“Oh, a few centuries, on and off.” The old man chuckles, a deep rumbling that makes his gray beard shake. “You wouldn’t be able to tell, though. This place does wonders on your aging process.”
Oh-kay then. Moving on to the next topic. “How did you end up here?”
Saint George’s balls, Morgan, I tell myself, can you please stop saying the first thing that comes to your mind?
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I meant, what do you like to do here?”
But the man’s attention has sharpened on the woman at the other end of the room, the one talking to herself.
“I said stop that!” he yells, spittle flying across the carpet. “You’re going to call them over!”
I tense up. The woman’s now moving back and forth in her seat, like a pendulum on a tight cord, faster and faster.
“You dumb hag!” the old man yells, getting up.
In the blink of an eye, the bearded man’s standing next to her, shaking the woman by the shoulders so violently her eyes are rolling in her head.
“I. Said. Don’t. Call. Them!”
“Stop!” I run over to the woman’s aid, but the old man is surprisingly strong and pushes me away hard enough that I trip and tumble to the floor. “Somebody help!” I yell, my knees smarting from the fall.
Two burly men in bland white uniforms hurry in. They quickly seize the situation and rush over to the old man, whose face is now carmine.
“Calm down, now,” one of the attendants says, grasping the old man by an arm.
“You can let her go,” the second man says, grabbing his other arm.
Finally, like a balloon that’s been popped, the old man becomes limp in their arms.
“There now, we’ll just take you to your room,” one of the nurses says as they drag him away. “You’ll be able to get a nice rest.”
It takes me a moment to recover from the shock. The woman’s still lying halfway out of her chair, saliva foaming at her mouth. I limp over and struggle to get her back in her seat, then finally slide down to the floor next to the wall.
A quarter of an hour later, Bri finds me still sitting in the same position, unmoving.
“What happened?” she asks, helping me up.
I shake my head to wipe the slate of my mind clean of the incident. “Just exhausted.” I don’t want to have her worry more about Owen than she already does. “I do wish they didn’t have that ‘maximum two visitors’ policy, though,” I say when we reach the exit.
As the morning bells ring the start of class, I breathe in deeply, letting the dawn air clean out the asylum’s cloying smell of antiseptics and herbs out of my lungs.
“Come on,” Bri says, picking up the pace. “We’re already late for Sir Caradoc’s class.”
◆◆◆
We wait for Sir Caradoc, our Runes teacher, to turn his back before we sneak in.
“Miss Vaughan,” he says without turning around. “I see you’ve managed to join our class. Along with Miss Pendragon.”
Dean sniggers while Ross and Brockton pelt us with just-made papier-mâché balls as, red-faced, we head for our respective seats.
“Now that everyone is here,” Sir Caradoc says, facing the room again, “I want everyone to go to the comparison table between the Futhark runes and the Beth-Luis-Nion runes. Can someone explain the difference between them?”
To everyone’s surprise, Bri’s hand shoots up. “They’re both different runic systems, used by different people,” she says. “The first one is the most common and has been most prevalent amongst the Fey as well.”
“Precisely,” says Sir Caradoc. “Though the Futhark runes are commonly found amongst the Fey, however, we cannot ignore the Beth-Luis-Nion runes. The reason is that, though much rarer, a number of earth elementals and other Fey linked to the woods respond better to the older runes. And as we all know, we cannot control the Fey without knowing and understanding their names.”
Eyes flashing, Sir Caradoc pauses in the middle of the room. “Well, why isn’t anyone taking note of this?” he asks.
There’s a mad scrambling to get our pens and notebooks out. As I write the final word, a flash of inspiration strikes me. Was that what I was missing to make that old glove work?
Exhilaration washes through me. I wish I could retrieve the gauntlet, but unfortunately, it’s tucked safely away under my mattress back in the surface world, so I won’t be able to test out my theory until next weekend.
I’m so excited I don’t even protest when Sir Caradoc tells us to spend the rest of the hour translating the ogham found on standing stones around the Isle of Man, off the coast of Great Britain, nor does it diminish when I realize I have no clue what I’m reading.
“Sir?” Laura asks, raising her hand before the hour is over.
“There’s a small dictionary at the back,” the teacher answers without looking up from his book.
“That’s not what I wanted to ask, sir,” the curly-haired girl says.
“What is it then?” Sir Caradoc asks, lifting his eyes to her face disdainfully.
“Is it true what that we’re no longer allowed on Island Park?”
“That’s in no way relevant to class, Miss Adams,” the teacher retorts.
“But we thought maybe the message was wrong,” Dina says.
“You can read, can’t you, Miss Gonzales?” Sir Caradoc retorts, annoyed.
“Yes, sir. But—”
“But I believe the post was very clear,” Sir Caradoc interrupts her. “There is no strolling to be done among the island’s trees. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Laura and Dina say, sounding disappointed.
Pretending to be deeply involved in the runic text before me, I lean toward Bri. “What was that all about?”
“There’s a festival coming up,” Bri whispers, scribbling in the margins of her book. “It’s called the Triduum of All Hallows, and it takes place—”
“At the end of October,” I say, remembering the extra hours of prayer Sister Marie-Clémence would make us do in remembrance of all the saints.
“Well, the first night, there’s this big feast, and during the party, a lot of people like to skip out and frolic about.”
I snort back a laugh, drawing Sir Caradoc’s attention.
“Frolic?” I ask when the teacher’s back to reading his book.
Bri blushes. “Yeah, well, one of the places the knights like to go to is that island, ’cause it’s more…private.”
“Not only do you dare come to class late,” Sir Caradoc says, his eyes burning into me from across the room, “but on top of that, you spend the whole time talking. That will not do, Miss Pendragon.”
Chastised, I scoot back to my side of the desk and spend the remainder of class trying to decipher the text.
◆◆◆
“What are you so uptight about?” Keva asks as we finally get to leave Sir Caradoc’s class, but not before he assigns Bri and me extra homework as punishment.
“I just got about twenty years’ worth of extra homework,” Bri retorts, waving the assignments in Keva’s face.
“It’ll take me twenty years just to do one of them,” I say with a big sigh. “And I still have to do eight more essays for Sir Boris.”
“I wasn’t talking to you two,” Keva says, “but to Jack Be Nimble here.”
“Me, uptight?” Jack asks, walking into a post. “Not at all,” he adds, rubbing his head distractedly.
As we approach the library, we see three KORT members disappear up the staircase, their faces somber, and talking in low voices. Jack slows down, and it’s obvious he’s trying to catch what they’re saying.
“You’d make a very sad spy indeed,” Keva sneers. “Man, I cannot believe I’m stuck with a tomboy, an outcast, and a gimp.”
“Nobody asked you to hang out with us,” Bri says. “And you,” she adds to Jack, “why are you so twitchy?”
“I’m not—” Jack starts, his limp accentuated as he tries to catch up with us. “It
’s not—”
“There’s no point trying to hide it,” Keva says. “Either you spill the beans now or we wear you down till you do. And I can promise you that won’t be pleasant for you.”
Jack scowls, but considering who he’s talking to, he doesn’t stand a chance and gives up. “Don’t you think it’s strange that they’ve forbidden us to go on the island?” he asks.
Bri shrugs. “Could be heightened Fey activity.”
“Or that they’re the ones behind the kidnappings and are performing weird experiments on them there,” Keva says. We all stare at her. “What? I’m only bringing up another possibility here.”
“But you do know what else is on that island, right?” Jack says, his voice dropping lower.
“Hmmm, houses?” Bri says sarcastically. “Trees? Shrubs?”
“Oh, ha ha,” Jack says, completely unamused.
“Isn’t that the island where those people got kidnapped?” I ask, remembering the articles I’d seen back in my parents’ office.
“They weren’t supposed to be there,” Keva says. “It’s a private island. They got caught. Big deal.”
“You’re missing the point,” Jack says. “On that island there’s an ancient black standing stone.”
He looks at us like it’s supposed to mean something. All he receives in return are three blank stares.
“Oh, you girls are impossible,” he says. “Black standing stone, Lore class, chapter twenty-three, fifth paragraph? The warning?”
“If you expect me to read ahead of what’s scheduled,” Keva says, “then you’re completely off your rocker.”
“Yeah, I think you’re just being a little paranoid,” Bri says, slapping his back so hard he staggers forward. “It’s OK, though. You’re still cool in my book.”
I make to follow the two girls into the library—my homework won’t, unfortunately, get done on its own—but something in Jack’s face makes me stop. Though I’ve only spent a couple of weeks at Lake High, I’ve gotten to spend plenty of time with him, due mainly to the fact that he’s always helping me, and I can’t stand seeing him look so troubled.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell him, “but if you say there’s something wrong, then I believe you.”
Jack gives me a wan smile. “It’s OK. Maybe Bri’s right, and I’m just seeing things where there aren’t any.”
I hold the door to the library open for him. “In that case, sir,” I say with a mock curtsy.
We find Bri and Keva sitting at one of the tables farthest away from Madame Jiang’s desk. Within minutes, I’m completely absorbed in my essay on the Fomori: monstrous amphibian creatures that grow to be twice the size of an adult man, with an elongated skull, no nose, lipless mouths that contain two rows of teeth and can open wide enough to swallow a human head whole, and luminous blue-white eyes.
“These are disgusting,” I say, shuddering at the picture showing a Fomori’s webbed hands that end in sharp claws. “And to think I once imagined most Fey people to be cute and cuddly.”
“There’s no such thing as a cute and cuddly Fey,” Bri says, getting up once again to go check out the massive rune dictionary standing on its own table in the middle of the room.
“Dark Sidhe are the worst kind,” Keva says with a grimace. She finishes filing her nails, blows on them, then admires her handiwork. “But at least they’re easy to tell. They’re all so ugly.”
“That is a very moronic way to describe them,” Jack mutters.
“What did you just say?” Keva asks, shooting him a dirty look.
“Says their skin is scaly and really hard to pierce,” I say, “like the hide of a crocodile.”
“Yeah, they were tough suckers, all right,” Keva says, reapplying her lip gloss. “A good thing they were all killed in the last Great War.”
“They were?” I ask. “Huh, I thought I’d seen them somewhere before…Glad I didn’t, though, they look like the worst.”
“Nope,” Jack says. He rests his head in his hand, still holding his fountain pen. “There’s been worse.”
“Like dragons,” Keva says, but with such a dreamy look on her face I doubt she thinks of them as monsters. “I don’t know who caught the last sea dragon, but the last land one was killed—”
“By Saint George,” I say, grinning. “Yeah, I’ve always liked him too. He was so ballsy.”
“He was one of the last knights of the old order,” Jack says, “before we were taught how to do EM. And, for your reference, Keva, the Leviathan was never captured or killed.”
“Whatevs,” Keva says, resuming her bored look. “Just so long as it stays away from me.”
“In any case, most dragons disappeared after Carman was captured,” Jack says. “Whether killed or not.” He jerks his hand down, leaving a long trace of ink down his nose. “Want to see something cool?”
“What?” I ask.
“There’s this really old stele—”
“Oh, not that old thing,” Keva says with a yawn.
“I’ll go,” I say. Anything’s good enough an excuse for me to procrastinate.
I follow Jack down to the opposite side of the library, through rows and rows of bookcases. Out the window, I can see the arena loom closer and closer until we finally arrive at a large tapestry of Saint Michael bringing down a seven-headed dragon—a very familiar scene.
“And the great dragon was cast out,” I quote, “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
Jack nods. “And that’s when things got bad for us. Look.”
He points at a large stone embedded in the floor beneath the tapestry, on which hundreds of runes have been carved.
“Yeah, unless you want to see me grow old and die here,” I say, “you’re going to tell me what that says. ’Cause there’s no way I can decipher all of that.”
Without even reading, Jack starts to recite:
“Four men to raise the stones their blood did shed,
Four Fey their essence over the cairns did spread,
Four of the Nephilim to Avalon’s protection their lives vowed, And Danu, to seal the spell, her power over all bestowed.
Finally, as a measure of precaution, a warning was cast
And a black sentinel over the prison now stands fast
To warn all of its ward’s great and terrible threat
And remind—”
“Humanity its evil deeds to never forget,” Bri finishes, appearing behind us. “Yep, had to learn that by heart when I was ten.” She grabs our arms in hers and starts to steer us away, but I stop her.
“A black sentinel?” I ask Jack. “Is that what you were talking about earlier?”
Jack nods. “My interpretation is that it’s probably a warding stone. They used to be raised to keep people away from dangerous places. But, because they’re very rare, people have forgotten about them.” His voice drops. “There’s a story about this man who went digging around the base of one of them once, back in Wales. The next day, they found his remains. It looked like he’d been chewed up, then spat back out again.”
“OK,” I say, trying to get the disgusting picture of a half-eaten, half-digested man out of my mind, “so you’re saying there’s one of these stones next to this Carman woman’s tomb.”
“Yes,” Jack breathes. “And one of them’s on that island.”
Chapter 11
Having grown up in a Catholic boarding school, I’ve always struggled not to use violence, and I’m glad to find nothing’s better than weapons practice to work out your pent-up frustrations.
Sweating profusely, I bring down my dagger in a cross slash followed by a thrust. One hundred! I drop the knife to the ground, my whole body shaking from the effort like a hairless monkey in the snow.
I plunk down onto the nearest bench, enjoying the early night’s breeze on my face; I don’t know how there can be wind down here when it neve
r rains, nor why the temperature’s always warmer in Lake High than on the surface, but I’m not complaining.
Watching the knights practice on the opposite side of the stadium, I find myself wishing once again for the ban from using elementals to be lifted from me so I can try my hand at all those fancy manipulations too.
“Miss Pendragon, what do you think you’re doing?”
I barely manage to loll my head around to look at Lady Ysolt. She’s standing by my classmates as they unsuccessfully try their first earth elementals.
“I’ve finished my practice, ma’am,” I answer.
“No,” the tall woman says, “you’ve finished a set. Now go run ten laps around the field.”
“T-Ten?”
“Ten, Miss Pendragon!” Lady Ysolt shouts. “Hop to it!”
With a groan, I push myself up and start trotting along the edge of the field.
“Don’t drag your feet!” the teacher yells after me.
I’ve barely managed to make it halfway around when a stitch doubles me over. Wheezing, I stop and look over to the freshmen’s side of the field, but Lady Ysolt’s too busy helping an injured Elias to notice me.
“Down!”
Hands on knees, I look up in time to see a glob of water hurl my way seconds before it hits me. My feet lift off the ground, and I land hard on my backside, my breath whooshing out of me.
From the corner of my eye, I see people sprinting over.
“Oh, it’s Morgan.” I recognize Percy’s voice.
“Would it have made it better if it wasn’t?” says the other boy.
Two faces appear above mine, the light of the nearest torches giving them angelic halos. Percy looks sheepish—I take it he’s the one I have to thank for my current state. But it’s the other boy who catches my attention, his deep blue eyes nearly black in the shadows.
“Ohtheprettyboy,” I whisper in one breath.
Two pairs of eyes widen, then Percy guffaws. “Well, it sure seems her brain ain’t too addled.”
Lance helps me sit up, his hands surprisingly gentle. In my hazy mind, I wish I weren’t so sweaty.
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