Dark Secrets - Linsey Hall Page 0,53
to you. It is his personal diary.”
My brows rose. “How did you find that?”
“Secured beneath the desk by a special adhesive.”
“He was all about hiding things around this office, wasn’t he?” Carrow asked.
“He died quite suddenly in 1643,” Ubhan said. “It seems that he didn’t have time to clean the office.”
“All the better for us.” She went to the table and retrieved the book, then turned back to him. “Is there anything else?”
“Not that I know of.”
A disembodied voice came from a comms charm around a fallen guard’s neck.
“It’s time to leave.” I looked at Ubhan. “Stay seated there for ten minutes. Afterward, I suggest you not give us any trouble over this, or it will look like you support Rasla’s actions.”
Ubhan glared. “I’d never support such a thing.”
“Good. Then we are on the same side.” Carrow grinned and strode toward the door.
I followed her, and we made our way quickly through the halls. Near the stairs, we passed a reedy-looking man I recognized. He was an assistant to one of the council members, but he didn't do more than glance at us.
“Are you sure he’ll stay put?” Carrow asked as we began to descend the stairs.
“Ubhan? Yes, for the ten minutes, at least. After that, my hold won’t work on him.”
She nodded. “We’ll be across town by then. Let’s go to my place to check on Mac and Seraphia. We can read the diary there.”
“Excellent plan.”
Together, we hurried across Guild City. Carrow clutched the bag containing the books and papers, a deep frown on her face. “I really hope there’s a cure for Mac and Seraphia in here.”
“We’ll find it. I promise.”
She looked up at me, eyes wide. “We haven’t even figured out how to fix us, much less them.”
She had a point.
We reached her place a few minutes later, and she took the stairs two at a time. The door to Mac’s flat was slightly ajar, and she ducked inside.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
I joined her in the flat. Mac and Seraphia were on the couch, looking pale and wan. Eve appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her face was streaked with something purple.
“Fine,” Mac said.
“I’m working on a strength potion to give them,” Eve said. “But we need a cure. Soon.”
“This will sound strange,” Seraphia said. “But I feel like the building is pulling at me. Like I want to return to it.”
“Same,” Mac said.
“Yes,” Carrow frowned. “It’s odd, but I feel it too.” She looked at me. “Do you?”
“I feel nothing.”
“Well, we’ve got more clues.” Carrow held up the book and pulled the pages out of her bag. She handed off the pages to Seraphia.
The librarian took them, interest gleaming in her eyes. “Where were they?”
Carrow sat in the chair near the window and relayed our adventures.
“There’s another guild in town?” Shock shone in Mac’s eyes. “The Shadow Guild, and none of us even knew about it?”
“It seems so,” Carrow said. “And I don’t think the building is evil. It’s the curse that Councilor Rasla put on the place to hide it.”
“And to kill the members,” I said.
Carrow’s gaze flashed to me, shock in their depths. “What?”
“It’s the only way it could have stayed a secret,” I said. “If we read his diary, I imagine we will find record of that. Otherwise, what would have happened to them once their tower was gone? Perhaps he erased some of their memories and evicted them from town, but it’s just as likely the curse on the building killed them.”
As it might kill Mac and Seraphia. I didn’t say the words, but Carrow and the others were too clever not to intuit what was left unsaid.
“Does that mean I’m meant to belong to the Shadow Guild?” Mac asked.
“But you have a guild,” Carrow said.
“I never fit in well.” Mac shrugged. “One of the reasons I live here instead of there.”
“I don’t fit particularly well in mine, either,” Seraphia added.
“This is insane,” said Carrow.
“It could still be true,” I said.
“But I wasn’t cursed,” she said. “And I’m currently the biggest misfit in town.”
Mac leaned forward. “But the way your eyes glow, you’re definitely connected to it. Just because you don’t feel the effects of the curse doesn’t mean you aren’t part of it.”
Carrow opened the tiny diary in her lap. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this. We’ve partially broken that curse. We need to finish the job. Then we’ll have time to figure it out.”
Seraphia flipped through the papers on her lap, handing some off to Mac.