A familiar voice made her head snap up as she thumbed through the microfilm catalogue in search of older articles that might be pertinent. Keiran was standing near the entrance of the archives, leaning casually against a shelf. He’d changed out of his rumpled clothes and now wore a navy sweater vest over a crisp shirt rolled around his elbows. She couldn’t see who he was speaking with, but she didn’t care. Determination thrummed in her veins. She slammed the metal drawer shut and strode toward him—only to stop short as Dean Fulton came into view, a grim expression on her face at whatever Keiran was saying.
Emory’s ears rang, her vision blurred, as if all the blood in her body suddenly rushed to her head. The gall of him—was he telling on her to the dean, when he’d mocked her just this morning for threatening to do the same to him?
No. No, he couldn’t be. He hadn’t seen her using other magics, not like she had him. She hadn’t even properly admitted to being able to do such a thing. She had the upper hand here—not him.
Dean Fulton handed him a small object Emory couldn’t see, though the way it caught the light had her thinking it was something metallic. The dean met her eye then, making Emory’s stomach drop. She muttered something to Keiran before coming her way, and Emory could only think that someone else knew her secret—someone who was very much a stickler for rules and could have very well decided to go to the dean.
Baz.
“Emory,” Fulton said, looking as put together as ever in a tweed suit, her salt-and-pepper hair trimmed close to her head. “I’ve been meaning to catch you.”
Here it was, Emory thought. She’d be taken away to the Institute to be interrogated by the Regulators, those in charge of policing the entirety of the magic world, enforcing its rules and meting out punishments. She’d receive the Unhallowed Seal before she could explain her twisted magic, because who in their right mind would believe this was all Dovermere’s fault? They would think, like Baz did, that she’d lied about her birth, hidden what she truly was.
Tidecaller. Tidethief. Eclipse.
“How are you holding up?” Fulton asked.
Emory shifted awkwardly. “Fine, thank you.” She braced for what was to come.
“I do hope this time away from Aldryn helped you recover from everything that happened last May. I admit I was worried you might not return at all after the summer holiday. It would have been a shame to lose such a hard-working student.” The dean eyed her over her thick glasses. “I’m told you tried to help Quince Travers last night.”
She was going to be sick.
But Fulton only placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It was admirable, what you did, trying to heal him like that. I hope you know his passing wasn’t your fault.”
Understanding was slow to settle on her mind. And then, all at once, she realized neither Keiran nor Baz had said anything at all.
Her secret was safe.
Relief flooded through her, instantly followed by a twinge of guilt at the phantom memory of the death she nearly gave Travers. She swallowed with difficulty to ask, “Do they know what caused his death?”
“The Institute’s Shadowguides and Unravelers are still looking into it, but it seems there was no stopping whatever strange magic afflicted him. You did everything a Healer could, Emory, especially in such a situation.”
“Thank you,” Emory said, too relieved to think of anything else, even as Lizaveta’s words rang in her head: A decent enough Healer, but nothing special. Could she have done more, stopped him from dying, had she been a better Healer?
The dean gave her a sad smile. “If you need anything, my door is always open.”
As she left, Emory looked at the spot where Keiran had been, but he was no longer there. She went back to her table. Atop the pile of newspapers she’d left chaotically spread out was a reel of microfilm that hadn’t been there before.
Emory frowned. She deftly picked it up and looked around at the now-empty archives. Keiran must have left it there while she spoke with Fulton. She didn’t question it as she went to the closest microfiche reader, fumbling around with the slots and wheels and film. She’d never had reason to use these things before, a fairly new invention that had been introduced at Trevelyan University, the most prestigious non-magic school in the world. She got the hang of it at last and pressed the buttons to move through the film.
It was an old Cadence Gazette issue dated eighty-some years ago. Emory quickly scanned articles about a brutal winter storm, food shortages due to a ship that capsized off the coast, a new store opening down the main road that she was fairly certain still stood today, and some kind of Solstice event the townsfolk had thrown together. She was beginning to think there was nothing here of interest when she came upon a column on Aldryn College’s clubs and organizations and, most interestingly, its elusive secret societies.
One name jumped out at her amid the rest, a name that perfectly matched the S.O. initials she’d been puzzling over.
The Selenic Order.
Her pulse quickened. The passage read:
Among the societies mentioned, the Selenic Order is perhaps the oldest and by far the most secretive. Little is known of it other than its name, whispered of between Aldryn’s students as being a sinister cult with a hand in peculiar magics and arcane rites. Indeed, the recent Dovermere drownings of students Giles Caine and Hellie de Vruyes, both of affluent families with a long history at Aldryn, have led some to believe they were recruited by the Selenic Order and killed in what might have been a ritual sacrifice or a failed initiation. The Dean of Students has denied such allegations, stating he is unaware of any such cult or otherwise illegal activities among Aldryn’s student organizations.
Certainty swelled in Emory’s chest. A secret society dealing in odd magics and rituals? This had to be what Romie and the others had died for. And that name… Giles Caine. Like Farran Caine. She wondered if other students had been asked to join this secret cult because of their family name rather than the merit of their grades.
Above all, though, she wondered why Keiran, who’d seemed so tight-lipped this morning, had left this out for her to find.
If it was a small kindness on his part, or a trap.
* * *
She went about the rest of her day pretending not to hear the broken pieces of conversation about Travers, but it seemed last night’s morbid scene was all anybody could talk about. And though none of them had seen Emory’s strange magic, thanks to Baz, and it would seem neither Baz nor Keiran had yet to spill her secret, she couldn’t help but feel terribly on edge.
That evening, as she pushed food around on her plate while the dining hall filled with students who kept glancing her way, Penelope approached her, food tray in hand.
“Mind if I join you?”
Emory motioned for her to sit, feeling strangely grateful for the girl’s presence. She figured people might not stare so much if she wasn’t alone. And she was right; they seemed to lose interest in her as Penelope chatted away about her summer vacationing on the southern coast. But when the subject turned to their classes and Penelope offered to lend Emory her old selenography notes and help her study for her makeup exam, Emory thought, somewhat irritably, that her pity might be worse than the whispers and the looks. Still, she smiled and said, “Thanks, Nel.”