“Come to see me again so soon, Fox?” the professor asks.
I thought he was asleep, but he’s clearly awake.
Fox steps into the firelight in front of him, his skin turning an instant orange, the color of sunsets.
“You remember our conversation earlier this morning, Cornelius?” Fox says to the old man, who nods in return. “I come with more information. Information I want your opinion on.”
The professor turns his head, sees me lingering by the door, and beckons me inside.
“Come on, my child. I’m sure you wish to join this conversation.”
“It’s Briony who discovered the information, Cornelius. A secret room in the library. It appears to be a safe room. It appears to be one only a lumomancer could open.”
“Interesting,” the professor says. “What was inside?”
“Beds, clothing, supplies, weapons.”
“And some books. Some books on lumomancer history,” I add.
The professor nods and places the sherry on a table by his side. Then he removes his reading glasses from his nose, folds in their arms, and places them on top of an open book. He massages his temple with one hand.
“Long ago, the academy wasn’t an academy.”
“It was a castle,” I say.
“Correct,” the professor answers. “It was a castle that belonged to lumomancers.”
“Oh,” I say, shocked. That wasn’t anything I’d ever heard before.
“How do you know that?” Fox asks. “So much of the history of the time has been lost.”
“Lost,” Professor Cornelius says, “or destroyed.” I nod. “Sometimes you see them, though, Fox, the old markings on the walls, the ones that have been missed by those who tried to erasethem. There’s some down by the great dragon though, if you know where to look.”
“There were some in the tunnel leading to the secret room, and in the tunnel that goes out to the Highlands,” I say. “Strange shapes and symbols.”
“Yes,” he says. “A code, I imagine. One the lumomancers used when they were being persecuted.”
“Then you knew,” I say in utmost surprise.
“Did notknow,” he says. “Suspected. That’s what you’ve come to tell me, isn’t it?”
I nod again. “The books we found were histories of lumomancers. And they talked of a time when light wielders and shadow weavers lived side by side in this kingdom, in this realm – when all sorts of magic existed, including dragons. When the people chose the emperor or the empress that would rule them.” Professor Cornelius is quiet, listening to me, the fire crackling behind my back, hot against my skin. “But then the shadow weavers became greedy. They longed for more power and more control over the realm. They went to war with the lumomancers and they wiped out my people completely.”
“And then the demons came,” Professor Cornelius whispers.
“The shadow weavers created the demons.”
“Yes,” he agrees, “but I don’t think it was intentional.” I scoff, folding my arms over my chest. “They committed a great act of evil. They disrupted the balance of the universe – snuffing out the light and leaving us only with darkness, and from that darkness came the demons.”
I let his words flow over me, taking in their meaning and their significance.
“Fate has bound me to Briony, Cornelius,” Fox says, “it’s bound Beaufort Lincoln, Dray Eros, and Thorne Cadieux to her too.”
The professor stares at me. “The flame to light the wild fire.”
“What?” I say.
“Why do you think the Empress – and most probably every emperor and empress before her too – has worked so hard to snuff out every flicker of light?”
