Chapter 25 The Hunt is On
Gabriel’s visit had reaffirmed my purpose at Foresyth: solving Julian’s murder and understanding my father’s connection to the school.
I tucked my other motives, along with thoughts of Aspen and Sequoia, neatly behind a wall of guilt and set out on my next task.
Equipped with a compass, a flashlight, a bobby pin, and Julian’s coordinates, I began my search for the journal at quarter past midnight.
Tracing my steps back down to the seventh door along the hallway, picking the lock, and descending the rickety flight of stairs was easy enough. But keeping my breath steady and my heart from racing—that was harder.
I reached the revolving bookshelf after only tripping twice. Panic jolted through me when I realized I didn’t remember which book Aspen had pulled to trigger the passageway. I racked my brain. What had he said to me?
Hold on to your dictionary.
I had to jump to reach the Merriam-Webster, but my fingers finally caught it, and I pulled down the spine.
A few seconds of silence passed before I spotted the other one.
I rolled my eyes. Of course, that pretentious bastard had used the Oxford dictionary instead.
This one took a few more hops, but when I finally reached it, a mechanical click sounded, and I smiled in satisfaction.
My flashlight was less impressive than Aspen’s eternal flame, but it got the job done, and it sat snugly between my ear and my skull, bound by my curls, allowing me the freedom of both hands.
I took out my notepad and reviewed the rough map I’d sketched earlier.
That, along with my compass, put me within twenty degrees north of the coordinates.
I was only a few turns from Aspen’s workshop when my compass started spinning wildly, as if I’d entered a magnetic anomaly.
I was facing a barricaded doorway. I took a step back, and my compass returned to normal.
Very strange.
I examined the doorway more closely, noticing a faint layer of dust. Iron filings.
This magnetic anomaly wasn’t natural; it was fabricated.
Someone knew what was down here and didn’t want anyone else to find it.
I cursed under my breath, ready to turn back.
But then, as if the House was sanctioning my quest, the barricaded door creaked open.
Old magick.
Had the door sensed my touch somehow? A ridiculous hypothesis, but I’d seen stranger things at Foresyth. It was then that I recalled something Julian wrote in his journal, something about the House itself being alive. I had taken it as a metaphor, but what if it extended beyond that?
I entered the room, bracing myself for whatever lay beyond. A wave of energy crested over me as I stepped through. This place felt familiar. Nothing about a barricaded room in an underground tunnel should feel familiar, yet somehow it was both unsettling and oddly welcoming.
You’ve come.
I swiveled my head, looking back at the entrance. I could’ve sworn I heard a voice, but there was no one. Lodging a thick stone between the door and its frame, I ensured I wouldn’t get trapped. Then, I turned my attention to the room.
It was a sparsely decorated study, with a large oak desk in the center and cabinets scattered around the walls.
A lone, moth-eaten chaise sat in the far-left corner, its fabric thinned with age.
I began a methodical search, starting on the left side and moving clockwise.
For locked cabinets, I used the back of a pocket screwdriver to break the hinges.
Whoever used this office hadn’t been here in ages; they wouldn’t miss the furniture.
I was sweating by the time I’d upturned every cabinet, shelf, and book in the Godforsaken office.
I couldn’t believe it wasn’t here; the coordinates had led me directly to this room.
I checked my compass again to see the needle now spinning erratically.
I cursed and returned the useless compass to my bag.
Whatever magnetic anomaly coated the door must’ve been to blame.
Heading back out to the tunnels, I spotted peeling wallpaper behind one of the cabinets I’d moved.
I went back and tore away more paper until it ripped in tiger stripes across the wall, revealing the image of a tree and markings speckling its trunk.
Tracing my fingers over the symbols, I recognized them—the runic alphabet.
This was a replica of the tree in the sitting room, except the bark had been stripped to reveal the runes etched beneath.
The Universal Truths beneath material form. I eagerly pulled out my notepad to copy down the drawing when I heard a sound. At first, I thought it was my own heart, pounding in my chest, but then I heard it again.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart froze. There was a strange, jagged sound coming from outside the room.
I stayed as still as I could, but my heartbeat betrayed me, growing louder as the noise approached.
Weighing my options, I calculated a sixty-seven percent chance I could outrun it, given the three-second intervals of its steps and the length of its stride.
I didn’t like the odds, but the calculation was flawed anyway.
I made a run for it.
I jostled the stone holding the door open and dashed in the opposite direction of the noise.
I spared a glance back, regretting it immediately.
I didn’t pause to rationalize what I saw: a creature with the head of a bird and the body of a bear, its eyes green and wild with a rage against its own foul existence.
I ran faster than my lungs could handle, ignoring the pulsing pain in my right ankle.
Fear rose with the bile in my throat, and I stopped, sparing a few precious seconds to consult my map.
I looked down, cursing again. I was far from any mapped areas—in unknown territory.
The creature let out a mangled screech, making the hairs on my arms stand up.
I charged further down the tunnel, utterly blind to my direction.
Without a map or compass, I was done for.
In my haste, I tripped over something long and jagged—a tree root.
I looked up and around, realizing the tunnel was tangled with viny roots.
The House . . . it is alive.
The sound grew louder. I jumped to my feet and sprinted, only to slam into a locked door at the end of the tunnel.
With no escape and the creature’s screech closing in, I unhooked the dagger strapped to my ankle.
If there was no way out, I’d have to fight.
I took a deep breath, cursing myself again for not having a better map.
“What are you doing here?” a voice squeaked behind me, half horror, half surprise.
I spun around, ready to face a new threat. But two shining eyes stared back, and relief flooded me.
“Nina!” I gasped. “There’s something out there. We have to get out of here.”
“I know,” she replied, her voice tinged with frustration. “It’s this way.” She turned and started down the tunnel—toward the creature.
“We can’t go that way,” I protested, but she’d already disappeared into the darkness.
The only way out is through, my father’s voice echoed in my mind.
I started after her. The thumping grew so loud it overtook all my senses, the creature’s agonized wail sending tremors through my body. I could feel its pain, visceral and consuming.
Nina’s hair bobbed ahead, a beacon in the darkness.
The creature was only a few yards away now, its phosphorescent green eyes hollow and soulless.
As we crept closer, I realized it was blind—it couldn’t see us.
We slipped by, and Nina made a sharp turn to the right.
I followed, barely missing the creature’s crackling beak as it struck the tunnel wall.
After a few more strides, when the monster’s footsteps faded, I turned to Nina.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded.
She rolled her eyes. “Griffract. Best to avoid them. If their beaks don’t get you, their claws will.”
“I gathered as much. I mean, where did it come from?”
“There’s a lot of . . . reject magick down here,” she said, giving me a hard look. “You shouldn’t be wandering alone, especially at night.”
“I could say the same for you,” I said, watching her closely. “What were you doing down here?”
“I could ask you the same,” she replied, raising an eyebrow. “I was looking for mugwort. It grows underground. Now your turn.” Her eyes narrowed, expectant.
“I’m . . . looking for something too. Someone sent me down here,” I admitted. I hated to concede it, but Aspen was right. It was foolish to trust anyone here, even friends.
“Were they trying to get you killed?”
“I don’t think so, but a warning would’ve been nice.”
“Well, here’s your warning: this place is crawling with failed magick. Don’t wander here alone,” she said, her tone unusually harsh.
But what was Nina doing down here, alone? Suspicion rippled through me and a sour taste coated my tongue.
“Fine, I’ll make a date out of it next time,” I lied.
We continued down the tunnel, and a familiar green door soon appeared.
“You’re lucky I was here,” Nina said, her pixie-like smile resurfacing as she flipped the latch and slipped through the doorframe, holding it open for me with a lightness that seemed almost careless after what we’d just been through.
“Thanks,” I replied, and I meant it. If it hadn’t been for Nina, I don’t know if I would be leaving unscathed. My gratitude lingered like an unspoken debt between us.
The lab’s sharp, chemical scent—a pungent cloud of formaldehyde that somehow felt comforting—enveloped us as we re-entered. The relief was so visceral that my chest loosened; I hadn’t realized how tense I’d been until I was here, back in the world of the familiar.
I drifted to my workstation, letting my fingers brush over the cold brass of my instruments, their silence a welcome response.
I could almost fool myself into thinking that nothing had changed—that I could simply return to the rhythm of work, the whirr of machines, the bite of chemicals in the air.
But as I turned to leave, reality came crashing back with the weight of a half-dozen questions.
What was that thing out there? Radiation poisoning? A genetic anomaly? I kept trying to offer myself some rational explanation, but the truth felt slippery, the familiar logic I’d clung to unraveling into bare threads.
It was magick. Unmistakable, powerful, mind-shattering, magick. It almost felt good to give into the admission. My mind could rest now that it had found an explanation for the inexplicable, and my body could just take action. I started up the steps.
“Where are you going?” Nina’s voice caught me, the note of hurt unmistakable.
Maybe she’d expected me to stay, to linger in this pocket of safety with her.
Maybe she needed the company more than I realized.
But I couldn’t afford to stay here, not now.
I had too many questions clawing for answers, too many mysteries snapping at my heels.
“To find the Mapmaker,” I called over my shoulder, already halfway up the stairs.