Evermore Academy (Evermore Academy #3) - Audrey Grey Page 0,94
Richter spots Ruby, the combat instructor’s eyes narrowing. “What in Titania’s name are you—”
Before she can finish her sentence, Ruby divebombs the commander’s cap. Expletives fill the air, the shadows gathering around the commotion. The shadow Guardians rush to the scene.
While they’re distracted, Mack and I slip away from the group. A twisted path between a wall of hedges opens up, and we break into a sprint.
A few minutes later, a side door to the castle appears.
“That was easy.” Mack leans against a lantern post at the base of the stairs below the door, huffing.
“Ruby’s a pro at distraction,” I say.
“Damn right I am.” Ruby appears between two butterfly bushes, grinning and patting herself on the head. “I really am the best.”
Mack glowers at her before giving me an annoyed look. “You’ve created a monster.”
Ruby lands on my shoulder, and I stroke her little wings with my fingertip. “Don’t listen to the grumpy human, she’s just jealous.”
Mack rolls her eyes.
I pause beside her and pull up a printout of an old map of Whitehall I found online. “This looks like the south entrance?”
“Sounds right to me.”
The door is unlocked. The light fixtures have long since burned out, but natural light floods in from the hundreds of broken windows. We pad quietly down a hallway over black and white parquet floors. Thick wisteria vines snake along the elaborate white baseboards and climb the pale walls, their flowers buzzing with fat bumblebees.
Ducking under a lilac curtain of conical blossoms, we come out into a grand hallway that must have once been the jewel academy.
“Wow, I didn’t realize how nice Whitehall was,” Mack whispers.
I try to imagine Hellebore roaming these halls, carrying books, laughing with friends. But anything that doesn’t involve him skulking and tormenting is hard to picture.
After consulting with the map, we take the winding stairs to the second floor. From here, it’s only fifteen more flights to the top.
Every few minutes the distant sound of voices trickles around a corner or through a wall, but we don’t encounter anyone. The human recruits sleep in the old shadow dorms in another part of campus, and the old Evermore quarters where the Fae soldiers sleep are on the other side of the castle.
The records room is across the hall from the admissions office. The heavy wooden door hangs partially off its frame, overrun by gnarled wisteria vines. Ruby flits to the hurricane sconces hanging from the wall panels and lights a few with her magic. After the third magical light flares to life, she enters the cylindrical glass, only to exit a moment later shaking her hands. “Stupid magic isn’t working.”
“I think your sprite is broken,” Mack says dryly.
“It’s okay, Ruby,” I call, “you did good. We have enough light.”
She continues staring in confusion at her hands for a few moments longer before deciding I’m right and performing an elaborate bow.
Thanks to Ruby, soft golden light trickles over the room. Her magic illuminates a room in complete disrepair. In fact, by the random poop scattered over the floor, I’m pretty sure an animal of some type has made its home in this place.
Confirming my suspicions, something that resembles a raccoon skitters into the shadows as we plunge deeper.
“Burned down, huh?” I mutter, shining my iPhone flashlight over a five drawer cabinet. Dust swirls inside the beam of light.
Mack sneezes. “How in the Fae hells are we supposed to find Hellebore’s information?”
I try not to feel deflated as I run my gaze over the built in wooden cabinets lining the walls. More modern metal filing cabinets are stacked in rows in the center of the windowless room.
“Okay, we can assume they ran out of room and the records in the middle cabinets are more recent. Let’s start there. Look for dates starting two years prior, labels that say something like Evermore or Mentors.”
Mack cracks her knuckles. “I have a calendar color-coded by activity and detailed down to the hour. I think I’ve got this.”
We move in methodical rows, starting on opposite sides. It becomes apparent almost immediately that some of the cabinets have suffered water damage, their contents ruined. Others fell over and spilled their contents, which have been used, it seems, to make a nice little bed of shredded papers for the resident raccoon and its extended family. The Evermore cabinets near the back are mostly empty.
Not surprising, I suppose, when most Fae guard their secrets like precious jewels.
Desperation drives me to keep looking. When I glance down at my phone, I’m