“‘The Society of Turnbulls has existed as long as this University has, and they have performed their ritual every year since its founding.’ A ritual. Any clue?”
Emma rubbed her eyes. “The night I turned. I saw it. There was a chant in Latin. And a strange bowl…”
“Latin chants.” Saskia cast her eyes to the heavens. “I swear, they beat all the imagination out of them at boarding school.”
“So Jas—” The name stuck on her tongue like a barb. She cleared her throat. “So the head of the Society, he filled the bowlwith wine, and he put in a paper covered in writing, like a long list—”
“Fine. List sounds promising. Written terms of a bargain? Let’s try another of these.” Saskia patted the first book fondly and put it aside.
“The club is something to do with the founder of the University,” Emma said. “They told me. Were there any bits on him? John de Turnbull.”
“Yes. It looks like he founded the Turnbull Society itself, at the same time as the University. It was a group of his closest circle.”
“I knew that. Anything else?”
“Not much. Just a history of how John de Turnbull founded the University. He picks a small town with not much going for it except a river and some Roman bits and pieces. Drawn by divine calling, he said.”
“The pull of the Night City?”
“Safe to assume. So he builds on top of the City’s power. And the scholars here made advances beyond other mortals: in alchemy, medicine, philosophy. The University gathered fame. And as more scholars came, the City granted them knowledge. In exchange—”
“The Night City fed upon them.”
“Exactly. The more scholars it had to feed from, the more the Night City’s power grew, and the stronger its call became to mortals.” Saskia flipped open another book. “Human scholars described a power that ‘hung like a fog in the air’ around the University. Mortals back then claimed to see strange sights. Supernatural hazes over buildings. Creatures in the shadows. The townspeople thought the University must be the devil’s work, and a mob attacked to drive the scholars out. John de Turnbull and hiscircle were besieged. They were weeks, then days from surrender. He disappears for a few nights. And then—triumph. Out of nowhere.”
“How?” Emma asked.
“There is a story. Some of the historians mention it, but—it seems so unbelievable. They say that John de Turnbull made a bargain so clever, he got the better of the Night City itself. He could force its power to his will, to win his battle.
“There are no details of what that bargain was. None. The historians I read seemed scared to admit it even existed. They said that all traces of that knowledge were destroyed. That the City’s rage at being tricked was boundless. But no punishment fell on de Turnbull and his followers, as though they were immune.”
Saskia turned another volume open at a bookmark. “After that, the scholars build more colleges, more libraries: They flourish. Every man in the Societas Turnbullia rose to unusual power: archbishops and generals, dukedoms and even kingdoms. John de Turnbull became the richest man in the realm. Although he stayed at the University all his life, and refused all titles, he was the whispered power behind every throne. For—” Saskia whistled out a breath. “Howmany kings and queens? No mortal lives that long.” She lowered the book, eyes wide. “Emma, if there’s no mistake here, he would have been over two hundred years old when he finally died.”
“He can’t have been.” Emma felt a twinge of unease in her stomach. For some reason, her mind pictured John de Turnbull as Piers Popwell. The same nasty sneer. Watching her, eyes cruel and still. His face crumpling and aging like sped-up footage of a rotting apple.
“A scholar notes that, when asked for the secret of his success, John de Turnbull dated it all back to the pivotal moment at the battle for the University. When, he said, ‘he came into his power.’ This historian goes on to say: ‘Those who inhabit the mortal world, who find it easier to believe in a power in the sky rather than one that lives, as they do, rooted in the earth, might take this to mean a man’s turning point in finding his courage. But to those of us within the Night’s realm, it suggests…’”
“The power he took from the Night City,” breathed Emma. “He never stopped using it.”
“Exactly. But what does that mean about today’s Turnbulls?”
Saskia plunged into her stack of books. She looked almost as happy as Nancy did with her feather duster. “If we could just find—ah. The Librarian also pulled this for me. Not the most promising. It’s handwritten. Some kind of journal, maybe?”
Emma caught sight of the name scrawled on the flyleaf and snatched at the book.
“Henry. It’s his. The Librarian’s. Let me—”
“His own notes?” Saskia groaned. “There’ll be nothing useful—”
Emma pinned a finger to the page Saskia was trying to flip.
“‘With each ritual, the Turnbull Society confirm their bargain, this unholy hold on the Night City. And with every generation, their stature has grown, as the City delivers to them their wealth, their sovereignty. This they have passed on through their sons, and their sons’ sons. Power building on power, down a chain of succession.
“‘But everything has a price. They might command this power, but it does not do their bidding for free. Every year, they must give it something in return. Power for power.’”
Saskia’s voice faltered. “A sacrifice.”
The world was moving in nauseous shifts. So there was the truth behind Jasper’s smiles. The reason he had drawn her close. Hadn’t it always felt like a mystery? Why Jasper would want her, above all those girls waiting for his notice; those beautiful others who had been of his world. Who had come from the right families and schools. Now, of course, it made perfect sense. Because those girls had come from power. If they had gone missing, it would matter. Important people would care.
