2026-11-04 22:16:34
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
70
How long was four days supposed to feel? Was it normal for the light in the shaft to look the same at noon like it did at midnight? And why did every hour take longer than the one before it? Lilly had stopped being able to tell.The door had been burning for four days, and she had spent three of them in the same chair beside the kitchen shaft. There was a blanket over her knees that Maya had left behind, and a thermos on the ground that Instructor Fenn kept refilling without being asked. Valen Ashcroft sat in the chair across from her. He didn't say much, and she didn't mind, because she didn't have anything to say to him either. Crowe walked the grounds in his long coat with his notebook, round and round, and Nathan sat in a wheelchair next to the Headmaster with a blanket on his own knees, turning his head toward the shaft every few minutes. Commander Maden was still in the infirmary under Crowe's guard. He hadn't woken up."You haven't eaten since yesterday," Valen said."I know."
69
"Who sent you?" Adrian asked.He asked it because he needed something to do with his face. Jenna was still standing eight steps above him with her hand over her mouth, and he couldn't look at her, so he walked up the stair between the ranks of the dead and looked at the Paladin who used to whistle instead. The man was pinned against the wall by three rusted soldiers, with blood running down from his forehead into one eye. His two friends hung next to him, and neither of them moved. They were bleeding badly, but they were alive. Adrian could tell that much, the same way he could tell how many of the dead were standing around him on the stair.The Paladin spat on the step. "The Cardinal," he said through his teeth. "He told us the door would open for him once the keys had been brought low."Then his head dropped, and he passed out.Adrian didn't ask him anything else. He crouched there for a moment with his hand on his knee. ‘Keys. Two of them. Me and Jenna.’ Brought low was the word th
68
The only other door in the hall was behind the glass cases, and it opened onto a stair that went down in a slow spiral. Adrian didn't think about it for long. He had already seen what one of those gold gloves could do in the cloister at Ashgate, when it shut every spell in the whole courtyard at once, and he didn't want to find out what three of them could do in a room this small. He grabbed Sister by the arm and told the others to go. Nobody asked him why. The boots in the corridor behind them were getting louder, and the whistling was getting louder with them, and it was the same tune over and over.Sister read the lintel as they went through."This is the Ossuary Stair," she said."That's a terrible name," Maya muttered."It is only a name, Miss Sinclair.""I think it's going to be a description too," Jenna said.She was right, and Adrian understood it before he even reached the third turn. Bones were heaped against the walls in drifts, dry and clean, mixed in with the rusted rema
67
"It is a build record," Sister said.She had stopped in front of the lit cradle with her hands at her sides, and she read the plate on it standing very straight. There were six lines of Sera's script cut into the metal, small and neat, and it was the same hand as the warning on the first archway. Adrian walked up behind her and didn't look at the plate, because he couldn't read it anyway. He looked at the side of her face. Her halo was flickering faster than he had ever seen it, and the cracks across it looked deeper in this light, and he didn't know how much longer it was going to hold."Whose build record?" Maya asked."The third daughter's.""Third daughter of who?""Of Sera.""You're one of them," Jenna said slowly. "One of the daughters. That's what you meant back at the door.""Yes."Adrian had already heard it once, in the cellar, when she told him what the man with the glove had called her. It was different seeing it on a plate. He felt worried about her, and he didn't say so.
66
There was no way Thalia was lying to him. She stood in front of the open door with the sleeve of her uniform still held in one hand, and she didn't move. The plate had gone white, and a faint light came out of the doorway behind it. Thalia was standing right in the middle of that light, and she hadn't taken a single step in either direction. Adrian had known her for a whole life and part of another one, and in all that time he had never once caught her in a lie. He didn't think she knew how."Thalia," he said."Yes, my lord.""Do you know this place?""No, my lord." She said it politely, in her usual flat voice, and there was no shake in it anymore. "I have never been here before. I have no idea why it knows my name.""Are you sure? Even a little?""I am quite sure. I would remember.""I believe you," Adrian told her."Thank you, my lord."He did believe her, and that was the worst part of it. If she was telling the truth, then it was the door that was wrong, and he didn't know what c
65
Was she angry at him? Was she hurt? Was she both, and was one of them worse than the other? Adrian couldn't tell, because Jenna hadn't said a word since the Library, and she was walking three steps ahead of him down the long stair on purpose.They had left with the page torn out of Sera's notes and folded inside his coat, right next to Lilly's scarf. He hadn't wanted to leave it behind, even though he had said no to using it, and he didn't know what that said about him. Jenna had watched him tear it out. She hadn't said anything then either. She just turned around and started down the stair with her jaw set, and he had followed her, and for over an hour now the only sound between them was their boots.Rhode's voice was still in his head too. ‘He's spending something that doesn't belong to him. Three days to decide whose it is.’ Whose was what? The memories? The strand? Jenna's flame that he took in the vault without asking her? He kept trying to work it out, and every time he got clos
You may also like
Incredible Oliver Storm
Dragon Sly108.1K viewsBecoming A Trillionaire After Divorce
Esther Writes76.8K viewsTrillionaire they never noticed
Alfred ifeanyi78.0K viewsThe Legendary Conglomerate
Lord MOH124.8K viewsThe Firefighter's Final Goodbye
Zane Wu88 viewsThe Supreme Sovereign Returns
Husky's Dream112 viewsAFTER THE DIVORCE, SHE FOUND OUT I'M A TRILLIONAIRE
ISHOLA MATTHEW OLAMIDE 314 viewsThe Husband They Bought To Die
Tunde117 views