“So, where are the scary masks?” Lisabelle asked.
“Just look in a mirror,” Sip muttered before collapsing in a fit of giggles.
“It’s not right to laugh at your own jokes,” Lisabelle sniffed.
“Someone has to do it,” said Sip happily. “Might as well be me.”
Lisabelle looked at me suspiciously, but didn’t comment. “So, you really think it’s Lealand? I was kind of leaning towards Trafton.”
“It could be both,” said Sip. “They’re usually together. I think the best thing for us to do is for Lisabelle to date Trafton, then she’ll be able to get up close and personal with him and maybe start to find things out.”
“Yeah, good idea. Oh, no, actually, can you spell d-e-s-p-a-r-a-t-e?” Lisabelle asked.
“L-i-s-a-b-e-l-l-e?” Sip asked, comically counting off on her fingers. Lisabelle gave her werewolf friend a small shove as Sip giggled again.
“And this is the vampires’ wing,” I said, ushering my friends into the room that held the black and red Cruor masks.
“Amazing,” Sip breathed, trotting towards one of the masks. “These are simply breathtaking. Nothing like this is made now.”
“Yeah, because it sickens a fourth of the campus. Granted, it’s one of the less impressive fourths,” said Lisabelle, as she too moved towards one of the walls to examine the masks. “These are very well done.”
I wandered in between the masks. Somewhere on the crowded walls was the mask with two ovals. After the Committee and Dacer had both examined it for any evidence that it had been used recently (there had been none) it had been returned to its place on the wall.
“It should say 1892 on it somewhere,” said Sip to Lisabelle who had started to look around. “Dacer is known for being pretty thorough. Each mask’s history is covered briefly in the little plaque in front of it.”
I nodded absently, busy examining masks.
“Does it always smell like this in here?” Lisabelle asked, sniffing the air. The Museum’s temperature was very carefully controlled, so as to preserve the masks, but I had never noticed a smell.
I sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything. I guess it smells like it normally does.” I went back to looking for the double oval mask.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Sip asked a minute later. “You aren’t too tired?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. I don’t think I could do much magic at this point, but I don’t need magic to find the mask.”
Just then I noticed a scrap of paper on the floor. Since I knew that the Museum was cleaned meticulously every day, anything out of place was odd, and I darted forward to examine it.
It was old, very old, and the writing on it flowed in a style that I had only ever seen in slideshows in history class.
“Sip,” I called. “Come look at this.”
Sip came over and peered over my arm. “What’s that?”
“I found it on the floor,” I explained as Lisabelle joined us.
“It looks like part of a diary,” said Sip excitedly. She took the scrap of paper from me and frowned. “It’s hard to read.”
“That’s because it’s from 1894,” said Lisabelle, pointing to a date in the top right corner.
“Can you read it?” Sip asked, handing it to Lisabelle. After several false starts Lisabelle started to read:
Found them lying on the floor. All five of them. My sister was in a pool of my mother’s blood, who was in a pool of my father’s. They were so close together I stopped being sure where one ended and another started. My family. This image is never far from my mind. I have written it down daily for decades, trying to get it out of my mind and onto the paper, but it doesn’t work. It will never work. I will always miss them. They are dead. They are dead. They are dead.
Lisabelle read in a halting voice. Sometimes she had to pause to figure out words, but her voice was clear and strong.
“Wow,” said Sip, when she finished. Lisabelle turned the paper over to examine it, but there was no other writing.
“Does it say whose it is?” I asked. It sounded as if someone had come home to find their family murdered, and it had happened a long time ago. But what did it mean?
“No,” said Lisabelle. “But it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Sip and I asked. I was glad at least Lisabelle had a theory.
“This was written by an undead,” said Lisabelle. “All the signs point to it: the family murdered instead of drained, and one left alive to become undead and see the punishment. I guess he’s still alive.”
“How do you know it’s a ‘he’?” I asked curiously. There were no names on the piece of paper and no signature.
“It’s a very masculine hand,” said Lisabelle. “He’s strong, confident, and right-handed. Having an uncle who is the best bounty hunter in the paranormal world has not been entirely useless.”
Sip grinned wolfishly. “But that means it isn’t Lealand.”
“Not necessarily,” I protested. “He could always be in disguise or working for the undead, but you’re right. An undead can’t just wander onto campus.”
“He could have snuck in,” said Lisabelle, as if this would have been easy. “With everything else going on, you never know.”
“If this is lying here, there must be an undead on campus,” said Lisabelle. She thought for a moment, then continued, “Ohh, maybe it’s Trafton. I like that scenario. No one has seen him do much magic. He just walks around looking pretty.”
“And you hold it against him,” said Sip with amusement.
“I don’t like pretty boys,” Lisabelle sniffed. “I like them more rugged.”
“Maybe with rosy cheeks,” said Sip.
“Who do we know with rosy cheeks?” Lisabelle asked. Sip and I both groaned.
“What are we going to do once we find the mask?” Lisabelle asked, ignoring us.
I shrugged. “Get it to Dacer, I suppose. If he still has enough strength, he’ll know what to do with it.”
As I was turning back to the masks, I noticed Sip and Lisabelle exchange a look. “Alright,” I said. “What is it? I just attacked a bunch of demons and lived. We just had a big clue that an undead is probably on campus, or someone working for an undead. I don’t think I need you two to protect me from everything. Spill.”
“It’s Dacer,” said Lisabelle, her face grim. “He slipped into a coma while you were out today. Keller told us, and he said we could tell you when we thought the time was right.”
“So, we can’t get his help?” I asked, feeling despair overtake me. Dacer was slipping away and we didn’t have much time. If he was dying, so was Lanca. “How could they let him go like that? They should be doing everything they can,” I cried. “He can’t die!” I knew there was no point in yelling at my friends, but I did it anyway.
“Are you sure you don’t smell that?” Lisabelle asked, sniffing the air again.
“Yes, I’m sure, Lisabelle,” I snapped. But even as I said it I realized she was right. There was something in the air that just didn’t smell right. It almost smelled like. . . .
Sip and Lisabelle realized it at the same time I did, as if an artifact from the elemental ballroom had been dropped on my head.
“FIRE!” Sip cried, staring back towards the entrance. Sure enough, there was a curl of smoke wafting towards our heads, and I could smell burning wood thick in the air.
“Uh oh,” said Lisabelle. “Is that even possible? Can the Tower seriously be on fire?”
“That’s one of those pointless questions,” Sip snapped, “because it obviously is.”
“We have to get out of here,” Lisabelle said, starting to hustle us towards the exit. “Now.”
“No,” I said, stubbornly crossing my arms over my chest, “not until we find the mask.”
“We don’t have time to find the mask,” Lisabelle snapped. “We don’t need to now anyhow. What’s it going to tell us? Maybe there’s a clue there that everyone on the Committee a
nd Dacer missed, but it’s not likely. We found this scrap of paper and that’s the most important thing. We’re on the top floor of a building that is ON. FIRE. How is this even complicated for you?”
“I can’t leave all these masks,” I wailed, looking around. Maybe the oval mask wasn’t in this Museum, but there were lots of others that were. How could I ever face Dacer again if he knew I had let his Museum be turned to cinders?
“No,” said Sip, racing towards me as the smoke got worse. She coughed. “We just have to go.”
I stared at her desperately. “Lanca. . . .”
Sip’s eyes were filling with tears. I wasn’t sure if it was from smoke or sadness. “We will find a way to save them, but we have to get out of here. Now. The smoke is getting worse.”
It was now so thick throughout the Museum that I couldn’t see properly. The three of us fell to our knees and started crawling toward the exit.
“Lisabelle, can your magic do anything against fire?” I asked. She was inching forward in front of me, her black-clothed bottom in my face.
“No,” Lisabelle called as she crawled. “It’s not that kind of magic.”
“What about you?” I asked Sip, behind me.
“It’s not really a werewolf’s forte,” was her dry answer.
“Sip,” Lisabelle called. We were out of the Cruor gallery now, heading towards the door. “You should change and run. The stairwell might still be clear. Get help. Just . . . get . . . out.”
“I’m not going to leave you,” my stubborn friend said from behind me. “That’s totally inappropriate in this situation.”
“Your use of vocabulary is questionable,” Lisabelle called, and kept crawling.
Somehow we managed to reached the Museum entrance without collapsing from the smoke. “Let’s get out of here,” Lisabelle cried. I didn’t dare think about the distance we still had to go to get out of the Tower.
From somewhere deep inside the building a screaming had started, and the fire was raging stronger. I stared through the Museum doorway, which was now laced in fire. I wondered what had happened to the poor guard that had been missing from his post, but he probably hadn’t met a happy end.
“How can we get through there?” I demanded. “It’s almost entirely blocked off. I could feel the heat pounding my face and I wondered how long I’d be able to take it.
“Do you have a different suggestion?” Lisabelle demanded. “Do you?” She was coughing so much she almost didn’t get it out. “We don’t have magic that can handle this.”
“Normally I do,” I pointed out bitterly. My magic had been so depleted by my battle with the demons that I couldn’t use it to save us. It came painfully home to me that if I hadn’t been so stubborn, and had just waited a little longer, maybe we wouldn’t be about to burn to death.
But in the midst of regret and terror, I still had mental room to wonder: How had this fire started, anyway?
Still standing in front of the exit to the Museum, Lisabelle backed up a couple of paces. She was going to try and jump it. Next to me, Sip had transformed into a werewolf. Within seconds she slipped past the fire easily. At least one of us would be safe.
Lisabelle crouched low and started to race towards the doorway and the flames. Right before she got there she skidded to a halt. The fire was covering too much of the doorway now for her to get through. I smelled burning clothes and knew that Lisabelle had gotten too close.
She turned around, pain in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” she breathed. I stared at the flames. There was another way out of the Museum, but I didn’t have the keys for those doors. Dacer didn’t trust anyone with them. We were trapped at the top of the burning Tower.
But just then, when I had almost given up hope, I saw a faint wisp of white float through the air. It looked like the calm in the middle of the storm, a white cap in a sea of red fire. Slowly, the white wisp lengthened and grew, until it spread out in front of our faces.
“What is that?” I demanded, staring at it. I told myself it couldn’t be hostile. I mean, come on, I was faced with a wall of fire, some white magic sure wasn’t allied with the fire.
“It’s creating a bridge,” said Lisabelle in wonder.
Sure enough, the power was stretching over our heads, creating a cocoon of safety amidst a sea of destruction.
“Let’s go,” she cried, grabbing my arm. “I’ve never seen anything like this!”
She spoke in a tone of wonder as she stared over our heads, and then, together, we dashed through the fiery door to join Sip and safety.
Without a backwards glance we raced down the stairs, some of which were in better shape than others. In some spots they were entirely gone, but the white bridge stayed with us, creating whatever we needed. It was solid, so that I could barely see through it. Someone very strong had created it. My mind turned to Keller as the three of us reached the ground floor of the Tower. Overhead I could hear crashing. Whatever protections had been put in place on the Tower to keep it safe, they were no longer there. The Tower wasn’t going to weather the onslaught. I felt sure that the three of us would be the last to escape its fiery depths.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“GET OUT. YOU HAVE TO GET OUT. WE CAN’T HELP ANYONE ELSE NOW. ANYONE ELSE IN THE TOWER IS SURELY DEAD.”
“There’s no way anyone else is getting out of there alive. Let it go!” said Professor Lambros. Tears made her eyes bright as she shoved me further away. She had met us at the doorway of the Tower, helping anyone left inside out, just before the structure was entirely engulfed.
I tripped as I turned, landing on ground that was cushioned by the dusty mud that covered it. I looked wildly back at the Tower. Flames shot out from every angle; every window was ablaze in orange fire. It kept growing higher and higher into the night sky, as if trying to touch the heavens. Fingers of flame reached around to meet each other, they grasped each other and linked themselves as if in greeting, making ever larger chains as the Tower burned. Black smoke ran in streams like water pouring from a faucet. I blinked rapidly as the acrid air hit my eyes.
All I knew was that a paranormal had kept the pathway clear for us. A paranormal had made sure we were safe. I was sure there was only one person who would have watched over us like that.
“KELLER,” I screamed. “KELLER.” I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I wanted to put both hands on my stomach to stop the pain, but I knew it wouldn’t go away. I had seen Keller running towards us before the flames had grown too large. His pale skin had stood out against the blackness while his dark wings blended into it.
And now, where was he? Please don’t let him have gotten stuck in there, I thought desperately. Lambros had just said that anyone else still in there was as good as dead.
I looked around, searching for one face. There were students sprawled on the ground everywhere around me, many groaning or crying, a few yelling. I barely registered that there was a group of pixies who had already pulled out hairbrushes and were busy grooming themselves. Uncaring little vermin spawn/monsters. At least lots of paranormals had escaped the burning Tower, now too hot to go near.
Then I saw Sip and Lisabelle.
My chest hurt, and I let out the breath I had been holding. They were safe. Sip’s face was streaked with tears, and she was limping as Lisabelle supported her. Both of their faces were grim, but they were alive.
I raced towards them. “Keller?” I asked, not bothering to hide my panic. I couldn’t imagine what I would do without him.
Lisabelle pointed, her hand shaking with some unquantifiable combination of pain, fear, and exhaustion. I looked where she was pointing.
Keller.
He was sitting on the ground, closer to the burning building than I liked to see. His knees were drawn up towards his chest and his forearms rested on them. His eyes were fixed on the flames, creating an eerie moving shadow across his fine features. His beautiful blue eyes looked black in the absence of light.
I felt a heaviness li
ft; Keller was safe. For a second I started to feel lighter, but then I saw his face.
I nodded to Sip and Lisabelle and raced over to him, not caring who saw me. This was no time to stand on ceremony, his aunt be damned. As I reached him I collapsed, sliding on my knees until I was next to him.
“I thought it was you,” I breathed. “I thought you were the one keeping the doorway clear.” I shuddered as my mind involuntarily went back to the reaching fire, the grasping smoke, and the room I didn’t think we would ever get out of.
Keller turned to me. His eyes were filled with a deep pain. He was looking at ghosts that only he could see, and I felt my stomach clench. I tried to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come.
“Keller?” I gasped. “What is it? What’s wrong? We’re safe. You and I and Sip and Lisabelle, we’re all safe. What’s wrong?” I nearly cried. I wanted to shake him.
Keller opened his mouth, but no words came out. He blinked several times and tried again to speak. I sat there staring at him, not daring to breathe myself. Breathing could wait. What was Keller trying to tell me? If not Keller, who had helped us out of the Tower?
“It wasn’t me that held the door,” he said finally, quietly. He bit his lower lip. “I got there as the flames started to come out the windows and I didn’t have the power to get to you.”
I knew how much he must hate to admit that he wasn’t strong enough to fly to the higher reaches of the Tower. “I helped people on the lower levels get out. It was all I could do. At that point, there was no way to get higher, no way to get above the flames.” He swallowed hard. “It wasn’t me that held the door.” The words sounded like an apology.
“But Keller,” I insisted, “someone helped us. Someone kept the door clear, they kept the fire back while we got out. I thought it was you, because then you could just fly out a window. It wasn’t a professor . . . the magic was too simple.”
I choked. I had breathed in so much smoke that it hurt to use my voice, but I needed desperately to explain what I had seen, and try to understand what had happened. I glanced at the burning Tower, which was now totally engulfed in flames. It had stood as a place of strength, where we gathered every day to eat and learn and be together. It was beautiful, by far the tallest building on campus. Who could ever have thought that it would fall? One of the first images that had greeted me when I arrived at Public with Sip was the glass Tower striped in rainbows, now all but destroyed.
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