Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,64
unsuitable I was to be a student here. They’d have to vent their energy somewhere now that Victoria had put the Institute into a loose version of lockdown, with no classes for the foreseeable future. At least it would make my classmates easier to avoid. I just hoped Naomi had hung around so we could ask her for some puzzle boxes. After dodging an expulsion, I didn’t feel like sliding back into the firing line for stealing.
“Let me get this straight.” Genie strode along beside me, our arms still linked. “While the Institute is investigating Xanthippe’s disappearance and the potential connection to your ankle-biters, we’re going on a mission of our own to try and catch as many pixies as possible? Aren’t we just doing the same thing as the hunters?”
I shook my head. “Nope. We’re going to get the pixies to help us.”
She spun me around and put her palm to my forehead. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to sit down and take a few minutes? I think you’ve lost the plot.”
“This is the only way,” I insisted, removing her hand and continuing down the corridor. “They can sneak into places that we can’t. They might’ve seen something nobody else did. And, on the off chance that they did this, I can hopefully persuade them to come clean and show us where Xanthippe is.”
“Is this about the dream? Don’t get me wrong, I see why it’d frighten the crap out of you. But if Victoria didn’t expel you or anything, then maybe everything’s peachy. She’ll just give her hunters a piece of her mind for not watching you when they were supposed to, and that’ll be that.”
It’s not enough. I pressed on, as determined in my stride as I was in my mind. Clearing the pixies of Xanthippe’s disappearance might have been the one thing that could stop the whole Institute from looking at me like a ticking timebomb. Victoria had not been unsympathetic, but if enough people pressured her to get rid of me, maybe there would come a time when she had to buckle to keep the peace. If I could nip that in the bud, then I could get on with the training I came here for.
I glanced at my friend. “I just want the blame to fall on the right culprit, that’s all. And I want to try and get Xanthippe back with the pixies’ help, to show that they’re not a threat… and neither am I.”
“Aye, aye, captain.” She pretended to salute, seemingly satisfied. Weirdly, it used to be me who went along with her madcap schemes. Now the tables had turned, and she was once again demonstrating why she was my best friend.
Ringleader or accomplice, here she stood, at my side, ready for anything.
The halls lay eerily empty on our speed-walk to the engineering lab, our footsteps echoing loudly, as if a gang of people were following us. I had to look back a few times, just to make sure we were alone. I listened to the percussion of our footsteps until we reached Naomi’s gadget sanctuary.
“Ms. Hiraku, are you in here?” The lab appeared to be as unoccupied as the rest of the Institute, the room miraculously cleared of any evidence that there had ever been a class.
Without the clutter, I saw more of the lab as a whole. Shelves filled with gleaming metal devices, and jars with vividly colored powders and liquids inside. At the back of the room was a diorama of sorts, showing the evolution of the Repository orbs. I imagined, since they used a lot of Atlantean technology, that the Institute’s engineers had melded the old glass-box tech with new knowledge to make the orbs they had today. Away to one side, I spotted one of Naomi’s Omnispheres in a state of mechanical undress, connected to a beeping machine with red and green wires.
An abrupt bump, followed by a sharp “ow,” cut through the silence. Naomi popped up from beneath her workbench like a cartoon gopher, rubbing her head. “Girls. Didn’t you hear Ms. Jules? Classes are canceled until further notice.” She winced, trying to squint up at her head injury. “Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with myself. I know, I know, teachers are meant to daydream about snow days and vacation days, but I like to be busy! I don’t like things quiet.”
I leaned against one of the workbenches. “We know, we just came by to talk about something.”