the heart of the story.
It’s then that I realize: “What if these bars weren’t meant to keep something out? What if they were designed to keep something in?”
22
Dorian
Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them.In pace requiescat!
—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”
“A prison, youmean?” I tug at my glove, making sure it’s covering my skin. When I touched the door, I didn’t see anything like a prison, but then again, the memories tied to this place have mostly faded, leaving behind vague mirages of an empty and forgotten chamber.
“There’s no other explanation. The heavy doors, the iron bars. I’m just guessing, but it feels like a prison. What else could it be?” Raven asks.
“I don’t know,” Atticus says. “Professor White said nothing about a prison. It was supposed to house the school’s department of magical creation. Perhaps, when it was abandoned, someone found a new use for this place? Maybe there are answers down here and we just haven’t found them.” I can only see the back of his head, the edges of his face limned in the golden glow from the lantern.
At the end of the tunnel, there’s a heavy wooden door. Smooth dark oak, with an iron latch. He gives us one final glance, fire in his eyes, and a wide smile, and then he opens it.
Inside is a small room with broken tables and chairs, crumbling with disuse and time, the chamber as windowless and darkas a cave. What anyone would be doing here is beyond me. There are doorways leading into other rooms equally dim and dingy.
