“Noelle, wait up!” I keep my head down when Doug calls her name.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she whispers, slipping something into my hand. She slams the button for the administrative floor, and the doors slide closed before I realize what she’s done.
I stare down at Noelle’s key card as the elevator descends. I’m in the Crux without an escort, holding a key to every secure wing in this place. If I’m caught in possession of this card, I’m as good as dead.
So don’t get caught.The little voice inside my head sounds a lot like Chill’s, and I fight the urge to talk back to it as the elevator lurches to a stop.
The doors open, and I tuck the key card in my front pocket, my shoes squeaking on the polished marble as I cross quickly under the high domed ceiling of the atrium. I listen for the whine of a camera or the click of a teacher’s shoes as I wave Noelle’s key card over the scanner beside the solid steel door to the old wings.
A buzzer sounds and I haul the heavy door open. The air that greets me on the other side is dank and musty, the ceilings lower, the lights softer. The corridor stretches ahead of me, forked with mysterious doors leading to the endless maze of caverns and catacombs below the Observatory. I follow the route by memory, envisioning the dusty maps I drew decades ago, after my last trip down here, only taking my first full breath when the crisp white tiles give way to stone slabs and packed earthen walls.
The hall grows blessedly cold. The drop-tile ceiling ends abruptly, the flickering fluorescent tubes overhead yielding to gas torchères mounted on the rough-cut walls. The shadows they cast move like smazes over the floors. I tell myself that I’m alone. That no one knowsI’m here. There are no cameras in the ancient passageways. No power in these oldest sections of the campus, with the exception of the library, where generators preserve the temperature and humidity and keep the entrance to the Hall of Records secure.
I listen for the buzz of wings or the caw of a crow as I scent the passage ahead, relieved to find it empty. The growl of a generator grows louder. A white light glows in the distance, the arched door to the library flanked by ornate electric sconces illuminating the carving in its facade. I pause in front of the tangled and twisted Tree of Knowledge, fishing Noelle’s key card from my pocket. The red eye of the card scanner blinks at me. I pass the card over it with shaking hands, my held breath slipping out of me when the light turns green on the first try.
The iron locks snap open. The doors groan in protest as I lean into them. Motion sensors trigger the lights inside one by one, like falling dominoes, through the adjoining rooms. I pause, listening through the echoing silence. The air inside the Hall of Records is as cold as the catacombs, dense with medieval smells—damp stone, worn leather, old parchment—lightly masked by the scent of the lemon wood polish coating the rows upon rows of hardwood shelves.
“Hello?” My voice bounces off high stone walls and tall bookcases with sliding ladders. I jump at my own reflection gazing back at me from a glass display case containing scrolls and stone tablets, its contents too old to be trusted to the elements.
My first summer at the Observatory, I was forced to take an orientation class, a crash course in relevant subjects that would keep me above the Purge line: self-defense, light weaponry and combat tactics, meteorological and political science, the natural laws that govern us, andthe modern history of the Seasons... The history portion was limited, covering a period from the late eighteenth century onward. Every trip to the Hall of Records was supervised, our reading selections scrutinized, our time in the stacks strictly limited to the minutes we needed to complete our assignments.
I navigate the shelves by memory, my fingertips grazing the cracked spines and deckle edges of yellowing pages, until I find the specific set of volumes for the time period I’m searching for.
We’ve been taught that the first stasis chambers were modeled after the Leyden jar, a simple glass container that could store an electric charge, which was invented in 1745. It didn’t take long for the Observatory to latch onto the idea, developing a life-size version and using the ley lines as conductors. But what if the inspiration for both of these inventions originated long before that? Fromus. What if the entire notion of a rechargeable battery came from the potential chemical energy stored in every Season’s magic, because we were capable of rechargingourselves?
Think hard, Jack. If youcouldfind a way out of the Observatory, how would you survive?
Professor Lyon had never said it couldn’t be done. He’d only challenged me to consider how. What if surviving away from the ley lines—without our transmitters and stasis chambers—isn’t a dream at all? What if it’s actually possible?
My hands comb over the spines of the books. All I need to do is work backward from 1745, to find some small detail in our history that reveals how we might have charged ourselves before.
I pause.
The History of Natural Order Volume 121: The Age of Enlightenment Part II, AD 1745—1815is in its proper place, leaning against volume 122. But the previous volume is gone. And every volume before it. Where the hell would they—
“Mr. Sommers.” The quiet voice behind me nearly stops my heart.
Slowly, I turn around. Professor Lyon leans against the end of the stack, a worn copy ofAesop’s Fablestucked under his arm, as if he’s been here all along, casually watching me. Suddenly, I’m eight years old again, caught sneaking into my grandfather’s tool shed, messing with grown-up things I don’t have permission to touch. I don’t remember much about my grandfather, only that he and Lyon have the same sharp glimmer in their eyes. And the same uncanny ability to stand right behind me, without being seen, the minute I manage to get myself into trouble.
“Professor... ,” I stammer.
Professor Lyon saunters closer, a small gray smaze peeking out from behind his leg. “I ran into Noelle Eastman in the corridor upstairs,” he says, mocking my surprise. “She informed me I was late to meet with you, so I thought it best to come straightaway.”
I glare at the smaze as Lyon studies the shelf behind me, turning his head to read the spines. “Tell me, Mr. Sommers. What exactly is the focus of our joint research today?”
I clear my throat, hoping a shred of truth might save me. “Rechargeable batteries.”
“I see.” His blue eyes slide to the empty space on the shelf. “It would seem you are searching for the previous volume.”
“How’d you know?” The question slips out before I can take it back.
“Because you’ve snuck in here like a thief, and the volume you seek, like all those prior to it, is stored in a vault in the restricted archives, accessible only to administration and staff.” He leans in conspiratorially and whispers, “If you were here to read a book intended for you, Mr. Sommers, you’d have asked permission.”
I don’t know what I resent more: the school for treating us like criminals, or Lyon for mocking me for it. “Why would the school lock up a book?”
“For the same reasons parents today insist on childproofing doors,” he says placidly. “Because there are things on the other side—be they dangerous or delicate—they don’t want their children to touch.”
His condescension rubs me the wrong way. Just because he looks old enough to be my dad doesn’t mean he knows a thing about parenting. “We’re not children.”
