“Memories?”
“I was a student here myself, once upon a time,” Aven told her.
That helped Alex feel more comfortable. He wasn’t the intruder then, at least. Alumni were welcome at Akarnae, or so Fletcher had told the other man in the Med Ward, which meant Aven must not have been the reason for the Lockdown.
“When did you graduate?” she asked, her curiosity taking over.
“It feels like forever ago,” he answered, a smile curling the corner of his mouth.
That was an odd answer considering his relatively young age, but he didn’t notice her questioning glance since he was looking around the campus.
“Tell me, Alexandra, is Headmaster Marselle in residence at present?”
Her internal alarm bells started ringing and she looked at him suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”
Aven’s golden eyes blazed with suppressed emotion until he blinked, leaving her to wonder if she’d only imagined the fire in them.
“We’ve not caught up for a while,” he said. “I merely wish to pay my respects.”
It seemed like a normal enough answer to Alex. Figuring there was no harm in telling him, she said, “Then I’m sorry, but the headmaster is away at the moment. We’re not sure when to expect him back.”
Something unidentifiable flickered in his piercing gaze but it was gone before she could process it. Presuming it was disappointment, Alex hurried on to say, “Administrator Jarvis is here. I’m sure he would be happy to greet a former student.”
“No doubt you are correct,” Aven agreed, “but perhaps another time.”
She opened her mouth to argue but was distracted when his mesmerising eyes caught hers. He spoke again before she managed to form any words. “Are you enjoying your stay here?”
She blinked, but still she was trapped in his gaze. “I—uh—huh?”
He moved closer, stepping deliberately into her personal space. “Have you discovered your power yet?”
“Do you mean my gift?”
Aven shook his head. “Not your gifting, I couldn’t care less about whatever insignificant ability you possess. I’m speaking of the power you wield. Has it yet been confirmed? Have you learned how to control it?”
Okay, what? Alex had no idea what he was talking about, and from the near-fanatical look in his eyes, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. What she did want was to get away. Especially because she was finding it difficult not to answer him. It was almost like she desperately wanted—no, she needed—to please him. Like it was out of her control. It was different to how she’d felt when Bear had used his gift on her, but she still wondered if Aven was attempting to manipulate her in some way.
He raised an eyebrow, prompting her to answer. Despite her battling thoughts, she couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were blazing again, like molten gold.
“I—” she started, not able to keep her mouth shut any longer. But before she could say anything, she was interrupted.
“Jennings! What are you doing out here? The meeting starts in five minutes!”
Alex tore her eyes away from Aven and looked up the path to see her roommate standing there, hands on her hips.
“Well?” D.C. called. “What are you waiting for? If you’re late they’ll blame me for not getting you, so hurry up!”
Alex sighed and waved in acknowledgement.
By the time she turned around again, Aven was gone.
Later that night, Alex collapsed onto Jordan’s bed after telling him and Bear about the events of her afternoon. The three of them had retreated to the boys’ dorm straight after the assembly where Jarvis had assured the students that there was nothing for them to worry about as the Lockdown had been merely a precaution. A precaution for what, he hadn’t said. And despite his reassurances, Alex had noticed his pale complexion even from the back of the room.
“Let me get this straight,” Jordan said. “You ran into the same strange guy that you first met when you arrived here, talked with him for a while, and then watched as he disappeared before your very eyes?”
Alex shook her head. “I didn’t see him disappear. He was just gone when I turned back around.”
“Right,” Jordan said, sounding sceptical.
“Is that so hard to believe?” she asked. “And anyway, his disappearing act wasn’t the important part of the story. It’s obvious he must have opened a Bubbledoor. The more important questions are, who is he and what was he doing here? And why is he so interested in me?”
“Come on, Alex, any guy with eyes would be interested in you,” Bear said, scooping up a handful of popcorn that they’d taken from the Rec Room earlier.
She choked out a startled laugh. “Excuse me?”
“Bear’s right,” Jordan agreed. “He’d have to be blind not to be interested.”
Alex felt strangely uncomfortable at the turn in the conversation and had trouble making eye contact with either of her friends. Did they think about her like that? That would be so awkward.
“Chill out, Alex,” Jordan said, nudging her with his elbow. His amusement showed all over his face when he said, “I never took you for someone who would get embarrassed so easily.”
“You know we think of you like a sister, Alex,” Bear said, also clearly amused. “You better not get all weird around us just because we can agree that you’re—”
“Okay, this conversation is so moving along now,” Alex interrupted, feeling heat blossom across her cheeks. “We were talking about Aven, remember?”
Jordan nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. And there’s something you need to know about his ‘disappearing act’.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t just use any old Bubbledoor to enter or leave the academy grounds,” Jordan said. “It has to have been authorised by a senior faculty member in order to get through the wards. This Aven guy couldn’t have Bubbled away without a regulated, legitimate Bubbledoor.”
“Plus, Jarvis told us that until they know what caused the Lockdown, academy security has been increased and the wards won’t allow anyone to enter or leave the grounds without a faculty member,” Bear added. “Not until our holiday break in two weeks.”
“Just a precaution,” Jordan said, mimicking Jarvis. His tone emphasised just how unnecessary he thought the idea was.
Alex, however, was unsure. The more she thought about Aven, the more apprehensive she became. Uneasiness churned in her stomach and she wondered if she should let Jarvis or one of the other teachers know about his visit. But if he really was who he said he was, then there was nothing to report. So, she had to figure out if he was telling the truth first.
“Okay. Let’s work on what we can verify before we try to figure out the rest,” she said, redirecting the conversation. “We need to confirm his identity.”
“Did D.C. recognise him?” Bear asked.
Alex hesitated, wishing he’d asked a different question. After Aven had disappeared, Alex had asked D.C. if she’d seen him vanish, but the other girl had looked at her as if she was insane and claimed that there hadn’t been anyone else with Alex. Then, in true D.C. fashion, she’d stormed away while mumbling about Alex being a complete wacko.
“Uh… no,” Alex said, choosing not to share D.C.’s opinion. “She didn’t recognise him.”
“But he claimed to be alumni, right?” Jordan said. “So we can just look him up in the Archives. Every student who ever attended Akarnae is listed.”
Alex jumped to her feet. “Great! Let’s go!”
“Not so fast,” Jordan said, pulling Alex back onto the bed. “It’s already past curfew. We won’t be going anywhere tonight.”
Alex looked out the window into the dark and realised it was later than she’d thought.
Jordan must have noticed the disappointed look on her face, because he threw an arm over her shoulders and said, “First chance tomorrow we’ll go and have a look at the Archives. Promise.”
Stifling an unexpected yawn, Alex nodded. “It’s been
a long day. I should get to bed.”
After saying goodnight to her friends, Alex headed up to her room, thankful that D.C. was nowhere to be seen. The last thing she wanted after the day she’d had was to deal with her hostile roommate.
She changed into her pyjamas and swallowed the medicine in the vials as per Fletcher’s instructions, before pulling back her blankets and sliding into bed.
Despite her exhaustion, she was excited about visiting the mysterious Archives. What little she’d heard about the place intrigued her, especially since she knew they could only be reached through the library—which was another place that had fascinated Alex ever since her first visit with Jordan during her second week at the academy.
Like everything else in Medora, the library was far from what she’d call ‘normal’. For one thing, it was located underground. Beneath the Tower, to be precise, which at least offered an explanation for the descending staircase in the medieval building.
The stairs led down to a foyer of sorts; a vast room that spread much further than should have been possible, lit with flaming torches and a huge chandelier which hung from the centre of the space. Paintings and tapestries decorated the walls, showing notable events, people and places from the course of Medoran history. The strange thing was, those paintings and tapestries changed at randomly timed intervals, which Jordan had claimed was because there was too much history to show for the artwork to remain stationary.
To Alex, it had been one of the weirdest things she’d ever seen. She’d been transfixed until Jordan had pulled her into the centre of the room to meet the librarian, a strange little man with mousey hair like a ball of fuzz on the top of his head and spectacles so thick with glass that his eyes goggled owlishly from behind them.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Miss Jennings,” the man had said to her. “I expected you much sooner than this, thinking you would be teeming with questions about your world and ours.”
Alex had gaped at him. “How do you know who I am?” she’d asked. “And where I’m from?”
He’d blinked at her with his enormous eyes. “I’m the librarian. It’s my job to know.”
Offering no further answers, he had pulled out a stumpy little cane and led them—at a hobbling pace—to yet another set of stone stairs which spiralled downwards once again. They had opened at the bottom to a massive room, packed full of cascading books.
After showing Alex how to use the touch-screen technology to navigate the library’s maze-like layout, the librarian had started to walk away, but Jordan had stopped him, claiming he hadn’t told Alex about the full extent of the library.
The librarian had looked at Jordan with narrowed eyes for a moment before he’d murmured, “I suppose she of all people should know.” He’d then caught Alex’s confused gaze and explained, “Legend claims that the library spans over many levels, that it goes deeper than you could possibly fathom, and that each level holds more information than you could ever imagine.”
Alex had glanced back at the staircase which had led them into to the cavern-like library room, then she had turned to look at Jordan and the librarian quizzically. “But the staircase ends here. It doesn’t go any further.”
The librarian’s owlish eyes had remained locked on hers, but he’d only shrugged dismissively. “Like I said, it’s only a legend.”
Jordan’s response had been to roll his eyes and say, “You don’t always use a staircase to get to the lower levels. I’ll show you some time.”
And that was all either of them had said on the matter.
Since that day, Alex had frequented the library a number of times each week for study purposes, but she’d yet to venture any further than the main book level. That was all about to change with Jordan’s promise of visiting the Archives.
Because the Archives, Alex knew, weren’t on the main level.
Fourteen
Alex had to wait until classes finished the next afternoon before she could visit the Archives. Unfortunately, she and her friends hadn’t been very discreet about their plans, and Mel and Connor had overheard them talking at lunch. The cousins had invited themselves along, claiming they knew a short-cut—whatever that meant.
When they finally entered the library, Alex wished she’d found a way to dissuade Mel and Connor from joining them, since they hadn’t stopped squabbling with each other and she was starting to get a headache.
“Hurry up, would you!”
“I can’t move any faster than this!”
“Then you shouldn’t have come!”
“Ha! Like you would even know where to go without me!”
“What are you talking about? I found this place first!”
“No you didn’t! I showed you how to get in!”
Alex sighed and rubbed her temples when they stopped for the fifth time.
“You guys need to keep your voices down if you don’t want to get us caught,” Jordan said. Despite his cautious words, he was leaning haphazardly against a bookshelf, not caring that he was disobeying rules himself by eating a pastry he’d managed to sneak past the librarian’s keen gaze.
“What’s the problem anyway?” Bear asked, stealing the pastry from Jordan and tearing off half of it, handing the rest back. He graciously divided his own portion to share with Alex who smiled at him in gratitude.
As she chewed on the apple and custard goodness, she was able to tune out the incessant arguing that started up again with Bear’s question. But it only took a few bites before the pastry was all gone and she was once again aware of the bickering.
“If you hadn’t forgotten how to—”
“Me! It was you who said that you’d—”
“Don’t blame me for this! I’m the one who—”
They were wasting too much time and drawing too much attention. Alex still wanted to get back to the food court for a quick dinner once they were done, so she decided to intervene.
“Enough!” she said, in a not-so-quiet library voice. She immediately lowered her tone, realising that a few students had stopped what they were doing to stare at them. “Remind me again why we’re all here?”
Mel blinked at her. “To visit the Archives. Remember?”
Alex felt the remainder of her patience begin to dissolve. “Not why we’re here, but why we’re all here. I only need one person to show me how to get down there.”
The others all looked at each other before turning to eye the pastry Jordan was still eating. Like clockwork, every one of their stomachs growled as they realised they could bail on Alex and go eat a proper dinner.
All at once, they began to make their excuses.
“I’ve just remembered—”
“I told Fitzy I’d—”
“I’m supposed to be meeting—”
The only person who failed to come up with something fast enough was Jordan, who was unable to speak since he’d just taken the last bite of his food when they’d all decided to abandon Alex. He swallowed the considerable mouthful with a grimace and said, quite unconvincingly, “Um, I think I can hear someone calling my name?”
Alex grabbed his arm, leading him forward. “Come on, Sparkie. Just show me where to go and you can leave me there.”
He grumbled something about how unfair his life was and pulled her in the opposite direction. “This way.”
She followed him around a number of shelves, twisting and turning through numerous aisles, before he finally came to a stop. They waited in silence for a few minutes, and the quiet was so uncharacteristic of Jordan that Alex began to worry he was annoyed at having to stay back with her. When she finally looked up at him, she didn’t find the frustrated expression she expected. On the contrary, it seemed like he was fighting a grin.
“What—?” She jumped and only just managed to bite her tongue on a squeal when a hand came to rest on her shoulder a second before Bear stepped into view.
“Took you long enough, mate!” Jordan said, laughing at Alex’s shock.
“I had to make sure t
hey didn’t follow me,” Bear explained. “I actually had to go with them to the food court before doubling back.”
“What are you doing here?” Alex asked, confused by his presence.
Bear looked at Jordan. “You didn’t tell her?”
Jordan laughed again. “Nah. I was having too much fun watching her worry about whether I was mad at her for missing dinner.”
Alex’s mouth dropped. “I was not!”
“Yes, you were,” Jordan said. “You’re so easy to read. You’d think by now you’d be used to the idea that we actually enjoy your company.” He looked at her with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. Then, in a brotherly gesture, he pulled her in for a rough hug. When he let her go he reached a hand upwards and messed with her hair.
Both her friends laughed at her indignant expression, which was highly ineffective since she now looked as if she’d just fallen out of bed.
“Ha ha ha,” she drawled. Annoyed as she was, she still couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“You weren’t actually worried, were you?” Bear asked seriously. “About us not wanting to hang out with you?”
The thought had crossed her mind, but she only shrugged, feeling embarrassed.
“You should talk to us about that stuff, you know,” he told her. “We’re guys, so you have to clue us in from time to time.”
Jordan nodded his head in agreement. Alex didn’t think she’d ever seen either of them so serious before.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
Jordan reached out to tilt her head up, so she had no choice but to make eye contact. “Promise you’ll talk to us whenever you’re worried about something? No matter how big or small you think the problem is?”
“I promise,” she said, looking at them both.
“Good.” He released her chin. “That’s what friends are for.”
“They’re also good for sneaking into secret levels of the library,” Bear said to lighten the mood. “We only have a couple of hours left before curfew, so we should get moving.”