The walls pushed against them. The group huddled together at the center of the room, the space around them nearly nonexistent now.
“We’re going to be crushed!” Catherine snapped. “Goddammit, Olivier! Just tell the fucking truth!”
“Fine,” Olivier whispered. He closed his eyes, wincing. “Fine!I’m…I’m afraid of the fact that I only have a few days left, okay?!” The words tumbled out of him before he could second-guess himself. But he kept his eyes shut, unwilling to face Emilio as he spoke the truth out loud. “That my memories have gotten worse since we left the base and that…that in a few days…the Forgetting will consume me and I’ll lose Emilio forever!”
All at once…the room stopped moving.
When Olivier opened his eyes, the walls had somehow shifted back to their original positions, as if they hadn’t been moments away from crushing the group. As if the room had never moved at all.
The door in front of them groaned open.
Olivier felt Emilio’s presence behind him. The searing heat of his stare. But he kept his gaze forward as they entered the new room, terrified to turn back and face the consequences of his actions.
Luckily, what they found on the other side of the door provided enough of a distraction to delay that inevitability. Because floating right at the center of the final room, surrounded by a shimmering deep indigo light, was the second key.
21
WREN
A twisted part of Wren had missed this—the delicate scrape of parchment, the rhythmic tapping of fountain pens against hardwood, the hallowed silence reverberating throughout the tent like a sacred psalm. In a classroom, Wren felt indestructible. Like the power had slithered its way back into her grasp. Here, familiarity snuffed out the stubborn traces of fear, igniting the dormant conviction inside her.
There was, of course, one infinitesimal flaw.
One that was nearly impossible to ignore.
This wasn’t a Blackwood Academy classroom.
There were no serpentine threads of ivy to be seen. No arched rose-tinted windows giving way to mist-stippled hills and ornate Gothic structures. Instead, Wren found herself surrounded by the inky walls of a tent, bathed in harsh orange light, the ochre hue emanating from flickering brass lanterns. Around her, Demiens took notes. It seemed almost comical—a bunch of soulless vipers hell-bent on destroying the afterlife, and here they were, scribbling in their journals, noses stuffed in textbooks.
Quinn and Arthur had awoken Wren and dragged her to their first mandatory instruction of the morning—history class. Or, more specifically, where Demiens learned about the prophecy.
Where they learned about Wren.
On the walk over, Wren was certain the pair would bring up her late-night escapade. That they’d somehow read the betrayal written on her face. But neither one of them gave any indication that they knew about Wren’s trip into Onyx Unit, nor did they seem to have knowledge of the strange lock of hair and the note left behind in her tent.
“Can you stop that?” hissed Quinn, pulling Wren’s attention back to the present. The pink-haired girl was seated next to Wren, with Arthur on the other side of her. Wren had been absentmindedly spinning her pen in circles, watching as the black fountain pen blurred into a shapeless vortex of darkness.
“I’m bored,” Wren muttered back.
“You know how to read, right?” Quinn shoved the textbook toward Wren. “Thenread.”
Arthur let out a snort, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.
Wren stared down at the book with a grimace of disgust. The Demien Order sigil was carved into the leather cover, an array of symbols and shapes surrounding it. She might have been craving the familiar comfort of a classroom, but that didn’t mean she’d stoop to the level ofactuallyreading a Demien text.
“You can keep your propaganda,” she snapped, shoving it back. She ignored Quinn’s searing gaze and leaned back in her chair. “Where is the professor, anyway? Shouldn’t they be here bynow?”
“It’s been five minutes,” Quinn said, seething. “And we don’t haveprofessors. Just generals who act as instructors.”
Wren cupped her chin in her hands, blowing a strand of auburn hair away from her face. “Same thing.”
The words had barely left her lips when the entrance to the tentfluttered open with a flourish. A figure strode across the room, black cloak billowing behind them in ink-drenched waves. Shock clouding her senses, it took Wren a few moments to register his face, but when he placed himself behind the podium, quicksilver eyes darting up to assess the room, Wren couldn’t help but suck in an audible breath.
Of course.
Augustine Hughes stood before the classroom, lips pulled into a scrutinizing frown. His eyes slid over each row, gaze snagging when he spotted Wren seated among the other Demiens. To his credit, he masked his surprise with practiced ease. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. But Wren knew August in a way that terrified her. Down to the core of his very soul. So when his eyes widened for a fraction of a second…she noticed.
August cleared his throat, flexing his fingers before settling them cautiously upon the podium. The Demiens surrounding Wren leaned in closer, enraptured, breaths held as they awaited further instruction.
