“So you just wanted to keep Adelina’s journal?” I ask, breaking the silence between us.
Raven’s gaze slides to me. “I didn’t want to give it up. I couldn’t. It’s the last book of magic we might ever get our hands on.” She bites her lip, a prick of white flashing behind red. “It’s important.”
“That book is evil,” I tell her. “It was used to hurt people.”
“It’s just a book.”
“Is it?”
Raven scoffs. “There’s so much more we don’t know about this magic. You want to throw it all away?”
“Maybe some things aren’t supposed to be known.”
Raven stares at me. She’s changed since we’ve come here. Sometimes it’s like she cares more about magic than how dangerous it can be. But I can’t bring myself to say it. She, of all people, should know how words can be used to hurt just as they can be used to inspire.
“We can’t keep it,” I tell her. I hold out my hand.
For an agonizing moment, she stares at me, her breath fluttering in her chest. Reluctantly, she slides the journal across the table toward me. I can tell it’s taking a lot for her to give in, but I’m grateful she listens. She’s right in a way, it is just a book, but it feels like a loaded gun in my hand.
I slide the book into my bag, lean back in the booth, and take a breath. A gust of wind kicks up wet leaves, splattering them against the window. Almost dying and getting fired in the same day has me feeling empty.
I can’t stop thinking about what I saw in Warden Stone’s office. “He knew what a malum was; he didn’t ask us to define it. Stoneknew,” I say.
“You think Warden Stone’s responsible for everything that’s happened?”
“Didn’t you see that illustration on his desk? The body on the pentagram?”
Her eyes widen. “What? No.”
I don’t want to believe that Warden Stone could be responsible for the malum getting free, but I don’t know what to think anymore. Who would believe us anyway?
Dorian’s voice cuts in. “Look at this.” He’s come back to the table, a ceramic pot of steaming tea in one hand and mugs looped around his fingers in the other. He carries a newspaper tucked under one arm, and he drops it onto the table. It’s the school paper,The Tyrian.“I saw it on the counter.”
The Tyrianis magically imbued and updates in real time.
“ ‘Another mysterious accident ends in tragedy,’ ” Raven says, reading the headline aloud. Her eyes are round when she meets my gaze. My whole body goes cold.
“Another student is dead,” says Dorian, jabbing his finger at the article. “Their body was found this morning. All classes are canceled until further notice.”
It explains why the campus was empty.
Raven leans over the newspaper, her eyes moving across the page. I know she doesn’t want to miss any detail. She scans the article three times before she leans back in her seat. “The malum…It has to be.” She holds her head in her hands.
“Hey, it’s not your fault,” I say. “We did what we could.”
Her jaw hardens, and I know my words give little comfort.
Another student is dead.
The student smiles at us from their picture. Nerdy, with square glasses, innocent. It feels like an ice pick has been stabbed into my chest. I know all too well what his final moments were like. No one deserves to die like that. No one. My eyes burn just thinking about it.
When I blink away the tears, I notice something in the photo. On his jacket, he’s wearing a pin with an eye and a star—no, a pentagram. I recognize the symbol.
“He was a member of St. Ad’s,” I say. My mind revs like an engine.
Raven nods.
“And Pippa, the one who died from the archive, she was trying to join them, too, wasn’t she?”
