I was already certain Eddie had been tortured, but the confirmation made me ill. “Moved where?”
“There’s several mentions in his records about some sort of concentration center,” Ava said. “There’sthisdocument detailing the rights to land, signed by members of the United Supernatural Union. The Union gave the Warden land to set up a camp.”
“What, like an internment camp?” I sneered.
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Ava said. “I found a list of people, andallof them are identified as Elves.”
“That’s where they’re taking the Elven inmates,” I realized.
“Yes,” Ava replied. “But it’s more than that. There are names on here I’ve never heard before, and there arewaymore Elves at the camp than were captured in Forevermore.”
“So they’re rounding up any Elves that have been discovered and putting them in this camp,” Kallie realized.
“Exactly,” Ava said. “But the numbers are weird. It’s like the Warden is sending more Elves to the camp than were ever at the Institute to begin with.”
“He’s forging the numbers,” Marcus thought out loud.
“Why?” I wondered. “If he’s already got authority over the camp—”
I cut off when I realized it.
“He can’t run his experiments from the camp,” I said. “He’s sending off any Elves he’s uninterested in and forging the numbers to keep the Union happy and to hide what he’s doing here at the Underground. But he couldn’t keep the Elf kids here forever.”
“The Union might’ve been forcing his hand,” Marcus theorized. “He ran out of time.”
“But not everyone on the Union is corrupt and wants to hurt the Elves,” Kallie protested. “My Uncle Theo is the fae representative for the Union, and he’d never let this happen.”
“The Elementai representative wouldn’t allow this to go on, either, or the Miriamic representative,” Ava said. “The Warden’s hiding things from certain Union members in order to please the angels and vampires; I’m sure of it.”
“There’s more,” Marcus said in a gut-wrenching tone. He dropped a book onto the table, and it landed with a heavythud. “The Warden’s been learning dangerous spells. These spell books shouldn’t even exist.”
“Do I even want to know what kind of spells?” I asked.
Marcus drew a deep breath. “They’re the kind of spells that summon demons and monsters. He’s bookmarked pages and written notes in the margins— crossed out spells he couldn’t perform and highlighted ones that worked. He’s definitely been making deals with dark gods to get those crystals, but…” Marcus sucked a breath.
“But what?” Kallie prodded.
“One of these spells…” He hesitated, like it was hard to even think about. “It’s a spell to open portals to hell.”
“So the magical ley linesarea lie,” I spat.
“Do you guys remember when we were fighting the malumuto demon in the Games?” Marcus asked. “I remember he said,Who unleashed me?The demon hadn’t come here on his own. The Warden is forcing the monsters to come here. He’s manufacturing the Games as a test of power. There’s no threat to the island— it was him all along, framing it in a way to get students to sign up and show off their demigod powers. This proves it.”
“The whole Institute is a lie,” Kallie growled in disgust. “Rehabilitation, my ass. It’s all a ploy to move kids through the system so he can find demigods—”
“HELP!” A young girl’s scream tore down the hall.
I stilled momentarily. “There’s someone here.”
“Come on!” Ava grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the room.
More voices came as we raced down the hall.
“Please, don’t!” a boy cried.
“Stop!” a girl screamed.
“They must be—” Ava cut off as we burst into a room at the end of the hall. An awful scent hit my nose, and I thought for certain we’d entered another room of mushrooms.
