Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I’m the second to last to arrive at the cafe. It was a given Leo and Aaron would be there, and Topaz and Rime were probably already on campus and came running as soon as they got the message. Only Avery is left to tumble in after me, breathless and excited.
“Where is it?” she demands. “Did it look just like my sketch?” She’s in black shorts, boots, and fishnets, and her hair is now blue.
From his seat beside Leo, Aaron answers, “They look exactly like your drawing.”
“They?”
“There’s three of them.”
“They’re cellar windows,” Leo says. “Just below ground level. It took us so long to find them because they’re behind some laurel bushes.”
“And they’re here, in the library?” I ask, flushing when he turns to look directly at me.
“Yeah.” He points over his shoulder. “West side. Where the meeting rooms and offices are.”
“We think that’s the side they’re on,” Aaron clarifies.
Understanding, I nod. The library is huge, old, and sprawling. And when you’re standing in the middle of it, like we are, it’s difficult to visualize where you are relative to the outside.
Avery frowns. “So they’re where students aren’t allowed to go.”
Rime puffs his chest and grins. “Good thing we’re not students.”
My eyes sweep over the three fae. “So is the plan for you all to go invisible and check it out?”
“No,” Leo says firmly. “We need the psychics.”
Topaz scowls. “Why?”
“Because even if we’re able to find the room that has the windows, I doubt the macguffin is just sitting there on a table, waiting to be taken. It could be hidden anywhere. Who knows what we’d have to dig through or move to find it. One psychic message could narrow the search area significantly.”
“Because Betts will feel it.” Aaron looks up at me with a smile. “Like a metal detector.”
Avery laughs. “Like the hot and cold game.”
The blank looks on the faces of the fae have me giggling despite my nerves. A metal detector, yes, but one that absorbs every vibration it picks up. Harness, I remind myself. Pull it in. Pull it in. Pull it in.
Dragging noisy chairs up to the small cafe table, we all sit and outline a plan.
First, find the west wing. The late afternoon sun and the compass on Aaron’s phone will help with that.
Then Avery, Aaron, and I will wait while the fae, with their invisibility, go ahead of us to scope out the area.
They’ll assess the space, the number of bystanders and gatekeepers, and the amount of locked doors we’ll need to get through.
After that, we’ll regroup to plan our next steps based on the information they provide.
Fortunately, it’s a Thursday evening, a big party night at Brownhill. Even though the library is open until nine, there’s hardly anyone here.
As we rise to leave the cafe, Leo approaches me, eyes warm, smile intimate. If Rime lectured him for last night’s indiscretions, he doesn’t seem particularly chastened.
“Are you ready?” he asks, sliding my ponytail through his fingers.
I nod, wanting to lean into him, kiss him, feel his arms around me.
“You can do this,” he says softly. “Just remember to dissociate, then harness.”
“I’ve been chanting that to myself since I got Aaron’s message.”
He squeezes my hand. “I’ll be beside you the whole time.”
We cross the lobby with the others and wind around carrels and tables.
In the audiobook section, Leo, Rime, and Topaz hide between the shelves, emerging a few seconds later, visible to no one but us.
Before they disappear around the corner, Leo signals for Avery, Aaron, and me to wait in the lounge area behind us.
As we flop into armchairs upholstered in waiting-room-geometric polyester, I tell Avery how much I like her blue hair.
“Try magenta next,” Aaron suggests.
“Or purple,” I say.
Avery smiles. “Blue would look good on you, too… Oh!” She sits up straight. “What was it you wanted to talk about yesterday?”
Yesterday? What was yesterday? It was jasmine and Leo, and Leo some more. And pizza with Liv, that was yesterday, too, I think.
“I just had some questions about hedge riding,” I say. “Nothing urgent.”
“By the way,” Aaron cuts in. “I think I already know the answer to this question, but does anyone else hear footsteps?”
I whip around, glancing between shelves and into every corner.
“No,” Avery answers. “Do you, Betts?”
“No, but—” In low tones, I tell them about my gaffe last night in the drugstore. “I can’t believe I looked right at her.”
“You’re human,” Avery reminds me. “You couldn’t help it. That’s why it’s called a reflex.”
I lean into the center space where all three pairs of our knees nearly meet. “Do you think they’ve been following me?”
Aaron whispers, “Well, if they’re here, they’re following all of us.”
“But we should be able to see them.”
“Not if they’re hiding behind bookshelves,” he says.
True.
I scan the area at least three times before I drag my ugly chair even closer and say as quietly as I can, “They can use sound shields.”
Avery’s chin nearly hits the floor, and Aaron’s eyes double in size.
I say to him, “I wonder if a sound shield would even work on you.”
Avery agrees, “I’ll bet it wouldn’t.”
I doubt it would, too. We all three go silent, straining to listen. Nothing. Even Aaron shakes his head.
“Does the shield work on them?” he asks.
“Um, um yeah, apparently.” I don’t explain how I know.
Too nervous to sit any longer, I rise and stretch.
“Betts—” Aaron hisses as I wander in the direction the fae went. “We’re supposed to wait.”
“I am waiting,” I whisper back. Waiting far enough away that if Brier’s team is after me, you and Avery are safe.
I do my best to look casual as I meander, peering through open doorways and around curated displays.
In the periodicals room, today’s newspapers sit neatly stacked on their shelves.
I pick up The Washington Post. It’s obvious from its crisp folds no one’s read it.
Same with the Wall Street Journal. Even USA Today.
Behind the magazine racks, a narrow, nondescript hallway stretches.
Peeking around the corner, I see a meeting room, complete with a large table and high-backed cushioned chairs.
It reminds me of the boardrooms you see in movies where a bunch of suits—and one or two token women—debate around the table, some underling taking notes on a whiteboard.
I’m about to head back the way I came when Rime emerges from a room at the end of the hall.
His voice is stern, “What are you doing, little psychic?”
“Um—” I cringe as Topaz draws up behind him. “Stretching my legs?”
Rime signals for me to turn around, his eyes hot on my back as he marches me all the way to Avery and Aaron. Once I’m obediently seated, he stays close by. Leo soon joins us, frowning at Rime standing guard beside me.
“We found exactly where the windows are,” Topaz announces.
“And the good news is, there’s nobody back there,” Rime says. “At least not that we could see.”
“Where?” Avery is already on her feet, ready to go.
“How do you know it’s where the windows are?” I ask. “Did you go down a floor?”
“No,” Leo answers. “I went back outside and found them, while they—” he points to Topaz and Rime, “— stayed inside and looked for me out the first-floor windows.”
Logical, but not very magical.
“Only one window lines up,” he adds. “It looks like the other two are under offices. But it’s enough to know we’re in the right area.”
“So what next?” Aaron asks.
Rime nudges me to my feet. “I take Betts there.”
“Nuh-uh.” I step out of his reach and nod at Avery and Aaron. “All three of us need to go.”
“I agree,” Leo says firmly.
Topaz rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Let’s just go.”
“By the way—” Avery turns sideways as we squeeze three-wide between the magazine racks. “Are you guys still invisible?”
Topaz replies, “Not anymore.”
Good to know. Because all this would look weird to the few people wandering around. Three people talking to the air.
At the hallway entrance, Aaron freezes. He shushes us and holds up a finger, staring at nothing as he struggles to listen in the high-ceilinged, echo-y space. “Someone’s following us.”
Topaz goes on high alert, and Rime stiffens, eyes darting every which way. She gets his attention with a smack on the arm and tells him, “I’ll go check it out.” Like a ninja, she sneaks back around the corner and vanishes into the periodicals room.
Leo takes the opportunity to cut between me and Rime, sticking by my side as we start down the hall, our shoes squeaking on the polished tile floor.
We pass two locked, numbered doors I assume are offices, then another door with a narrow vertical window through which I can see tables covered with folders and papers.
We’ve nearly reached the hallway’s end when Rime signals with a psst and points to his left. Our eyes follow his finger to a conference room, the one he emerged from to catch me skulking, and presumably the one above the wrought-iron windows.
I don my velvet protection cloak, expecting to be smacked in the face with energy, while Leo stays close, no doubt anticipating the same thing.
Everyone watches me as we enter the room.
I grip the back of a metal-legged chair and try to concentrate—dissociate, then harness—but I can’t with so many eyes on me.
I ask Aaron, “Do you hear anything?”
He shakes his head.
Avery answers my next question, “There’s not much in here to touch.”
Nothing old at least. A projector and a screen, four long tables, each with three chairs. Avery grazes her fingers along the sills of the three tall windows, taps on their ancient glass, and sighs. She’s not getting any messages.
“Betts?” Rime cuts harshly into the silence. “What are you picking up?”
“Something, but—” I don’t feel right or normal, but who can say why? Someone’s following us, Rime is acting like an ass, we’re in a restricted area of the library, and everyone is looking at me. Waiting.
Leo herds them all toward the door. “Give her a minute.”
Once they’re gone, I take a seat on the floor between two windows.
He lowers himself down next to me. “Take your time.”