Page 30 of Nothing to Lose

Find a pressed oak leaf inside a book printed before 1850

A library checkout card from prior to 2000

An unbroken wax seal

A Latin textbook

A charcoal sketch

A feather quill

A book bound in human skin

A dried sprig of ivy

A black-and-white photograph

An unpublished manuscript

Get five signatures from people related to the founding families, one for each family

The list goes on and on for fifty items, except, on the bottom of mine, is a handwritten one.

Retrieve the grave bell from Blackwood Mausoleum

“Alright, let’s divide and conquer. We’ve got three hours,” Eli announces, while I read the words over and over. He was banking on getting stuck with me again and gave an extra one. Just for us. My heart does this wild damn thing in my chest. Eli gives two items to each team, leaving the last three for us. All the teams filter out of the clubhouse, and I snag the sleeve of Eli’s hoodie, pulling him to the side before he can disappear

“Alright, you going to tell me how a grave bell ended up at Corvus College? Pretty sure if there were any left behind from the eighteenth century here, we’d have heard about it.”

“There’s one. Inside the old mausoleum where the founders rest.”

My heart sinks. “You’re kidding me. Eli, no one knows how to get into the Corvus Cemetery. There aren’t any doors. How are we supposed to get that?”

Eli shrugs. “Well, I hope you like creepy shit, because we’re going underground.”

“Jesus Christ. Alright, little bro, I’m down. You ready to win?”

“Only if you can pull your weight.”

“I think you know better than anyone that I know how to get it done.”

Eli grins like a fool. “Oh, shut the hell up.”

The first hour blurs into absolute fucking chaos. I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided to include all the other Corvus organizations, but it definitely wasn’t this. People are running, sprinting, elbowing, yelling; then there are the whispers and pointing, people plotting and conniving their way to get through the list.

“Alright, first up, we need to get the skeleton key from Professor Thorne’s office.” I whip my head in Eli’s direction. “Are you mad? Professor Thorne? He’s ancient. Pretty sure he’s not even actually breathing. Or alive.”

“If he’s not breathing, he’s obviously not alive, numbnuts.”

“You know what I mean, Eli, don’t pretend like you don’t. Have you had one of his lectures? He’s terrifying. Even for me. And I’m not scared of anything.”

“I don’t know, man, sounds like you are. If you need me to sneak into his office alone, I can. But I’m getting that key. We need it for the last one.”

I groan, dropping my head backward. Professor Thorne is a direct descendant of one of the families that founded Corvus College over three hundred years ago. Each original founding family—Ashcroft, Grimsley, Mortwood, Harrow, and Thorne—has descendants who not only attend Corvus but are required to work at the school. Each of them is a little odd, but Professor Thorne has this darkness about him; it’s not evil or malicious, just . . . ancient. Rumors about Professor Thorne have been whispered since I got here my freshman year. Everything from reports that he’s a eunuch, having dedicated his life to the school, and his lack of sex life is responsible for his brooding persona, to the more sinister: that he’s as old as the school itself and feeds on the souls of innocent students. Wherever the truth lies, the flickering candle that sits in his office window never goes out, even in the dead of night.

“Alright, what’s your big plan, then? How do we get into the most notoriously grouchy professor’s office? And what’s your plan for getting us out?”

“We’re going to walk right in and take it.”