25. Chapter 24 #2
“True,” he muttered, glancing over at the woman warily. “I’ll follow your lead.”
She raised her brow. A part of her expected him to fight her on her decision. After all, that was what they’d been doing ever since they met. Instead of teasing him, she looked back at Rhea to see Liam pass by with a stack of books in his arms, and he doubled back when he noticed the three of them.
“Hey,” Liam said cautiously as he walked down the row. “You alright?”
“This is Rhea,” Ivy said. “And this is Liam. Turns out she was Briar’s roommate last year, and she was going to tell us what she knows. We should grab Maeve and head back to the apartment to chat.”
“Works for me,” he said, holding up the books in his arms. “I’m going cross-eyed from reading all these.”
“She carried this book around with her a lot the month before she left,” Rhea said as she studied the destroyed book and the single page of the cipher key she had received. “I didn’t know she was doing this to it.”
Ivy paced around the living room as Rhea had answered every single one of their questions.
How Briar was a great roommate until about a month before finals, when she started leaving things everywhere, blasting music late at night, and lashing out at Rhea for no reason.
Or how Briar talked about Ivy so much Rhea felt like they were friends too.
And how Briar seemed to make friends with a few people in each of her classes.
Or more distinctly, how Briar disappeared outside of an exam. Rhea recalled seeing her after the last exam, then by the next morning she was gone.
“Did she party at all?” Maeve asked.
Rhea nodded. “Especially in the last month. She would go to the big Glamour parties, and some other students had in their apartments. Toward the end, it was as if she was doing anything she could to be around as many people as possible. She never wanted to be alone.”
The last part didn’t shock Ivy. Briar had always been the social butterfly. But what Rhea had said first stuck out. “The Glamour parties that are in Belarune?”
Rhea nodded.
Ivy peeked over at Ezra, who leaned against the counter in the kitchen. His face paled, and he stared at the ground, shaking his head.
“We should go to the next one,” Ivy said, turning back to the others.
“It’s on Halloween,” Maeve said. “We’ll have to wait almost the entire month. Until then, we should figure out how these letters are getting into the exam room.”
“I mentioned the possibility of an escape passage, but if there’s any other ideas…” Liam shrugged, eventually looking over at Ezra.
“It’s a good theory,” Ezra muttered. “We should be sure something like that exists before blindly searching for it, though.”
“He’s right,” Rhea said. “People get lost in the exams due to the magic. I was one of them last year. It was for a few hours, but it was like I was pulled into another exam, only without my team.”
“It happened to you?” Ivy asked, her eyes widening. “How?”
Rhea shrugged. “I got separated from my team. The exam was in a jungle, so it was easy to lose them. Next thing I know, I’m in a desert. When I found my way out of it, I was back in the same exam room, except nobody was there.”
“Maybe you were transported to a different room?” Liam asked.
Maeve pushed herself up from the chair, going to her bedroom to pull out her school orientation guide. She flattened the booklet out on the coffee table to show the map. “If there are different rooms and passages and everything, wouldn’t they be on a blueprint?”
“They should.” Ezra pushed himself away from the counter to look at the map. “If they want to keep these areas a secret, it wouldn’t be on just any blueprint.”
“I…have an idea, but I doubt anyone will like it,” Rhea chimed in. Silence settled in the room as they all stared at her expectantly. She cleared her throat and reached for the map. “If someone wanted to keep this away from prying eyes, who would have the power to do so?”
“The dean,” Ivy mumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose. She was already on Wren’s radar; could she really afford to risk this? Was there any other choice? Nope.
“Hold up,” Maeve scoffed, throwing her hands up in front of her chest. “You’re proposing we break into the dean’s office? Do you understand what kinda trouble we’ll be in if we get caught?”
“I work in the admissions office as an assistant,” Rhea said simply. “I’m familiar enough with her schedule and have clearance for after hours. There are ways to get you inside without having to go through the door.”
“It’s still risky,” Ezra pointed out.
Ivy turned her focus from the map over to him. “It’s the best option we have.”
“Fine,” he said, his jaw clenching once. “But having five people involved will probably attract too much attention. The fewer people we have doing this, the better.”
“Then the two of us go inside,” Ivy gestured between the two of them before looking at Rhea. “And you can get us in there and keep watch. Chances are low of us running into anyone if we go late enough.”
“How about this Sunday?” Rhea asked. “Around midnight? Campus should be pretty quiet.”
Ivy glanced at Ezra again. She didn’t want to decide alone. After all, he’d also risk his spot at the school if they were caught. But he merely nodded. “Sure.”
“That settles it,” she said, swallowing roughly. The weight of it sank to the bottom of her stomach. Sneaking into the dean’s office was breaking several rules. If they were caught, they would at best be put on academic suspension. At worst…expelled.