The two parties parted ways. As Corinth walked around the circular Main hall toward Oeste skywalk, he thought about Bernard catching Emma. He figured he could woo any teacher at Aurora Boreal. Possibly even Sena. Hendrix, but not that guy. He was a whitewash of emotion, in more ways than one. He couldn't tell Emma that though. He just hoped to high heaven she wouldn't let herself get caught.
Emma didn't hesitate. She turned her body around, flipped her brown hair behind her shoulders, and walked the opposite way down the hall. Bernard's room wasn't many doors down from Corinth's little hut of a dorm. Last time she'd been in there, he chewed her up and spit her back out. Detention and cleaning duties. Those words struck fear in the heart of a pampered girl like her.
When she reached the door, she almost knocked to see if anyone was home. She realized, in just the nick of time, how stupid that would have been. She reached down into her colossal purse and pulled out a toolkit, of sorts. Makeup accessories and whatnots. She rummaged through the junk and selected a bobby pin. She quickly jammed it into the rusty looking keyhole. She jimmied the pin, and voila! She busted the weak lock. She realized how under prepared this school was for her arrival. Placing the pin in her hair after twisting her brown locks back into a bun, she then turned the knob, slowly easing her way inside.
"Ew!" She stepped on a wad of tissues surrounding a small waste bin at the door. She covered her mouth quickly, silently hoping he was asleep and wouldn’t be awakened by the slight yelp. There was no one in sight. She swiftly walked over to the desk up against the far wall. The cream wallpaper on the wall looked old and dingy to her as she passed by. Last time she came in, she figured that Bernard must be a smoker by the look and smell of things. She saw how right she was when she noticed a pack of cigarettes on top of some papers, once she reached his massive cherry wood desk tightly pressed up against the wall opposite the door. The dark hardwood floors looked old and creaky, but they didn't squeak near a sound her whole way over. What luck, she figured.
She found the map on top of the desk the last time. She thought it looked interesting, so she took it and left immediately. She justified her actions by telling herself she wasn't stealing. She only came in to look around. To get to know the school and everything. The map… she was simply borrowing it. Now, she had to open every draw she saw, until she found it. It was dark in the room. On account that all the shades to the double door windows near the ceiling were closed up tight. But she'd recognize this gem in pitch-black darkness. It looked so ordinary from outside. Just a folded beige parchment with no identifiable markings beside a few water stains. However, there were marvelous wonders inside. She spotted it in a low drawer. She quickly stowed it away in her purse. Stood back up and turned around.
"What– are– you– doing?" A man standing in the archway to left, holding a cup of what appeared to be tea, looked over to her with condemning eyes.
"Nothing you probably wouldn't expect from a girl like me." It was a bold move, but she was lost for words unless she used her cocky attitude to fuel each breath.
Soon after her retort, she was astonished to hear him ... laughing? "You'd be right, young lady. But this is the second time you've attempted to remove this particular item from my possession. Please, give me some reasonable explanation to why that is, my dear young pupil." Sen. Bernard leaned against the threshold and took a sip from his steaming brown mug.
He looked ratty with a thick beard that was completely unkept. He hadn't healed much from his stint as liberator of the people during the Pavilion raid. His white hair was everywhere, except where it should be. When she saw him last, he looked so put together. Now dressed down and sickly looking, he appeared awfully human. She was indeed afraid of him. His completely white eyes made him look soulless. From pupil to iris, just continuous white. Though intimidated, she tried to play it cool.
"Please, me and my friends need this map for a hiking trip we're taking. We'll bring it back, I promise," she sounded so convincing while holding the map tight against the lapel of her uniform. "If you just let us—"
"Take it, it's yours," he raised his mug as he said it.
She was stopped dead in her tracks. "Seriously?" She looked like she smelled another fart.
"Yes, I am rather -serious. As I’m sure most you vexatious students have yammered about several times before." His facial expression hinted that he was done with her. "You obviously have a certain affection for it, so take it. Keep it safe. It is no ordinary electronic map.”
"Wait, you're totally serious about this! Are you sure?" She had gotten what she wanted so easily that she figured it unreal. She seemed like she was trying to talk him out of being so generous. If just to test his sincerity.
"Yes! Now go before I change my mind!" He motioned to the door, silently bellowing her to leave. He turned back toward his bedchamber, stepped inside, ready to close the door. But an irritating thought lured him back to his office area. Back to Emma.
She walked as quickly as she could across the room and pulled the door open.
"Wait!" he shouted abruptly. She pushed the door back in, and squeezed her eyelids tight. She was ready for him to yell, surprise! It was a joke. You're actually going to be expelled instead, my dear "former" pupil. "Look at me when I speak to you." She turned to him. He was -pointing his mug at her like he'd throw it. Eyes red and tired, but he summoned a torrent of liveliness to imprint his next statement on the forefront of her brain. "If you ever waltz yourself into my quarters uninvited again, I'll have you on the first thing smoking back to Lirio!” His white eyes crackled with more red arcs that denoted the amount of force he conjured just to say this to her.“Do you understand, young lady?"
"Yes, sir." She almost curtseyed, she was so scared by his hard tone.
He sounded like he had a combination of mucous and thoroughbred rage building up inside him. She walked out as he waved her on. Just after she closed the door tight behind her, Bernard took another sip from his mug. Then pulled it away from his face to reveal a subtle smile. He seemed amused by the feisty little troublemaker that roused him from bed for the first time since the attack on the Pavilion.
<*>
When Emma entered the library, Corinth immediately noticed her. She walked over the burgundy carpet with gold trimmings, headed toward them at their rectangular marble table. When he saw her, he was surprised that she had changed out of her uniform into casual wear. He knew he shouldn’t have been, but yet he was. Class time wasn't yet over, but he figured none of them were going back to class anyway. So why not go for it. She wore a jean skirt, black flats, and sky-blue t-shirt. Even he still partially wore his uniform. Sans the grey jackets. However, Emma decided to take her sweet time in getting the map to them. Probably due to her reluctance to step foot inside of a physical library. She figured her tablet could get the job done. No need to dirty her hands with dusty books.
She passed the cherry wood bookshelves that stood high above their heads. Nearly touching the ceiling. There were mobile staircases everywhere, leaned up against the shelves. Various librarians traversed them retrieving books for students, doing some cataloging and whatnot. The gold plated signs on the mobile stairs clearly said for 'Librarian Use Only!' Each book was alphabetized and labeled by a golden plaque on the edge of the shelf beneath it. Well, almost every book.
Walker gave Corinth the numbers 1-05-8, back on the Olympus Grounds, but his father cut Walker off mid-sentence. Corinth wondered why Sena. Hendrix had done that spell in front of Walker in the first place. He received an answer when he connected with her mind. This made his trust issues with Walker even more complicated. Though Criston cut Walker off when telling the catalog number of the Fate Forgery, it was still easy to find with the numbers he managed to get out. They all searched the vicinity with those digits. They found it stuffed between two smaller books all the way in the back of the library on the last shelf.
"Got it!" Emma let the lightweight map flutter down onto the table as air currents carried it to its res
ting destination. The four of them looked to her with frowns. With her arms crossed, she twisted her mouth up with a self-satisfied ultra smug look.
"Okay." Corinth shrugged in his seat.
She unfolded her arms. "What do you mean, 'okay!’ That took a lot of covert secret agent sleuthing to come across."
"Do you even know what 'sleuthing' means?" Anvard looked up from the massive book he had his head buried in to ask her that all-important question. He loved the mystical aspects of magik. He could read about mythology till his eyes bleed tears of joy.
"I used it properly in the sentence, didn't I?" Another smug look coursed from cheek to cheek. Anvard didn't have anything else to say to her, so he stuck his bolt shaped head back into the book.
Corinth stood up and walked over to her. He put a hand on her shoulder. She looked over at his hand like he'd just come from the bathroom without washing it. "Thanks a lot for getting it. Really! But that's what you were supposed to do, after all. Just sit down and we can work all of this out… cool?"
She slapped his hand away. "Work what out? You won't even tell us what's really going on." The others perked up, because they too agreed with Emma. She sat down in the chair in front of her. It was opposite the head of the table, where Andy sat with the book. "Like, what does the Shattered Temple have to do with helping your uncle?" she questioned him with a suspicious glint in her eyes. "It's not even real. It's a myth! A made up story by some bored guy with a pen."
"Guys..." he didn't know how to start this sentence. Being vague was one thing. But deliberately leading people on, that crossed a line he didn't want to walk over just yet. "If you trust me, then you'll just go along with it."
Emma threw her hands up. "I'm out!"
"Emma, where are you going?" Anvard shouted across the student-filled library.
"Shhhhh!" A woman with her silver hair pulled back in a bun motioned to their table to quiet down from her little booth against the wall. What lie behind her was a sea of more and more books. How entertaining, really. Special editions and things students were likely to take without intent to bring back. Well, at least the shut-in librarians thought so.
Anvard strangely bowed his head with his hands held together. She took it as a peace offering and left them alone. He got up from his seat and walked over to his younger sister. His broad shoulders were intimidating to her. Without his uniform jacket, his white-collar shirt revealed more of his imposing frame. She knew him all her life, and even she thought he was overly muscular for a fourteen-year-old schoolboy.
"You can't just go," he said, looking down to her.
"Uh, yeah I can. You can't boss me around, you know?" she tried to project her voice.
"Well, maybe I can because—"
"No, you can't," Emmy said calmly. "She's not coming from the wrong direction, you know? Do you really think we're all just going to go out into the freezing mountains in search of nothing?" She directed that question to Corinth.
"No, but I don't have a lot of options here," the feeble looking kid said.
"Neither do we, Corinth." It looked as if the ladies were banding together against the two lone boys. Claudia threw her hat into the girl rebellion. "We would love to help you, honestly. But in a way that doesn't get anybody hurt. And actually makes some sense."
"But his dream, you guys!" Anvard tried to make them see from Corinth’s point of view. "This all centers on the dream. We have to take the Northern Coaster over to the North Lake. That's the high speed rail line that Corinth's been dreaming of."
Corinth had never heard of the Northern Coaster before now. He really hoped Anvard wouldn't change his mind about helping. He seemed to know so much more about the myths than Cory ever knew existed.
Call it a psychic kind of thing, but he already knew it was a done deal. "It's okay." Corinth walked in front of Anvard, grabbing the pointed fingers Andy used to accuse the girls of being disloyal. "You guys are fine. I really understand your reservations. I'm doing this for a reason. But I don't want your help anymore. I shouldn't have involved you three in the first place."
"Now don't go and say that," Emmy shuffled from side to side, "like we don't care about what's going on. A lot of this is really serious stuff. I mean, if Walker poisoned -you then—"
"Keep your voice down!" Anvard loudly cautioned Emmy. Drawing the attentions of the watchdog in the booth again. She had a strict noise level policy, and Anvard was about to be made an example out of. He waved toward her very graciously, and flashed that world-class smile. He had a charm that couldn't be denied. Even by an old bird whose biggest task in life was to guard a couple of refined tree barks with ink splashed over them.
"Look," Cory started, "it's not as bad as it seems. We probably won't even venture out there anyway. I was just snooping around because it piqued my interest." He was trying to throw them off the trail now. And they fell for it. "I'm sure Sena. Hendrix can handle everything. Don't forget, I found out most of this from her." He didn't tell them exactly how he got that info from her when he explained himself back at his dorm though. He figured that was a conversation best held another time. "Me and Andy are going to look at some books, and just build a cautionary case. Nothing major, really." Anvard liked it when Corinth called him Andy. He was putty for Cory to mold from that point on.
The girls walked away, satisfied that Corinth wasn't charging into anything dangerous. But they were very wrong, and Corinth and Anvard were both well aware of that.
"So what's really going on here?" Andy asked.
"Can I tell you something that you promise to never repeat?" Corinth knew he didn't need to ask that question, but he had to start this awkward talk from somewhere.
"You know I would never put you in danger." Andy tilted his head with a grin.
"Yeah, I know, but this is a tough one to swallow."
"Are you psychic or something?" Anvard went for it without any limits.
"How...?" Corinth couldn't even finish the sentence.
"You're passing out half the time. Always tired. You never seem fully present in reality. Most of the time you have this glazed over look in your eyes. It's cute!" Andy smirked, with genuine delight. "Really cute, but it says a lot too. The less you talk, the more I can sense that your thoughts are far, far away. Just look at where we are. You go from collapsing in the Auditorium to trying to find the mythical temple of creation. Frankly, I'd be more worried if you weren't psychic. You'd just be plain insane if your mind jumped around that much as an average person," he smiled to ease the jeer.
Corinth scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. He was surprised to hear Anvard's thoughts. He talked about psychics as if they were an everyday occurrence. They weren't. But Andy had studied them so much that he felt like they were. Corinth started to feel insecure. Like Anvard had only befriended him as some sort of science project mission thingy.
"Did you know all along?" Corinth intently questioned.
"No, not at all. At first, you seemed too timid to be psychic. That's why it took me so long to put it together. But after you collapsed, I knew for sure."
"How?" Corinth asked in the most innocent voice Anvard had ever heard.
"Because," Anvard started slowly, "I sat with you in the hospital all last night." Corinth's face froze solid. "The nurses tried to kick me out, but I cast a little non-magikal spell over them," he smiled brightly with the pink lips that spoke the warm words. His magik worked on most just as easy as that. "Don't be nervous. You just asked us to trust you, right? Well, you've got to find a way to be able to return the favor. When I went to visit you this morning, and they said you were discharged last night, it was clear as day. I didn't question them anymore about the damage. I figured you meant well, even though you left the place in near ashes."
Corinth smiled faintly. "That's how I found out about everything. The nurses were gossiping and—"
"Hold it there." He put his hand up, as if to say stop. "You don't have to tell me everything, or anything for that matter. I tr
ust you to make the right decision. And I know what dreams really mean. Unlike those chicks." He motioned toward the exit. The book check-out station took up most of the grand entryway. The girls had already disappeared through it. Starting the trek over to their dorm in Concordia Nova, but Corinth understood the gesture no less. "We need to see this through, so let's do it!" Anvard summed up with an excited tone that truly inspired Corinth.
Chapter 22:
Upon The Falls Of Night
May 23, 1002 ~ Nightfall
Corinth and Anvard made their way over to the Refectory. They figured the girls would be looking for them later in the day at some point. If they returned to the dorm, they'd surely find them. And that, they didn't want to happen. They had a mission to carry out. As they walked inside the mammoth circular room, Corinth noticed Lindle sitting alone. He held up at his favorite spot of the never-ending tables surrounding the village at the center. These tables circled the room, spiraling inward. Each of them getting smaller as they spun into the center in ascending rows. Essentially, the students and staff sat on top of the businesses beneath the cone-shaped object the high-rising design created. The center thrived. There you could find everything you needed under the roofs of the tiny businesses that lived within the cone. Get a haircut, grab lunch, clothes, school supplies etc.
Original Souls (A World Apart #1) Page 38
