by Chris Cannon
“Bribery works,” Bryn said.
“Good. Go ahead. I’m going to call Marie and assure her you are safe and sound.”
She walked up the spiral staircase and through the trapdoor onto the main floor. And then she headed for the stairs that lead to her grandfather’s offices. “There had better be a lot of food,” she muttered as she trudged up the last flight of steps.
Clint sighed. “I hope your grandfather doesn’t mind if I camp out in his office afterward, because I am not walking back down those stairs. I need food and a nap.”
“I can show you a really uncomfortable couch, if you’re desperate,” Valmont said.
Inside her grandfather’s office, Bryn didn’t wait for anyone to offer her food or drink. She sat down and grabbed a bottle of juice and drank the whole thing in two swallows.
“I still feel like there’s dust in my throat,” she said.
Valmont coughed like he agreed with her and then he drank a bottle of water.
Bryn ate three granola bars and an apple before she finally felt like dealing with questions.
“Okay. I can think now.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us every detail, no matter how small.”
Bryn recited the strange and terrifying events of their day.
“That part about the Tyrant’s Crowns is most disturbing,” her grandfather said. “We didn’t know they existed until a few days ago, but our enemies knew where they were, managed to steal them and now seem to have them on hand and ready to use.”
“Disturbing doesn’t even begin to describe those freaking things,” Clint said.
“I’m sure. It was smart of you to leave a trail of playing cards so we can find the rooms where you woke up,” her grandfather said. “It sounds like a maze down there.”
“Did you know those rooms existed?” Valmont asked.
“The architectural drawings of the library indicate passageways that were used when the structure was built. I want to know who the Oranges are that attacked you and what they were doing down there.”
“I think the room we woke up in contained a bunch of dried herbs,” Bryn said, “because they were scattered all over the floor.”
“Maybe they wanted herbs to make medicine,” Miss Enid said.
“It wasn’t the two Orange students on campus who attacked us,” Valmont said. “These were adults.”
“I could sketch them for you,” Clint said. “Before the sonic waves blurred my vision I got a pretty good look at two of them.”
Miss Enid handed Clint paper and pencil. The moment the pencil touched the page, it moved fluidly like paint instead of charcoal. Bryn knew Clint could draw, but she’d never seen him do it. “That’s amazing.”
“I’m not just a pretty face,” Clint said.
Bryn caught sight of the clock on the wall. “It’s two in the morning? No wonder I’m so tired.”
“It’s two in the afternoon,” her grandfather said. “You’ve been missing for almost eighteen hours.”
“What?” Ivy said. “But we just woke about an hour ago.”
Medic Williams came into the office. “Good timing on my part. Now I don’t have to tell you why I need to scan you.”
“So it’s Monday afternoon? We were unconscious for sixteen hours?”
Medic Williams placed her hand on Bryn’s forehead. She felt the warm honey sensation of Quintessence as it flowed down her head toward her shoulders. It felt so relaxing. When the medic was done, she said, “You don’t have any internal or cerebral injuries, but I should probably check your shoulder and your ribs when I’m done with your friends.”
When the medic checked Ivy, she frowned. “What did you to do to your arm?”
Bryn sat forward. “Please tell me I didn’t screw up her arm.”
“You did this?”
“It hurt, so she tried to fix it.” Ivy moved her arm. “See, it works.”
The medic held out her own hand so her palm was parallel to the ground. “Try moving your hand like you’re telling someone to stop.” The medic demonstrated by moving her hand from horizontal to vertical.
Ivy tried and her hand only went up to a forty-five degree angle.
And Bryn was going to throw up. “Oh my God.”
Ivy paled. “What’s wrong?”
“I think Bryn fused part of the distal radioulnar joint. I’ll have to break it to repair it.”
And now she really was going to throw up. “I’m so sorry.”
“Can I be asleep while it happens?” Ivy asked.
“Yes. Why don’t you come to the Medlab with me now, and we can take care of it. And Bryn, don’t try to heal anything but flesh wounds until you’re trained.”
Bryn nodded. How had she been so stupid to think she could do that?
Clint shoved the picture of the Orange dragons he’d drawn toward Miss Enid. “Hope that helps.” He held his hand out to Ivy. “Come on. This is no big deal.” As he walked past Bryn, he patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ve got this.”
Bryn forced a smile, but her eyes filled with tears. She could have screwed Ivy’s arm up for life.
Valmont put his arm around her shoulders. “You tried to help her, and you took her pain away. Those are both good things.”
Sure. “And now she has to let someone break her wrist because I screwed up.”
“Your heart was in the right place,” Valmont said.
“Your friend will be fine,” Bryn’s grandfather said. “Now show us on these blueprints where you encountered the Orange dragons.
“The back right-hand corner.” Bryn pointed to the spot. “The flowers were trampled down, and it smelled like hot metal.”
“That coincides with what we saw,” her grandfather said. “Why don’t you two get some rest.”
Back in her room, Bryn stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Why did she think she could heal Ivy’s arm? That old saying kept taunting her. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Just because she could heal scratches and stop bleeding didn’t mean she could heal bones.
Valmont knocked on her door and stuck his head in. “I’m betting you can’t sleep.”
She sat up. “Not a wink.”
“Let’s go get something from the cafe downstairs. Maybe that will help.”
That sounded as good as any plan she could come up with. “I’ll be out in a minute.” While her grandfather was happy to have her back, she doubted he’d want to hear that she went to dinner in her pajamas.
After changing into jeans and a T-shirt, because there was only so much bending to societal pressure she was willing to do right now, they headed to the cafe.
On the way down the stairs, something strange happened. Blues made eye contact with her. Some of them nodded. A few smiled. So she nodded and smiled back. Maybe they’d heard she and her friends had disappeared and they were glad she was okay.
Once they were seated at the restaurant, Valmont said, “Did we wake up in some alternate universe where Blues are…I won’t say nice, but civil?”
“Either that, or they’re glad we aren’t dead, on general principal.”
Valmont snorted. “So it’s not personal.”
“Who knows?”
The waiter who’d brought Bryn a carafe of coffee a few days ago appeared at the table with bread and butter. “I figured you’d be hungry.”
“Thank you.” Maybe this guy could fill her in. She’d need to be vague because who knew how much he already knew or if her grandfather wanted everyone to know. Still, she’d give it a shot. “What are people saying about the incident on campus?”
“They’re saying that you and your friends helped stop an attack by the Rebels.” He leaned in. “Is it true they were Orange dragons?”
“We think so,” Bryn said.
“Glad you guys are okay. Now what can I get you for dinner?”
They ordered steaks and baked potatoes. Once the waiter left, Bryn said. “Did we stop an attack?”
“I think we interrupted them while they were gathering supplies. Maybe you should call your grandfather and ask him what happened or what the Directorate is claiming happened so we can keep our facts straight.”
True. The Directorate was good at spinning stories to suit their needs. She was probably lucky Ferrin hadn’t taken control and accused her of siding with the Rebels.
Chapter Thirteen
Missing Monday classes meant all three of them had homework to make up. and Valmont got to listen to them gripe about it for most of Tuesday.
“You’d think they’d give us a break and not expect us to make up the work,” Clint said as they sat down at their usual table in the dining hall for lunch.
“Maybe the homework is balanced out by the fact you’re being credited with foiling a Rebel attack,” Valmont said.
“According to Miss Enid and the Directorate, we interrupted them in the middle of some sort of espionage, but I wish they’d give us more details.” Bryn ripped open her bag of chips. “Right now, I feel like a fraud.”
“Well, they obviously weren’t here to throw a surprise party,” Ivy said. “They slammed us into the wall, rendered us unconscious, and put those evil crowns on our heads, so they must’ve been doing something they didn’t want anyone to find out about.”
Bryn cringed. “How’s your wrist?”
Ivy waved her hand up and down and all around. “See, it moves in all directions like it’s supposed to, so please stop apologizing.”
“I’ll try to keep the ‘sorrys’ to a minimum, but you’d be doing the same thing, if the situation were reversed.” Something else was bothering her. “Why won’t Medic Williams tell us how the Rebels knocked us out?”
“Either she doesn’t know,” Clint said, “or she thinks we won’t want to hear that the sonic waves damaged our brains.”
“I don’t want to hear that,” Valmont said. “But I do want to know why the Rebels knocked us out and shoved us in a secret sub-basement, rather than killing us.”
“I’d like to think that murdering us wasn’t an option,” Clint said. “Because that is all sorts of disturbing, but I wonder if they knew we would wake up and escape. They did shove us in doorless rooms several floors underground without food or water, not counting drinking Bryn’s spit-snow.”
“Don’t forget about the Tyrant Crowns,” Bryn said.
“I’ve tried,” Clint said. “Believe me.”
“If they wanted us dead, there are many more efficient ways to kill us.” Valmont pointed at his sword. “I realize the Tyrant Crowns were disturbing, but they could have slit our throats. And they didn’t steal my sword for which I am hugely thankful, so I think they meant for us to survive.”
“Even if they did mean for us to wake up and find our way out, why were they messing around with the library in the first place?” Clint asked.
“The herbs they took from that room could be rare,” Ivy said.
“Would they really risk being captured for dried plants?” Valmont asked.
“Some herbs grow for years before they can be harvested,” Ivy said. “So maybe.”
“All this guessing is getting us nowhere. Let’s visit Miss Enid after dinner tonight and see if she has any news to share,” Bryn said.
Miss Enid was sorting books when they found her that evening. She took one look at them and said, “If you’ve come to me for answers about the attack, I don’t have any because no one is answering my questions. The Directorate sealed off the lower levels of the libraries, and they are not asking for my help in their investigation.”
“And that is super annoying,” Bryn said.
“Yes, it is.” Miss Enid adjusted a stack of books. “Guards have been placed around the library at all known entrance points, so there is that.”
“Do you know anything about sonic waves and how they are used as weapons?” Valmont asked. “Because we want to know if the Rebels knocked us unconscious using their element.”
“Prolonged exposure to sonic waves can result in death,” Miss Enid said. “But we have no way of knowing if that’s why all four of you passed out. It’s more likely they knocked you out with their sonic waves and then drugged you before dumping you in the sub-basement.”
“They’d need Orange knights to access those rooms, right?” Bryn said.
“Unless they were really good at knocking down and repairing stone walls in a short span of time, then I’d say yes.”
“So why isn’t my grandfather giving an Orange dragon a knight so we can investigate those rooms?”
“I asked the very same question,” Miss Enid said. “And I was not given the courtesy of an answer.”
“So basically, you’re as much in the dark as we are,” Ivy said.
Miss Enid sighed. “I know they must have their reasons for this behavior, but I still find it highly irritating. I was hoping your grandfather had shared something more with you.”
“Not yet.” Bryn pointed toward the stairwell that led up to the Directorate offices. “What are the odds that walking up several flights of stairs will result in us getting any answers?”
“You won’t know until you try,” Miss Enid said.
“Then I guess we’re hitting the steps.”
Halfway up the last flight of stairs, Bryn stopped. “Forget it. I changed my mind.”
“You’ve been awfully tired today,” Valmont said. “Even more than I would have expected.”
“Valmont’s right,” Ivy said. “I think this may have hit you harder for some reason.”
Way to make her feel like a wuss. “Maybe it’s because I ran all over creation with Jaxon the same day this happened. I was tired going into the situation.”
“Could be.” Valmont moved ahead of her and held the door open. “Just a little farther.”
Ugh. I am so done with stairs. If I ever have a chance to update the campus, I am adding elevators to every single building.
No one prevented Bryn from knocking on her grandfather’s office door.
“Come in,” her grandfather called out.
She opened the door to see him studying blueprints of the library. She almost started the conversation by saying she was sorry to bother him, but that wasn’t true. “Hey, we were wondering if there was any news on what the Rebels were actually doing here on campus.”
Her grandfather set the drawings of the buildings down. “We found charges underneath two of the other corners of the library and part of a detonator.”
“Detonator as in they were going to blow up the library?” Bryn asked.
“No. The charges were too small,” her grandfather said. “We think they were trying to excavate something from one of the lower levels.”
“They already have the chest of Tyrant’s Crowns, which we know about firsthand,” Bryn said. “And they cleaned out the herb storage. What else were they looking for?”
“More weapons would be my guess.”
“What do the rest of the students think happened?” Clint asked. “Because people are being unusually nice to us.”
“I think news of the detonator leaked, so you are probably being credited with stopping a possible bomb threat. And that is not a bad thing.”
“No. It’s not. But we have another question. Why haven’t you given an Orange dragon a knight to help find Orange doorways?”
He shuffled some papers together on his desk. “At the moment there are no Orange dragons on campus.”
Okay. “What happened to Octavius and Vivian? The two Orange dragons in our year?”
“They have been sent home as a precaution.”
Bryn was about to have a hissy fit. She opened her mouth to object, but her grandfather held up his hand to silence her. “It was for their own good. Other Directorate members wanted them thrown in jail. Sending them home on a precautionary probation was the lesser of two evils.”
Her grandfather really was one of the good guys. “Thank you for doing what you could to take care of them.”
He nodd
ed. “Political games are afoot. Ferrin is preaching a more radical approach which will turn into a witch hunt, if we aren’t careful.”
“I don’t suppose we could send him home on some sort of probation,” Bryn said.
Her grandfather smiled. “Unfortunately no. And you shouldn’t make jokes like that while you’re on campus.”
She hadn’t been joking. “Understood. I guess we’ll go do our homework now. Unless you wanted to give us a pass on Monday’s work since we helped thwart a Rebel plan?”
“Nice try.” He opened a folder and picked up a piece of paper. “But you foiled a Rebel attack so your homework should be a breeze by comparison.”
“Bryn, you’ve been outsmarted,” Clint said. “Or outsmart-assed. I’m not sure which.”
Her grandfather chuckled. “That was highly inappropriate. Now go.”
Bryn and her friends left and pulled the office door closed behind them. “Want to hang out in my room?” she asked.
“Sure.” They descended the stairs, and by the time they reached her room, Bryn was out of breath. “Something isn’t right.”
Valmont frowned. “That’s what I thought. I’m going to call a medic.”
Bryn sat on the couch and closed her eyes. The sound around her faded as she drifted but didn’t quite sleep. Sometime later she felt the warm honey sensation starting at the top of her head, which meant Medic Williams had arrived and was scanning her. That was good. She opened her eyes and did a double take. The last thing she remembered was closing her eyes on the couch, and now she was in a bed in the Medical Center.
“How’d I get here?” she asked.
Her grandmother, who sat in a chair on the left side of the bed, moved in closer and held her hand. “Thank goodness you’re awake. How do you feel?”
“Okay, I guess. What’s going on?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” Medic Williams said.
“Where’s Valmont?”
“Right here,” he said from the doorway. “You would wake up the moment I left to run to the restroom.” He crossed the room and stood to her right. Reaching for her hand, he gave it a tight squeeze.
Everyone seemed so serious. “I feel normal. Why are you all looking at me like I’ve been in a coma for six months?”
