Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,5

backpack. “Is she one of the instructors?”

“Charlotte?” Genie giggled like a schoolgirl. “No, she’s Shailene Basani’s daughter.”

“Right, got it.” I remembered now—Fay and Shailene were the twin founders of this place, and it stood to reason that one of them would’ve had kids. I slung the backpack over my shoulder and headed for the door. “Kes had us cram so much into our skulls that I think a lot got pushed out right after.”

Genie made an airy, whistling noise. “It was literally in one ear and out the other with me, but I know all about Charlotte from the ever-helpful grapevine.” She turned and we walked down the corridor together, past the hunter who had apparently been keeping watch all night. He gave a discreet nod and immediately walked off in the opposite direction. “Everyone talks about her. She’s apparently one of the best monster hunters to have ever come out of this Institute. Top-ranking, future head-huntswoman material, with a Bestia ability that I’d kill for! And she’s got the name to go with it.”

“Bestia? I don’t know that one.” We fell in step, and the chatter helped ease my increasing nerves.

“It means she can turn into all sorts of creatures and get into their mindset, which gives her a massive edge when hunting.”

“Isn’t that just Shapeshifting?”

“Kind of, but it’s exclusive to animals. I hear she can even change into a few Purge beasts, but you know what the rumor mill is like.” She sighed, as if she were already besotted with this Basani woman. “Still, it’d be amazing if she could, and it would definitely explain the glowing resume.”

Turning the corner of the cavernous hallway that led into the main body of the Institute, where the old collided with the modern, I spotted two more hunters who were doing a terrible job of acting nonchalant. They’d obviously been stationed there to keep an eye on me. I didn’t mind, given my history, but their presence made me feel like a pariah before I’d even gotten started. A watched enemy in the ranks, one who could go rogue at any moment. I was really trying to be optimistic, but every time I glanced at my knuckles and thought of the curse that had brought me there, my lungs seemed to shrivel like prunes and my throat got tight.

You will smash them all. Leviathan’s words hadn’t sounded at all comforting while I was deep in the tangle of the dream. But now… I remembered the panic I’d felt pummeling that glass, willing it to break beneath my futile fists. Faced with the prospect of life in a box if I couldn’t make this work, those words now acted as a weird salve to my fears. And that worried me most of all.

Two

Persie

“Would a signpost be too much to ask for?” Genie came to a stop beside a display case containing two wrist cuffs that had belonged to Artemis herself. They gave off distinct Wonder-Woman vibes, but they wouldn’t give us the superpowers required to find the main assembly hall. We’d spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to find the banquet hall so I could pick up breakfast and a coffee, and had spent another twenty minutes running around, looking for the assembly hall. Shaky splashes of coffee had spilled out of the paper cup in my hand, leaving a wet trail behind us like I was some kind of caffeine-deprived Theseus.

“I was sure it was this way.” I was wheezing, thanks to my general aversion to cardio. “But then, I thought the banquet hall was in the opposite direction to where it was, so I’m not much of a tour guide.”

Genie huffed, putting her hands on her hips as she scoured the Institute’s baffling layout. Every hallway looked the same, with endless corridors leading to endless destinations.

“I could’ve sworn I put the orientation map in my bag,” I lamented. I had a sparkly new pencil case, a bevy of empty notebooks, a half-filled sketchbook, and a pastry wrapped in a napkin from the banquet hall, but no map to speak of. I must have left it on my desk this morning in my nightmare-addled state.

“Well, we need to keep going and hope the assembly hall throws us a bone and appears out of nowhere.” She checked her phone. “It’s ten to nine, so we’ve got nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds to get there. I can almost hear the whispers already—can’t you?”

No whispers, please… I knew the curiosity would come,