“It was going to happen anyway, pidge. We just struck the match.”
“And that means we’re responsible.”
“What were we supposed to do? Let Eddie and the other Elves be tortured and delivered to those concentration camps without trying to do something about it?”
I was wrecked with remorse for everything that had happened, but guilt was worthless. It wouldn’t stop this. We had to find a way to change what was happening out there while we were still locked up in here.
Kallie and Marcus entered almost immediately after my siblings left. If anything could ease the sadness in me from what we’d done, it was seeing their faces.
Marcus knelt by my bedside, while Kallie immediately embraced me. It wasn’t the tight hug I knew she would give, but a gentle touch, as if she was a mother wolf protecting me from the outside world.
“We’re so glad to see you, Ava,” Marcus said eagerly. “We really thought for a minute we’d be planning your funeral.”
Charlie sucked in a sharp breath, and Kallie socked Marcus on the side of the arm. “Ow! That hurt,” Marcus whined.
Kallie ignored him and said, “I’msoproud of you. You’re one tough bitch.”
“I guess the Great Spirit thought so too, because I came back,” I agreed. “I’m grateful we all made it.”
Rishi jumped up on the bed and lay beside me, purring loudly.
I stroked his fur. “Did you guys learn anything while I was out of it?”
“I did,” Charlie said. “Professor Takahashi came and spoke with me yesterday.”
“We shouldn’t be talking about this where people can overhear,” Marcus said nervously.
“I’ll put a silencing ward on the room,” Kallie said. “It won’t hold for long, so we should be quick.”
Kallie worked the spell. Once she was done, she said, “Okay, Charlie. What did you learn?”
“Takahashi has an idea of where we can start looking for the merfolk key,” Charlie began. “He thinks the key was stolen by an assassin, and that Kallie might be the way to figure out where she hid it.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Start from the beginning.”
Charlie went over everything Takahashi had told him, and Kallie was contemplative as he finished. “If this woman’s story is a treasure map to the merfolk key, and my origins are the way to discover who she was, then I’ll bet anything she had to be a fae. I can start researching fae assassins right away, so we can get on the right track. There has to be a legend among the Arcanea connecting one of our assassins to the Atlanteans.”
Charlie handed over the book of children’s tales to Marcus, who subconjured it immediately. Marcus conjured another book entirely, a small leather-bound journal with thick pages. “By the way, Ava, we stopped by your cell and grabbed your journal. We figured we should go over it again, since it’s been a while since we looked at it.”
Marcus laid the journal beside me and began turning pages for me to look at. “By the drawings and inscriptions your Aunt Maddie gave us, we can see that some of the events she predicted already occurred. The drawing of Forevermore symbolizes its downfall, which already happened, and the page of black inkhasto symbolize the Infernal Underground.”
Marcus turned to the middle of the journal. “Then there’s this, which Kallie and I realized already took place.”
“The drawing of the girl in the tunnel of light, and the phoenix on the following page,” I mumbled. I re-read the wordsAncestral Lands, anddestined meeting.Things started becoming clearer.
“My aunt must’ve known I would die and come back,” I said. “That’s what one of the lines of my prophecy means.She dances the line both dead and alive.”
“This journal is scary accurate,” Marcus said, and he shuddered.
“So what’s left?” Charlie asked. “What hasn’t happened yet?”
“Well, the Institute hasn’t yet caught fire, and there’s definitely confirmation in this journal that’s coming,” Kallie said. “What makes it scarier is, if this journal’s laid out in chronological order, that’s next.”
“Then we have the drawing of the Elven ships, the page of blood, the sketch of the half-man, half-woman, the crystal cave, and the Institute symbol,” Marcus said. “Along with a bunch of scribbles around all of them that don’t make much sense.”
My eyes narrowed as I contemplated the drawings. “Let me read my prophecy again.”
Marcus went back to the front of the journal, to the page with the prophecy’s wording. I read it aloud, looking for clues.
