JJ pushes me toward the bed, pacing in front of us, hands steepled like he’s trying to keep himself together.
“Birman, Rob, and I got into the chapel with a stolen Regent’s key. Used an emptied-out cleaning cart. The duplicate was already purchased by the university years ago for display. I knew where to find it in storage at Regents Hall…”
“And yes, I know what it’s worth. We needed it, though.”
I realize I’m holding my breath when Aaron elbows me, mouthing, “Relax.” Hard to do when I find out what other members of the House have been doing behind my back. What the hell does my girlfriend have to do with this other than a vague suggestion?
“And Biz?”
“You’re not going to like this,” JJ says, shaking his head.
“We had a hunch,” Aaron says, “because of some research Rob had done. In the past, when members of the House were having dreams, we were being ‘activated,’ so to speak, to do something.”
JJ cuts in. “We started piecing together what we were seeing in them.”
“But we needed to test a theory.”
“You’re speaking in riddles right now.” My voice rises. “What the fuck is going on?”
Aaron smirks, “Well, talking about riddles…”
“Not yet,” JJ says sharply.
Then he proceeds to tell me that they were able to tell from their dreams that the House has to protect a dark-haired woman named Elizabeth. She is connected toThe Divinities, but they aren’t sure how. Immediately, JJ thought of Biz, knowing her love of the painting. When she spotted that it wasn’t the real painting, it confirmed her connection for them.
“Wait… wait. How did you know she’d go back to look at it?”
“Come on, you know Biz. Of course she’d go back.” JJ rolls his eyes at me.
“So, this cipher you were talking about, is it linked toThe Divinities?”
JJ brightens while pulling a notebook from his nightstand. “Yes. This is what Aaron was talking about. It’s a poem, but it reads like a treasure map… or a riddle?”
“How many people know about this now?” For a group of people tasked with secrecy, this knowledge seems to be spreading more than I like. “Anyone outside the House?”
“Us, Rob, Birman… Biz may be figuring something out.”
My heart seizes. She’s the only one besides House members getting involved. A deep sense of doom settles in.
Not my Biz. Not the girl I love more than anyone.
He hands me the scrawled message decoded with the cipher. “The back side of the painting had symbols in all four corners.”
It reads:
Time, never ending, forces unseen
The Sentinels four, in font of green,
Likeness shrouded for protection, an echo from the past
Heed warnings, harken, don’t look back
Two steps from the angel on the mezzanine, coal black
Water runs pristine
Eight in the House will intervene.
