(24) Suitably Clandestine Activity

I fully expect Clarice to show up that night with some kind of satchel loaded up with the tools of felonious enterprise, but she appears empty-handed. I eye her. "You can break into a room like this?"

Clarice pulls several hidden hairpins from her silky mane and treats me to the same smile that so unsettled me the first time we met. I've gotten used to it since then. As for her half of our mission tonight, I force myself to recall her lifting the brass nameplate from our dorm room door without any tools to speak of when she first arrived. I'm sure she had something up her sleeve that she used that time, but if that's the case, she likely makes a habit of hiding her tools.

Exie, meanwhile, has packed her usual exploration kit, her satchel bulging with what I can only imagine ranges from enough bandages to splint a compound fracture to at least three methods of documenting anything we find. I hope she's included fire-lighting materials in that assemblage. She's the one with the portable candle holder, and I've never seen her without matches despite her expressed reluctance to use them on this school. But the ever-present specter of what's happened to six students here already means leaving things to chance gives me hives.

I try not to think about what we might encounter tonight, out in the halls of Melliford Academy. One student nightly means the demon rolls dice between dusk and dawn to decide who'll be his next victim. Exie and I escaped that fate on our first round of exploration six days ago, but there's nothing to say we'll be so lucky a second time. Only the miraculously worse alternative of waiting and letting the rest of the school fall keeps me going right now.

We debrief a few details like where we'll run or hide or meet up again if we get spotted or attacked. Then I crack open Exie's door and scan the hallway outside for any signs of staff or eavesdroppers. The school is hauntingly empty.

"Go," whispers Exie, and punts me out the door. She turns to liquid shadow along the wall the moment she follows me. I slip in behind her, trying to match her sneaking pace and grace, pretty sure I'm failing miserably.

Clarice will tally several minutes after our departure before starting her own clandestine activity. It means she'll have warning if anyone ambushes us, but it also means we're on a timeline. The added pressure unlocks the part of me that responds well to accountability, and my thoughts streamline themselves a little. I still can't stop checking over my shoulder every three to five seconds, but at least I can think about Mrs. Hardwick's office again. Which is good, because we've already reached the staircase, and it takes every ounce of focus I possess to keep from vomiting all over those dark stone stairs.

"Keep up," whispers Exie.

She half leads, half drags me up the staircase after her. My feet have decided I'm wearing imaginary shoes much to heavy for me, and I stub my toes twice before we reach the blessedly unlocked door to the teachers' quarters. When we arrive on the balcony, my breathing eases. We might be trapped up here, but at least I won't step on a body.

Mrs. Hardwick's door felt much farther away the last time we infiltrated. Exie fiddles with the key she copied, and fear that the copy wasn't good enough takes its turn across my mental faculties a moment before the door clicks open. Exie's grin flashes in the darkness. One more check over the railing, and we dive inside. The thrill of doing something so flagrantly illegal rouses my sense of adventure. I could do without the Colson flashbacks, but I have to admit, there's a certain shine to sneaking into a cult member's personal rooms in the company of a cute girl several times smarter than I am. I take a deep breath and force that feeling into precedence. Now I can do this.

Moonlight floods Mrs. Hardwick's office. There's a full moon outside. In its silver bathing, you could convince me this place was inhabited by Bloody Mary's sister, or some similarly overlooked specter with a penchant for the mundane. Mrs. Hardwick is an almost painfully stereotypical schoolteacher. Her office is spacious—I don't want to know the rent she'd pay for a space this size back where I come from—and lined wall-to-wall with academic paraphernalia. The back houses a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Centering the room is a thick desk and a smaller, more elegant table, both teetering with stacks of books used as stands for inkwells, notepads, and at least one globe. There are stray papers everywhere.

Exie lights a candle. Something glints in her hand as she prowls a lap around the room, and I realize she's got a pocketknife ready to gut someone if we're ambushed here. Her search turns up nothing. I drag my eyes from the shadows and move to the desk. Handwritten notes laminate the spot where Mrs. Hardwick would be working if she installed herself in that plush velvet chair. Exie joins me as I wave her over.

"It's just lesson plans," she whispers, giving the notes a cursory once-over. We sift through the whole stack to confirm, then the drawer beneath them, but Exie's assessment holds sound. Disappointed, we give the table an even quicker pass, then turn our attention to the walls.

There are maps among the other posters and woodcut artwork masquerading as wallpaper here. I start at the closest one. I don't even recognize the coastline on it, let alone the shapes of city names dotted here and there. Exie has gotten stuck on the next map over. I close my eyes to bring up a mental image of the regional maps we've both consulted thus far, and the gap each one harbors. Pattern recognition serves me well. I scope out three more maps in the time it takes Exie to unglue herself from one. I'm moving so efficiently, I nearly miss the darkened page pinned halfway hidden beneath a larger poster of botanical sketches. Almost, but not quite. Its spray of tiny markings draws my eye like a moth to flame.

This is it. I drop to my haunches to survey it better, hands pressed to the wall on either side. Exie spots me and comes over with the candle. The darkness of the paper doesn't seem natural. I finger one corner of it, and jump back as it crackles like century-old candy floss. It's too fragile to touch. That supports the rest of my hypothesis: the paper looks scorched, like it was rescued from a smoked-out room just seconds before spontaneously combusting. I trace the lines of near-indistinguishable roads, zeroing in on the relevant space until my hand stops over a town.

A town.

I check the roads around it. Either this is severely misdrawn, or I'm in the right place. I beckon Exie closer, but the writing is so curly and faded that I'm going to need her to do the reading. She takes my cue and leans over my shoulder. I'm temporarily distracted by proximity, until she gives a small gasp that makes wax wobble and stream down into the candle holder.

"Miranda," she breathes. "The town was called Miranda."

The Miranda Bible. My fists clench against the wall. "Does it say anything else?"

Exie shakes her head, braids tickling my shoulder.

"Find the date."

She lifts the candle further, and I wordlessly offer to hold it as her arm hooks awkwardly around my shoulder. She hands it over, and we switch places. A close inspection of the ancient map reveals no date, but a ragged edge explains the absence. Exie taps the wall beside this. "It was torn out of a book. The date would be on the book itself."

My mind leaps to the mystery book we're looking for, though I know, logically, that it's unlikely the two were connected. Anything so valuable to the cult we're investigating is unlikely to have been defaced by page removal like this. Exie spends another minute poring over the map. I shift from foot to foot. Clarice will have begun her mission by now. At last, Exie pulls away from the wall. As she reaches for the candle again, though, I'm possessed by the urge to check one last thing here. I step away from Exie, back towards the center of the room.

"What are you doing?" she whispers, alarmed.

"I need to test something."

"We need to go."

"One more minute."

Exie might be used to sneaking around like I am, but I doubt she sticks her nose more places than she strictly sets out to. In this particular area, I've got more experience. I gesture for her to follow me as I return to Mrs. Hardwick's desk. It makes no sense for a cult member to have only innocent papers lying around her office space, and even the drawer to her desk is unlocked. It's bothering me. Everyone here should have something to hide.

I begin to pace around the desk again, inspecting the wood itself this time. I quickly find what I'm looking for. There's a seam along the bottom of that front drawer that doesn't make sense for such a solid wood construction. I would know—I've broken into plenty of desks in my time, and my father's own office had one not unlike this. I crouch beside it, not wanting to disturb the chair.

The drawer is unlocked, but contains only spare inkwells and other supplies. I tap its underside. The wood's reply is hollow. It shouldn't sound hollow given the contents piled inside. I begin to feel along the drawer's lower seam until my fingers meet the faintest divot in the wood. I smile. When I press a finger to the scarcely tangible finger-hold, it depresses slightly, a spring-loaded latch that lets me draw open the second drawer-space hidden beneath the bottom of the actual drawer. It's scarcely deeper than my thumb is wide, but there are papers inside it. Several of them. I pass the handwritten ones to Exie and lift the final one myself. It's the map of a building. The large, overall cross shape leaves little doubt which one.