“I was actually looking for you,” Charlie stated.
“Me?” My heart got that stupid fluttery feeling again, and I hated it, so I quashed it. Like a bug.
“Yeah. I think I might have made some headway on the Infernal Underground.”
“Really? How?”
“Come with me.”
Charlie put a hand on Oberi’s back to lead him onward, and the unicorn ambled ahead. Oberi took us to the library, to a back corner that was practically deserted. Charlie skimmed his hand along the spines of books until he found one he recognized and opened it. Inside was a stack of papers. It looked like he’d tucked them away for safekeeping.
“Alistair and I found these news articles while we were looking for books that had braille,” Charlie said, and he handed the stack of papers to me. “Eddie noticed something strange about them, and read them aloud to us. I noticed one very peculiar thing about them.”
I scanned the papers he gave me. They were all articles from supernatural news agencies, twenty years old or more. Most of them were dated before I was even born. “These are just articles about the experiments, from when the school was shut down the first time,” I said.
“Exactly. We know the Infernal Underground is a group of people who experiments on inmates. The prison probably never stopped performing the experiments even after the Institute was caught. They just moved them to a secret location where the United Supernatural Union wouldn’t notice what they were doing.”
“But how does this help us?” I asked.
“Look at the articles again. They have one similarity.”
Oberi nudged my shoulder, telling me to reread. I wasn’t sure what I was searching for, until something clicked. “They say some sort of crystal was used to torture the inmates. But it’s barely mentioned— only a sentence or two per article about them, and it never lists the name.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t noxite, because it doesn’t have those properties,” Charlie said. “Whatever crystal that was used to torture these people is something different.”
I blinked. Charlie caught my silence and asked, “What is it?”
I bit my lip. “It’s nothing.”
“You wouldn’t be so quiet if it wasn’t.”
“It’s just…” I held a breath. “During the Hawkei Civil War, my Aunt Maddie was tortured by the Elders— one Elder specifically. His name was Elder Oleander. He wanted to control the tribe. She said he tortured her by using these strange crystals, to try and make her see visions. She never talks about it, but whenever shedidspeak of what happened to her, she always said those dark crystals Oleander used on her were odd. She’d never seen them before, and didn’t know what they were.”
“Do you think that she was under so much duress, she just mistook them for something uncommon?”
“My aunt is a skilled alchemist, like I am. She knows the properties of every magical substance, but she couldn’t place this one.” I tapped my chin. “What if the crystals used to torture my Aunt Maddie were the same ones used for the experiments at the prison, and the Institute was Oleander’s supplier?”
“I bet the Warden and Oleander were buddies. They sound like they’re cut from the same cloth,” Charlie said disdainfully. “I’m more certain than anything Oleander asked for these crystals, and the Warden gave them to him. The Warden would love to get info out of a prophet.”
“Do you think this crystal can only be found on Darke Island?”
“It has to be. Otherwise, it’d be all over the supernatural world by now, and these crystals aren’t mainstream.”
Oberi nickered, and I said, “So if we know what type of crystal it is that they use for the experiments…”
“It’ll bring us that much closer to the Underground,” Charlie finished. “Though finding out what the crystal is, or where one might be, could be complicated.”
“If we can get our hands on one of those crystals, I can examine it with alchemy, use a potion to dissolve it and figure out what’s in it,” I said quickly. “But…”
“But what?”
I gave a tense breath. “I bet the only one who has access to one of these things is the Warden. And we’d have to ask Marcus to find one in his office and steal it in order for me to test it.”
“That’s too risky,” Charlie immediately said. “The Warden will notice if a powerful object like that goes missing. If we’re caught, we’re screwed.”
“I know.” My shoulders slumped. “But wehaveto get our hands on one of these crystals somehow. It’s the only clue we’ve gotten so far about the Underground, and to be honest, I don’t think there are that many in the first place. The Warden is keeping this project tightly locked up. We’ve gotta take what we can get.”
Charlie took the papers from me and shoved them back in the book before putting it on the shelf. “We need to be careful. We know the Underground is looking for demigods. Which means whatever these crystals are, they have an effect on us. I’m gonna wager whatever those crystals can do to demigods, it’s not good.”
