Hi sorry I’m posting a day late lol I got distracted — I’ll explain why.

It started yesterday morning in Arcane Science. I was listening to a girl named Kiara Jones haltingly describe how her psychic ability developed, a slow, harrowing process that clearly caused her a lot of heartache, and it dawned on me, suddenly, that this is the future Madelyn is missing. This is where she should be. Not me, I’m just here because there was nowhere else to put me — which is totally fine to be clear, I’m not actually complaining. But Madelyn would have loved this place. The drafty corridors, and creaky floors, the windswept bluffs, the tangled, shadowy orchards. The grand library, and below it, the endless, labyrinthine archives. She was made for this place.

Yesterday afternoon we had the lab segment of Intro to Cryptozoology, which is much more fun than the Monday night lectures. They take place down in the arena, where Professor Jimenez and her TAs bring out various cryptids from the stables and essentially give us a full breakdown of their behaviors and anatomy. Yesterday, for our first lesson, we were introduced to a very cute, weasel-like creature with fur I have actually seen before. The Hawthornes called them poison minks, remember that case? When Alex, Rosie, and Dennis sold a bunch of cryptid pelts for a ton of money and everyone who touched the pelts died? The week they finally had to tell me that Neal can tell when I lie? 🙄

Professor Jimenez called them by a fancy Latin name that I will learn on a day that is not the weekend lol.

“Physically, these guys are so similar to other kinds of minks and weasels that when people see them in the wild — which is very uncommon, though not as uncommon as you might think — they assume that they’ve stumbled across an American mink with some kind of genetic abnormality, perhaps albinism,” Professor Jimenez explained, putting a hand in front of the squirming little creature to give it the illusion of moving forward.

Professor Jimenez broke her back on a hunt, uses a chair sometimes, has biceps that not even the billowy professor robes can hide, and was very gentle with the minks. I liked her immediately. She reminds me of April.

But the whole time Professor Jimenez was explaining that although the minks are totally harmless when alive, once they’ve died their bodies become incredibly toxic, even to the touch, I was remembering the way Madelyn used to lean forward in her seat when she was really interested in what we were learning at school, that specific expression when she was listening intently. It was like I was sitting beside a ghost.

“Are you okay?” Rook asked, and I blinked to find the four of us — Rook, Bass, Andie, me — all in the library, trying to finish that 100 pages of history before we have lecture again on Monday.

I said, “What?” In my head Madelyn was explaining to me, exasperated, that in the unrecorded vastness of human history there is just a whisper of magic, and that if I would just keep reading the textbook I would love it.

“You seem a little…” Rook trailed off, searching my face, which felt really weird because I felt like I was underwater and tbh Rook doesn’t look at me closely lately lol.

It took me a moment to realize that I was doing that thing that I’ve been hiding from everyone but the Hawthornes for like a year. Just fully checked out. Smooth brain, no thoughts, just me and the endless void.

So, in a rush to cover that I’d gone full zombie since like before lunch, I said the first thing I could think of: “I just don’t know enough about magic to even make a guess about what they were doing down there.”

“YES,” Bass said. “I KNEW you were still thinking about them.”

Now, obviously Robert and company were not what I was actually thinking about. I was imagining the precise details of what Madelyn would look like if she were here, remembering the way Madelyn’s hair lightened in the summer, determined even at the cellular level to save a little bit of sunshine for later. But Robert and his friends, and their mysterious studies were as good a thing to be thinking about as any.

I closed my book.

“We should go look,” I said, and when I said it aloud I found I liked the idea. When Rook’s brow just creased, I added, “I’m sure they cleaned everything up down there anyways. We probably won’t find anything.”

“We SHOULD go look,” Bass agreed. He closed his book with a snap. “We should absolutely go look.”

Bass and I were halfway through packing up our stuff before Rook finally closed his.

“Guys I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Andie said.

“Stay here then,” I said back, impatient, and Rook gave me a very funny look. I snapped, “What?”

He shook his head and started packing up his bag.

“Guys,” Andie repeated, slightly louder.

And then Rook shrugged on his hunter disguise. I hadn’t seen him do it in so long that I honestly forgot that he could. It was so subtle, but also he was a completely different person. He shrugged a careless shoulder, and leaned against the table as he said, “we’ll just peek around real quick. They’ve probably cleaned up the whole space anyways, I doubt we’ll find anything.”

Andie was still uncertain, and then Rook clinched it: “You have to be curious, right?” And he offered them a little prick of smile. Poor Andie didn’t stand a chance.

“Okay fine,” they said. “But if anyone’s down there, I’m leaving.”

I think all four of us were prepared to sneak down there, but actually, it was not sneaky at all. Maybe it felt a little ominous — especially considering the last time I was going down all those stairs it was to go to a secret meeting I physically can’t write about. But when we got downstairs there were maybe a few small groups of students, tucked away in the nooks, whispering to each other. No one even seemed to notice we were there.

“… do we know where they worked?” Rook whispered.

And the problem was, we didn’t really. In the end, we just set out into the chaos of the basement hoping that something would cue us in. At first, nothing did. We just wandered among the piles of strange, complicated-looking instruments, and scarred, stained tables, trying to picture them sitting in a threadbare armchair, thumbing through a stained, yellowing book.

We’d never have found it if it hadn’t been roped off.

Their work space was tucked away in a little alcove against the wall, framed by torches and barricaded by a thick, crowded bookshelf. The way in was a small gap between the bookshelf and what looked like an ancient apothecary, the small drawers partially open and spilling over with dusty, strange scented dried herbs. If it hadn’t been for the rope hung with small yellow banners blocking the entrance we’d have walked right by it. As it was we still might have except Rook spotted it and stopped us.

“Hang on,” he said. “What’s this?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Andie said, and their tone was such that I immediately suspected that they’d seen it and hoped we would not.

Rook bent double to duck under one rope, and over the other, little yellow flags trailing along his back as he slipped inside. He didn’t gasp or anything — Rook isn’t one to exclaim much aloud — but the way he paused in apparent wonder as he looked for the first time at what the bookshelf concealed, I knew we’d found the place.

We all hurried to follow him, but of course what Rook did lithely the rest of us bashed through clumsily, especially Bass, who tugged the rope hard when it got stuck on the collar of his tailcoat, causing one of the little drawers to clatter to the floor, sending up a plume of rancid smelling herb dust.

Which was why we were all coughing when we finally rounded the corner of the bookshelf to find what was undoubtedly their little workroom, fashioned by barricading all sides with ancient bookshelves and furniture. It was a cozy little space — the armchairs had all been carefully repaired and upholstered, the floor was stacked with overlapping rugs, which I noticed had been strategically placed to cover each other’s worst stains. There were books and strange, spindly instruments stacked, crammed, and overflowing on the shelves. A decidedly menacing vine had wound itself over one of the bookshelves, though how on earth it could be thriving so well down here in this dank, sunless place is beyond me. On the table was spread an enormous sheet of news print, held down at the corners with crystals to keep it flat, and scribbled with tiny incomprehensible symbols and notes.

But the wall was the most impressive of all. It had been covered with notes, maps, paintings, pages of runes, pages ripped from books. Red ink emphasized various lines or images. At the top of the wall someone had painted a round, strange sigil, and painted beneath it in uneven red letters directly onto the stone, it said, LIFE DEATH FROM WITHIN FROM WITHOUT

“What do you suppose —” Bass began, but he was interrupted, suddenly, but a booming, disembodied voice:

“THOUGHT YOU’D GET A GOOD LOOK DID YOU ADRIAN?”

And then, a second voice: “GIVE UP ADRIAN.”

And a third voice, which I recognized: “YOU COULDN’T EVEN READ THESE SPELLS.”

The fourth voice I finally understood who was speaking. It was Robert’s voice, and he said, loudly, “AND EVEN IF YOU COULD, CASTING THEM WOULD KILL YOU.”

And finally the fifth voice, which I knew was Katharine’s laughed gleefully, “YOU KNOW WE’LL BE BACK AND CATCH YOU HERE ANY MOMENT ADRIAN, YOU MIGHT AS WELL RUN FOR IT NOW.”

All four of us froze, looking around at each other, frozen with terror. But it wasn’t until I heard someone moving beyond the confines of our little barricaded space that I realized that it was time to make a break for it. By the time someone was calling, “who went into their nook?” we were already running, our coattails flapping behind us, back through the crowded study hall towards the stairs.

None of us said anything until we were back up in daylight, hurrying out of the library and into fountain square, into the light misting rain.

“I told you we shouldn’t go down there,” Andie panted, and I felt myself decide, obstinately, right there in an instant, that I loved going down there to investigate. Hahahahahaha let the record show that I am fully aware of how fucking annoying I am but I can’t help it. Andie tried to I told you so us and I felt my teeth sink deeper into the mystery, felt my jaw lock.

“Who do you think Adrian is?” I asked.

“That’s exactly what I was wondering,” Bass said, beaming at me, but it was Rook that met my eye, and with a sidelong glance indicated the sour-faced Willowa grad student who’d tried so hard to impress us with how exclusive and demanding Willowa was our first day just a few weeks ago. Adrian Prescott, blowing into his fingers, collar drawn up against the rain as he hurried across fountain square towards the orchard.

“No,” Andie said. “No way.” And when none of us answered, they added, “guys, come on, we already went down there, we don’t need to —”

“What do you think those were?” Rook said.

“What, the voices?” Bass said. “It was just a simple ward. Didn’t you see the crystals on the desk? Must have tethered some recordings in them. A while ago it seems like, the crystals seemed pretty comfortable with the magic.”

We all turned to stare at him.

“What?” he said, shrugging. “It’s simple alchemy.”

I watched Rook’s smile spread slowly over his face, reflecting my own (perhaps somewhat devious) delight in discovering that Bass knows things.

“And you think they were trying to keep Adrian Prescott out of their research?” Andie said, as if hoping we’d hear how absurd we sounded if they said it aloud.

Alas, I’ve sounded too absurd too often to be bothered.

“Surely it can’t be that easy,” I said.

And so far it hasn’t been. Ha I mean, it’s not like we know for sure that’s who they were magically warding off yet. But only because we haven’t been able to track down Adrian. So far he’s always busy with something, always just leaving the place we come looking for him. But it’s only been a couple days, and it’s a small island. We’ll corner him soon.