42. Escalation #2
“The problem is, I believe that someone here, someone in this academy, was listening in on our conversation.” He raised a lamp up into the air, the thing that Aeden couldn’t see clearly before.
“Now, I am certain someone was eavesdropping, and I just want to have a conversation about what they may have heard. I asked the Master of the Library if he had any clue as to who may have been using this lantern, and unfortunately, his memory seems to have slipped. I’m going have another talk with him, but in the meantime, I am calling on whoever this person is to do the right thing and come and speak to us.
Otherwise . . .” He turned his head to his side and grinned.
“Our master will be most displeased, and that will not end well for anyone in the academy. If you know who our mystery spy is, then I suggest you turn them over to us. Every day longer it takes, it’ll only get worse.
Rosheen and I will be visiting every single class, to look every single student and faculty member in the eye, until we find this person.
Trust me when I say, we will find you.” Orion chuckled to himself and turned to leave, quickly disappearing back inside .
“Shit, shit, shit,” Aeden said as the courtyard turned into a gossip pit. “What do I do?” It was only a matter of time before they found him. What did they mean by making everyone at the academy pay?
“What do we do now?” Harrison said.
Noise erupted in the courtyard as all the other students that were present started asking and accusing each other of whether it was them that the Sable twins were talking about.
“We need to get to Lyric,” Aeden said.
The four of them reached the hatchery as soon as physically possible. Lyric was on his hands and knees cleaning out the furnace when they entered through the main door in a panicked state.
“Lyric, we need to talk,” Aeden said, his breathing heavy. Serene, Vivienne, and Harrison were right behind him.
“What has gone on?” Lyric asked, his face covered in black soot. He raised his goggles to reveal two perfectly white patches around his eyes. “What’s got you all fired up like this?”
“Is Nyra okay?” Aeden asked.
She was still sound asleep next to him in her pen. The day’s events had clearly taken it out of her, and he understood why.
“The Sable twins,” Aeden said, and he set about explaining everything that had gone on since he left for the archives and what he had overheard. He even confessed to finding the index with the missing battle report. That in itself felt like a huge burden had been lifted from his chest.
“And you’ve been holding on to this for all this time?
” Lyric asked. He was holding a dirtied towel that he had used to wipe his face, though all he had managed to do was smear the soot even more.
“Trust me when I tell you that the Sable twins are bad news. I know I warned you about the Conclave, about the risk they pose to Nyra, but those two – they’re something far worse.
I was hoping they would’ve left by now, but it’s clear they’re searching for something and will not leave until they have it. ”
“It’s a bloodline, they said they’re in search of a bloodline,” Aeden explained. “I have to leave, I can’t stay here with Nyra, not while they’re here. As soon as they see her wings, they’ll . . .” He trailed off, unable to bring himself to finish the thought.
Lyric had a sombre look about him. “Then we’ll have to make sure that when they come and finally see her, they don’t notice her wings.
In the meantime, Aeden, please do not go getting yourself in any more situations.
I don’t know how many more times I need to warn you before you will bloody listen.
It’s as if you’re on a one-man mission to get yourself killed.
” Lyric raised his hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Honestly, lad, you’ll quite literally be the death of me.
As for the rest of you, you need to promise you’ll do everything to keep him out of trouble, at least until the Sable twins have left. ”
“What are you going to do?” Serene asked.
“Everything in my power to keep that bonny Aer-Kin of yours alive and out of their line of sight. As for the other stuff, the Battle of Weir, your parents . . . You need to let go of that for now, or it’s going to eat you alive.”
For Aeden, it wasn’t as easy as that, but he understood where Lyric was coming from. Right now he needed to be focused on keeping the Sable twins’ attention from himself.
“What do we do if they find out about Nyra? Find out about me? What about the director? Won’t she tell them about Nyra? I’m surprised she hasn’t already.” Aeden’s mind was in freefall, he was catastrophising everything, and for good reason, too.
“Trust me when I say, if the director had already told them, Nyra and yourself would already be dead,” Lyric said.
“There are a lot of politics at play here, Aeden, a lot of things you don’t understand, that none of you understand.
But you will in time, I promise you that.
Now leave, head back to your bunkhouse. Aeden, if you can try and get back to stay with the others, there is safety in numbers. ”
“His bed is still free, so it should be easy enough for you to stay with us tonight,” Vivienne said. “We’ll handle the transfer request tomorrow.”
“In the meantime, let’s hope and pray that we can keep those blasted twins off Nyra’s tail.
The last thing we want is either of them catching her scent.
Even more so with the circumstances of how you came to bond with her.
” Lyric stopped in his tracks. “I have an idea, one that will keep you away for the day and will give me time to work on making Nyra’s wings less obvious than they are now. ”
“What do you mean?” Aeden said. “What are you going to do with her?”
“Leave that with me,” he said. “For now, I need you to head into the forest as soon as dawn breaks tomorrow. I’ll cover for your absences from class, for all four of you.
I need you to head to the cave where you found Nyra and bring me back fragments of her egg.
I know we spoke about us both going, but we still need to identify her breed.
Finding her egg might help me. There may be patterns on it that I can trace. ”
“Sounds like an excursion,” Harrison said. “Count us in.”