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“Which book?” Zach asked.
“I think it’s this book that Professor Halifax gave me. It had some stuff about untamed magic in it. I read through it a bit but honestly I forgot about it until today.” She walked over to her desk and opened a drawer. When she turned back to us, she was holding a leather-bound book.
“That’s it?” I asked. “Why would someone want it? Any ideas?”
She shook her head. “He said if I didn’t give it to him or if I told anyone, he’d hurt my friends.”
“So that’s why you needed to keep it secret,” I said, reaching for the book. “Can I look at it?”
She passed it to me and I opened it. As I flipped through the pages, I skimmed the words for anything that looked like it might be of value. Of course there were so many kinds of magical objects that it might not be about the content. For all we knew the book was cursed or something.
“Let me see,” Zach said.
I passed it to him, not seeing anything at first glance.
He flipped through it. “I’m not even sensing any magic in this book. I can’t see why anyone would want it. Are you sure it’s the right book?”
Raven shrugged. “I think so. I don’t have any other books aside from my textbooks and I doubt that was what he was after.”
Zach closed the book. “We need to keep this safe. Obviously, this person can’t get into your room for some reason so we should keep it here. But we can’t give it to them.”
“I agree. Just because we can’t figure out what’s special about it doesn’t mean we’re not missing something,” I said.
Raven took the book from Zach and put it back in the desk drawer.
“Want me to do a locking spell on the desk?” I asked.
“Sure,” Raven said. “Don’t let me have access to it. That way whoever this is can’t even make me open it.”
I walked over to the desk and set my palm against the drawer. I learned locking spells as a kid to mess with my brother. Once I’d locked him in the bathroom for six hours before the nanny found him and broke the spell. He didn’t speak to me for days after that and kept trying to get back at me. When he finally managed to use an illusion charm to make me think there was a giant snake in the living room, I’d been so terrified that I turned and promptly fell down a flight of stairs, breaking my arm. We put the pranks to rest after that. Despite it all, we were best friends and we had each other’s backs.
“Okay.” I turned to Raven. “Nobody but me can get that open.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Now what do I do about tonight? He wants me to meet in the library at midnight. I have to go.”
“You can’t be serious,” Zach said. “Just stay in. What’s he really going to do?”
“We can’t let him keep roaming the school,” she said.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “We’ve got to stop him.”
“How?” she asked. “I can go with a fake book but we don’t even know what he looks like.”
“I don’t like the idea of you going as bait,” Zach said.
“We don’t have a choice,” Raven said.
“Raven brings a different book and goes to the library alone,” I said, then turned to Zach. “You and me will already be there, studying at different tables. Raven can take a seat at a table in the middle of the room and we can watch her from both sides.”
“I still don’t like it,” Zach said.
“Me neither, but it’s the best we’ve got,” Raven said.
“We can take him down as soon as he approaches her,” I said. “Plus, there’s always a hundred people in the library. We’ll have help once we make some noise. It won’t just be us.”
“That’s true,” Zach said. “Alright. What time does this peeping tom want you to meet him?”
“Midnight,” she said.
