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Merritt’s gorgeous brown eyes flicker to me. “I… see things sometimes. Or get a feeling about how a situation is going to end. But I can’t remember much after it happens. Usually just a lingering sensation.” Her lips stretch into a smile. “I’m pretty sure I had a vision about you, Ro, and it left me with a feeling of warmth. When I saw you on the docks that first day, that feeling returned. I knew I was supposed to be your friend.”
My throat feels inexplicably tight, but I clear it away. “So you’re a seer, but if no one is around you when you have a vision…” I trail off, not wanting to finish that sentence
“Then they’re kind of useless,” she finishes for me. “Hence why Gabe called me an inept.”
I’d noticed that but hadn’t thought too much about it, since he’s just an enormous ass. But not I see it for what it was. A slur against someone with less power than him. “What house are you in?”
Merritt shakes her head. “Seers don’t have a house.”
I frown. That doesn’t seem right. Being a seer seems like it would be pretty powerful, being able to tell the future, to avoid large pitfalls. “We’re still a part of the coven,” she adds, glancing at Ezra quickly. “But we’re sort of considered second-class citizens. We don’t have other magic,” she motions at the boys around her. “I can’t conjure up fire or wind or brew a potion or do a spell. The only thing I can do is get vague visions that aren’t helpful.”
“Well, that seems supremely fucked up,” I mutter. “If I challenge Julie,” I try to stress the word ‘if,’ “and I win or beat her or whatever, you can be a member of Shadow and Veil.”
Fielder looks like he wants to argue with me, but I stare at him, daring him to deny me this. If they want me to help solidify their power here, then they need to make some concessions. When he doesn’t say anything, I turn back to the shelf in front of me, satisfied that I’ve won. “What are we looking at?”
Gideon motions at the books on the shelf. “Each or the sacrariums have books that coincide with their house. So here we have spell books for castings that involve animals, insects and a few books on stuff that all witches can do.”
Ezra comes up next to us and indicates another shelf with bottles and pots and weird statues and all manner of things that I’d look at and think, ‘yep, that’s a magic artifact’. “There’s also a pantry of ingredients most commonly used in the spells for the house.”
“Goodwin has the most because Cup and Moon specialize in potions. So they need a lot of ingredients.”
I nod and pick up a statue of some half-man half-wolf idol. “And Cup and Moon is Morgan’s house?”
Gideon nods his approval. And I let out a breath. “Okay, so we have Goodwin, which houses Cup and Moon. They specialize in potions and are headed by Morgan. There’s Proctor, which houses Serpent and Hive. They specialize in animals and insects. And are headed by a rapist. Do the other members here know that? What he did?” I don’t wait for an answer. “Fielder is the head of Spider and Cross and they specialize in protections and spy magic-”
“Oversimplification,” he bites out, but I ignore him and continue. “And there’s Shadow and Veil that Julie is the head of, and I am apparently also a part of. What building is that?”
“Marbury,” Hardin says, throwing himself in a chair. When Ezra gives him a look, he lifts a shoulder. “We’re obviously going to be here a while. Rosalind has about a billion questions to ask us about this shit. We might as well be comfortable.”
“The teacher’s apartment building? That’s my building?” It’s stupid to feel disappointed about it. But it is literally the farthest building from the campus. Also, the teachers are right above it, which would probably make it less likely that a student could access it from the building. So I’d always have to get to it from the tunnels.
Ezra guides me over to a chair and sits before pulling me down onto his lap. Gideon puts my notebook in my hands and I flip open to the page with my map of the tunnels. “You’ve been busy, Ro,” Ezra murmurs, looking at my work. “How did we not know you were running around down here?”
“I’m very sneaky,” I say, primly, filling in the empty spaces that indicate the sacrariums with the information that they’d just told me. Ezra points at the other empty ones. “Hawthorn is Blade and Tether, Hardin’s house. Fire and battle magic. Hubbard is Hand and Tome. Gideon’s house. Water and runes. And Putnam is Dagger and Crest, my house and earth and sigils.”
I make notes, then point at the space in the center, just under the Cathedral. “What about here?”
Ezra peers over my shoulder, his cheek brushing along mine to see what I’m indicating. “That is the magisterium. It’s the central meeting place when all the houses have to have a meeting.”
“You know those family gatherings you mentioned to Morgan,” Hardin cuts in.
“So no house in particular is in control of it and there aren’t any books or ingredients for spells or anything?” I try to bring the room to mind, but from what I can recall, there wasn’t much there, just a big empty room with a stone table in the center and sconces at regular intervals along the sides.
Fielder nods. “As far as the other Sacrariums go, you can borrow any book and take any of the ingredients. You just have to fill out the ledger.” He points to a large leather-bound book in the center of the room. “If you don’t fill it out and you try to leave the Sacrarium, it will not let you.”
“What happens?”
Hardin drops his booted feet to the floor and wanders to the bookshelf, plucks one at random and then heads for the exit. As he gets closer, he stops moving. No, that’s not right. He’s still moving, his legs lifting and placing his feet as if he’s walking, but he doesn’t go forward, never reaches the exit.
“So nothing painful, you’ll just literally never leave.” My lower lip finds its way between my teeth as I think about what I want to ask next. “So the ledger is a way to track the spells people are doing?”
“To some extent, yes. There are plenty of spells that can be done without ingredients. Or without a book.” Gideon’s sitting in the chair next to me and Ezra, his elbows braced on his knees. “For example, you’re able to access your illusions when you record.”
I think for a moment. “But technically, I am using ingredients when I do that. Maybe not,” I glance at a bottle on the shelf and read the label, “nettleweed or scorpion sting, but I do use makeup, which is sort of an ingredient.”
Gideon’s grey eyes remain focused on me, and I can see the spark of pride in his eyes. “True, but you’re not doing it withtraditionalingredients. Not like Julie has to.”
“What does that mean?” I close my notebook and lean back against Ezra, letting his rain, clean laundry, and mint scent fill my nostrils.
