Chapter XIII #2
They came upon a set of double doors, which swung forward to admit them.
Lights flared to life, and a fire sprang up in the hearth.
Crowded shelves stretched to the ceiling on all sides.
Vic felt suffocated at the thought of being back in the library.
But they were on another floor, several flights above the library, and this room was warm.
Max led her to a tufted sofa, and Vic’s legs shook as she sat. Max crouched in front of her, gray eyes boring into hers.
“You need to breathe, Victoria. You’re panicking. Which, while understandable, is not, at present, abundantly helpful.”
To her astonishment, Vic laughed. A reedy laugh that came more from surprise than mirth, but it disrupted the panicked rhythm of her breathing enough that she could speak.
“What—”
A pounding at the door made Vic jump. Her face swung toward the sound as Max called for someone to enter.
The doors parted before the words left Max’s mouth, and the Chief Sentinel swept into the room.
Xan wore the same black training clothes he always did.
In fact, he looked like he must have come from the training yard, despite the lateness of the hour.
His long hair was loose around his face, and stubble obscured his jawline.
The room shrank a degree as Xan crowded the space.
Vic was surprised he could enter the doorframe without ducking.
Max’s raven flew over his head to perch on the shelf behind Max’s desk.
Xan’s pale gaze swept over her body, anger taking root in his brow.
Vic rubbed a furious hand over her cheeks.
Just this afternoon Xan had told her she looked worn out, that she needed rest. She wondered what he thought of her now, crying and half-hysterical.
Vic hated that Xan bore witness to her weakness, that he could look at her and see and hear and feel how scared she was. The evidence was all over her face.
“What happened?” Xan asked, his voice low and serious.
His eyes looked like glass shards, sharp and unforgiving. Xan held Vic’s gaze as Max spoke.
“Thank you for coming so quickly. Victoria found a body in the library.”
That got his attention, and Xan’s expression grew dark. He took a long breath, still watching Vic’s face.
“Something has gotten inside the castle,” Max explained.
Xan nodded, as tense as a coiled spring.
He looked like a god of war, Vic thought.
Solemn and silent and fearless. She bet he wasn’t afraid of whatever he might find lurking in the stacks downstairs.
She should be scared of him, she knew. Anyone with that degree of power and control was worth fearing, but Vic found it strangely comforting.
Xan could find whatever killed the woman downstairs, and he could fight it, and kill it, and Vic could feel safe again.
“Search the castle. Secure the exits.”
But Xan hesitated. His frown grew more pronounced as he stood in the doorway, watching Vic.
“Yes?” Max asked.
Xan shook his head, then swept out of the room. The door sighed shut behind him.
Max returned his attention to Vic for a moment before he stood. He collected a glass of water from a bar on the side wall and handed it to Vic, who took it with shaking hands.
“You were about to speak when Alexandros came in,” Max reminded her.
Vic stared at the water in her palms. “I was going to ask what happened.”
“You tell me. What do you remember?”
“I went to the library this evening. I wanted to find out more about—” Vic cut herself off and looked into Max’s eyes.
He nodded for her to continue, and Vic hoped he wouldn’t be angry with her when she did.
“I had a dream last night that I was in the North Tower. Only I’ve never been to the North Tower.
A man there told me his name was Aren Mann. ”
A shadow fell over Max’s face. But he didn’t seem surprised to hear that either.
“He said that he was exiled from the Order. I can’t remember much else, but I remember that.” Vic shook her head. “I didn’t even know if he was real.”
She toyed with the cuts on her fingertips, rubbing them against her thumb as she kept them hidden in her lap.
“Where did you start?”
“I went to your archives.”
“A wise idea. What did you find?”
“You wrote that an Elder named Aren Mann left the Order and formed a competing faction. You called it an extremist group.”
“I did.”
Vic’s voice shook as she described the rest of her evening in the library.
“I’ve never seen a dead body before,” she said. “Not even at a funeral.”
“Nothing can get into my office, I promise,” Max said. “Even Alexandros can’t get inside unless I admit him.”
Vic wished Xan were there still.
It was a wild thought that came out of nowhere. Xan drove Vic nuts, ignored her most days and fought with her when he didn’t, and yet, when her hands shook with fear and exhaustion, Vic wanted him nearby. She would feel safe standing next to him, she knew. Vic almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
“What can you remember about the body?” Max asked.
“It was ripped open. Like something ate her from the inside out.”
Max frowned again. Vic waited for him to ask more questions, but he stayed quiet, mulling over her words.
After a long pause, Vic broke the silence. “What do you think did it?”
“You already know what did it.”
“No, I—”
“You do. Think about it.”
“I don’t know anything about monsters. I work in a restaurant.” She worked in a restaurant, Vic reminded herself. Now she spent her days learning magic she couldn’t practice.
“You’ve been working with the Sentinels; you’ve studied Orcans. Try to remember. Do any of the creatures you’ve learned about attack like this?”
Vic ran through her memory, trying to match details.
It was hard to mesh the horrible reality she’d seen with the dry descriptions of ink on paper.
Some creatures mauled their prey, but this was no ordinary mauling.
One variety of Orcan parasite made its home in victims’ stomachs and chewed its way out of their chests. But this was too big to be a parasite.
“Strix.”
“How do you know?”
“They’re giant birds, which explains why so many of the books fell from higher shelves. It would have to have been either very tall or flying. Flying makes more sense.”
“That’s not all,” Max prodded.
“Strixes disembowel their prey and eat their innards,” Vic said in a flat voice. In an odd way, sorting through the details helped calm her down, forced her to think rather than feel. “But how did it get into the castle?”
According to the account the Sentinels had gone over, strixes’ wingspans stretched as far as five meters. Vic couldn’t imagine one flying through the library door unnoticed.
“You know the answer to that one, too.”
Vic sifted through her memories again. “Window,” she decided. That was why it had been so cold in the library. One of the massive windows must have been left open or broken.
Max nodded again.
“But why?” Vic asked.
Max leaned back and watched Vic carefully before he spoke.
His gaze was so intense, Vic couldn’t stand it.
She focused on the wall behind him. Max had a library’s worth of books in his office, alongside the bar with its dazzling medley of liquids in cut crystal decanters, and Vic wished he’d offered her something stronger than water. She could use a drink.
“In your dream,” Max said, “did Aren Mann say anything to you about the Order?”
“Something about secrecy, and secrecy not making sense.” Vic shook her head. “He called the Elders hypocrites for practicing Orcan magic.”
Oh, god, Vic thought. She had done a spell with him, and the next day an Orcan got loose in the castle. Had Vic brought this about by practicing forbidden magic? How badly had she broken the rules?
“Orcan magic can be deployed to disastrous consequences,” Max said. “But there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. Good and evil are human concepts, and they give us no insight here.”
“Could someone accidentally summon an Orcan?” Vic asked. She edged her thumbnail into the cut on her index finger and pushed. Had her own foolish insistence on belonging here led to the death of an innocent woman?
“This was no accident,” Max said, his voice full of force. “Not only would the person responsible have to summon the creature, they would also have to break through dozens of very strong wards protecting the castle. No, this was premeditated. Likely planned months in advance.”
“Why?” Vic said. “Why would someone want her dead? What could she have done to them?”
Max sent Vic a pitying look and shrugged.
“It’s not about her. It’s not about anyone in particular, I’m sure.
This is our home,” he said, a sad sigh in his voice.
“The castle is the Order’s stronghold, our fortress, a symbol of our power and history.
What better way to undermine the Order than to set a monster loose within our own halls? ”
“She didn’t do anything wrong,” Vic said. “She was just there.” Vic remembered Xan’s warning—they don’t care about human casualties.
Max shook his head, looking older than ever. “She didn’t do anything wrong,” he repeated.
“So you think it was Aren Mann,” Vic whispered.
“I know that it was.”
The man in her dream. Charming and cavalier and wearing a mask of calm. Max thought he’d killed someone, an innocent woman just doing her job.
“Is this what the Brotherhood of Mann wants, then?” Vic asked. “To tear down the Order?”
Max ran a hand through his patchwork of black and gray hair. “The Brotherhood has no interest in preserving the Veil. They believe the Order has limited itself by focusing on balance. They use Orcan magic freely.”
If the Elders were to be believed, the free use of Orcan magic could lead to the unleashing of Orcan creatures upon the world en masse. It would be apocalyptic. Vic couldn’t imagine why anyone would advocate for that. Aren didn’t seem like someone who would burn the world to a crisp on a lark.
“What is the Order doing to stop them?”