The thought of having to work with her triggered my gag reflex. No doubt she’d be a bitch to me, that’s the kind of person she was, so I wasn’t going to give her any ammunition by showing up unprepared for class. I’d do the reading and write the essays, whatever it took to pass with the grades I needed to join the Carvers.
Still, I couldn’t fathom how someone like Portia could be related to someone like Kian. My stepbrother had been kind to me. A friend when I’d had none. He’d promised to come back for me when Daniel had forced him to leave.
He’d promised.
But he’d never returned.
I tried to hate him for a while, but the hate never stuck. Deep down, I knew that if he could have come back, he would have. Something had kept him away, and maybe one day I’d find out what.
“Here we are!” Clary dove into the book-lined shelves, index card held aloft like a dowsing stick.
I followed her down the sunlit aisle, where the air swam with golden dust motes and smelled of leather and parchment. Something in the back of my mind stirred. A sense of familiarity. I’d been here before. Right here, in this very spot.
There was something here… Something I needed to see.
Clary called my name, but her voice was a distant whisper, buried under the rushing of blood in my head as I reached for a slender green spine nestled between dark red ones. The classification numbers…I knew those numbers.
This book had been hidden here by…someone. A sharp throb lanced through my temple, and a memory hit me. I was standing here. Afraid. Someone was coming. I had to hide the book and then…the hooded figure.
I had to run.
I needed to run?—
“Ana?”
The memory faded. But it wasn’t a memory. “I think… I think I remember part of my dream.” I slipped the book off the shelf and flipped it open to find rows of neat handwriting. Not a textbook. “This book wasinmy dreams.” I looked up and met her stunned gaze. “I think you were right, Clary. I don’t think my dreams are normal dreams. I think they’re some kind of message.”
* * *
“The name Selina Evergreendoesn’t ring a bell,” Dori said.
“Same,” Benedict said. “But she’s an Evergreen. One of the main bloodlines in the Evergreen Coven.”
We huddled around the coffee table in our tower’s sitting room. The journal opened between us.
“It must be old,” Clary said. “There are no actual Evergreens that go here. Not that I’m aware of.”
There were no year markings in the book, just month and day, which didn’t help us in identifying when Selina had been here. The journal started out as an account of papers she had to write and books she needed to read. A few notes here and there about how homesick she felt, and how she wished she hadn’t been chosen as the sacrificial lamb for her family. Then there was a month’s gap, and the next entry was penned in an angry scrawl.
I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me but they don’t believe me, and now I’m stuck in Bramble Tower for a whole month. Alone. I hate this place. I hate them all.
“She was Unwoven?” Clary asked.
I flipped the page. “Seems like it. Listen… ‘They’re all ignoring me. Like some kind of freeze-out. Even the teachers. What is this shit? I don’t deserve this…’
“Then this… ‘I can’t take it anymore. I’m so lonely.’” I turned through pages filled with doodles until I reached the next passage, gooseflesh breaking out over my skin. “’Bramble is the best thing that’s happened to me because of him. I’m staying here even after the Restoration Ceremony. It’s crazy, or maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t care. He’s wonderful. I think I’ve finally found a friend. All I need to do is get him out, and he can help me. But I must act fast before they find out.’”
“What is she talking about?” Benedict asked.
“I don’t know.” I read the next entry. “’I’ve been dreaming about a hooded figure every night. I wake up soaked in sweat. He says that it means they’re close. That they’re almost ready to come for me. But I’m almost ready, too. If only I didn’t have to do this alone. I’m scared. I’m so fucking scared.’”
“Go on,” Dori urged.
But there was no more. “The rest is blank.”
“What happened to her?” Benedict asked.
I closed the book. “I don’t know, but I plan to find out. Is there a record with all the past students’ names on it?”
