"Motivation," Mr. Solomon said as we settled into our chairs around the old-fashioned tables of the Covert Operations classroom. For weeks I'd been coming to that room, studying our teacher, trying to find some clue in his eyes about Zach and the train and a million other questions that swarmed my mind.
"It's why people do the things they do," our teacher said, the sentence as simple and basic as any lesson we had ever learned; and yet something in Joe Solomon's tone told me it was also the most important.
"What, ladies"—he took a step, scanning the dim room—"is almost always tied to why. There are six reasons anyone does anything: Love. Faith. Greed. Boredom. Fear …" he said, ticking them off on his fingers; but he lingered on the last, drawing a deep breath before he said, "Revenge."
I thought about the people on the rooftop, wondered which of those six things had brought them there. And why.
"We have gadgets," Mr. Solomon said. "We have comms units and trackers and satellites that can photograph the wings of a fly, but make no mistake, we practice a very old art. Six things, ladies. And they haven't changed in five thousand years."
Mr. Solomon turned back to the board. My classmates sat at attention, but my mind was spinning, going over and over what my teacher had just said. I gripped the edge of the table. I saw the classroom fade away. The world came into focus as I said the words, I must have known for weeks but only just realized.
"They're old."
"What are you going on about?" Bex asked. For once in her life she could barely keep up with me as I stepped from the elevator and started up the Grand Staircase.
"We were wrong. I was wrong," I said, the words coming faster now.
"Cam, what—"
"Of course Liz didn't find it in the computer files. Going back fifty years wouldn't help. Going back a hundred wouldn't help. Bex, they're not a new threat!"
In the foyer below us, girls were going in for lunch. The halls were alive with the smells of lasagna and talk of midterms, but my best friend and I were alone in the Hall of History as I pointed to our school's most sacred treasure.
"They're old."
Chapter Twenty-two
"That's it," I mumbled, staring at the book on the table in front of me. "I've walked by that sword a million times. I should have realized as soon as we got back. I should have recognized it on the rooftop. I should have…I'm an idiot!"
"It's okay, Cam," Liz soothed. "You were all…concussiony."
"Thanks," I said, even though it didn't help as much as it should have.
I looked at the etching in the ancient book. Every new student in the history of our school had heard the story of Gillian Gallagher and stared at that very image, but that day I didn't look at President Lincoln or the dozens of men who stood around him. I didn't even look at the young woman with the sword, who was moving through the ballroom with more grace and strength than a hoopskirt was ever supposed to allow.
This time I looked at the man on the floor, a pistol falling from his limp hand, the empty scabbard at his side. This time I stared at the tiny emblem I'd seen a million times in the sword's hilt, barely visible next to Gilly's hand.
"That's it," I said softly, shifting the book to better catch the light.
Liz read the caption out loud: "Gillian Gallagher slays Joseph Cavan, founder of the Circle of Cavan. Virginia, December, 1864."
"She killed him with his own sword," Bex said in awe.
Then I dropped a satellite photo onto the open book. "The Circle of Cavan attempt to kidnap Macey McHenry, Massachusetts, present day."
"So the Circle of Cavan…" Liz started.
"Is alive and well," Bex finished.
I looked at my roommates. "And they want our friend."
I knew the first attempt to kill President Lincoln had really happened. I'd walked by the sword and thought of Gilly a dozen times a day for years, but before that moment Gilly's story had seemed like some fabulous dream. So, standing in the library, the fire crackling beside us, I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd just seen a dragon in the lake, a ghost in the labs. An ancient evil was alive in the world. I knew that Gilly had won the battle in the ballroom that night, and almost immediately she'd started her school, maybe because she understood the war was far from over.
"You don't think they're after Macey because she's…" Liz started. "You know…" She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Gilly's descendant?"
I thought about the day, more than a year before, when my mother had shared that information. And when I looked at Bex, the expression on our faces said the exact same thing: Absolutely.
The people on the roof had reason to hate the school and reason to hate Gilly. Macey was the last true Gallagher Girl—their best chance at real revenge.