Page 44 of Strength of Desire

No alarm sounded. I felt no tingle, no pain to indicate that a ward had been crossed. Either there wasn’t one to begin with, or Ron’s seal had temporarily deactivated it. Ron pushed his cart straight across the room to a far wall of windows, still whistling and unaware of my presence. I darted over to a door on the right, opened it, and slipped inside.

Teresa’s rooms had the same layout as Sebastian’s, which was how I’d known the door led to a coat closet. Unfortunately, this particular door didn’t close all the way. But that should be fine, as long as I stayed out of the small bar of light that entered from the sitting room.

It took Ron half an hour to clean Teresa’s rooms. That still left a fair bit of the lunch period to go, but I couldn’t assume she’d be gone the whole time. I held my breath as Ron approached the door to the hallway, but he didn’t look towards the closet once. He also didn’t use his card to get back out. If there was a ward, it only cared about people entering, not exiting.

As soon as he was gone, I stepped out of the closet and surveyed the sitting room I was standing in. Most professors’ quarters included a room like this, a bedroom, and a third room to be used as a library or office. If I were Teresa, and hoarding incriminating evidence of my attempts to destroy Vesperwood from within, where would I put it?

I decided to go through each room methodically, and started in the bathroom that led off her bedroom. It was swanky, with marble floors and dark wood walls, with thick, soft towels in a dusky rose hanging next to the marble-topped vanity. The mirror above the vanity was surrounded by an elaborate, scrolling frame. Gold, unless I missed my guess. Nice digs, but none of it looked the least bit evil.

Her bedroom was the same. There was a large four-poster bed draped in blue and maroon brocade, thick silk curtains embroidered with more gold thread, and the kind of hand-woven carpet I suspected cost more than my yearly salary. The only incongruous detail was a small, stuffed koala sitting against the pillows in the center of her bed. A cheap child’s plaything in the midst of all this luxury, but that didn’t make it nefarious. Teresa was from Puerto Rico, not Australia, but maybe she just liked koalas.

The problem was that I didn’t know what I was looking for. ‘Anything suspicious, or out of place,’ Isaac had said. Sure, it was possible such evidence existed, and would maybe even be lying around in plain sight. But would I recognize it if I saw it?

I pulled out various drawers of the dresser, checked under the mattress, looked behind picture frames, and rifled through the contents of the nightstand. I even inspected the koala, but as far as I could tell, it contained fluff and nothing more.

The sitting room was the same. Ron had tidied it as well as cleaned, so everything was straightened and stacked nicely. Three books sat on the coffee table in front of Teresa’s caramel leather sofa. A pen perched neatly atop a manila folder that contained receipts for hen’s teeth, unicorn horn power, and seven smoking salamanders. Spell supplies, I assumed. Nothing odd there.

For a brief moment, I got excited when I saw a piece of paper that seemed to be hiding under a couch cushion. But when I pulled it out, it was nothing more than an invitation to tea with some upperclassmen. It had probably slipped beneath the cushion by accident.

Tea dates. Who knew those were still a thing? I put the invitation back where I’d found it and moved on to the next room, Teresa’s study.

This one was interesting.

A large work table was covered with stacks of papers, jars and flagons of glimmering liquids, and what appeared to be jewelry making supplies—coils of silver and gold chain, rubies gleaming in the afternoon light, and delicate tools for working with metal. At least, I assumed they were rubies—those were the official stone of Hex, and Teresa wasn’t the kind of person to settle for costume jewelry.

But why was she making jewelry in the first place? She was the head Hex, not Hearth. It was the Hands who created artifacts using precious or unusual materials. Hexers concentrated on pure spellwork. So that was odd.

There was a large bowl on her desk, next to a leather-covered notebook. It was filled with deep purple liquid. I knew better than to touch it, but I bent down and gave it a sniff. Burnt rubber laced with tangerines. I wrinkled my nose and pulled back.

I flicked through the notebook next to it, but all it contained were spell notes. The other papers on her desk and table contained magical equations and rune interpretations. Most of the books on her bookcases were magical theory, with a heavy focus on charms.

I pulled open the drawers of the desk, not expecting to see anything, and stopped in surprise. The bottom-right drawer was set up to hold file folders, and it was bursting at the seams. I pulled a bunch of stapled papers out of the first folder and frowned.

I was staring at student academic records. Rekha Bakshi, Izzy Amberg, and Erika Martinez. All of them were freshmen and female, but I wasn’t sure what else they had in common. I had them all in Combat, of course, but none of them had distinguished themselves particularly. About all I could say was that none of them were idiots, and none of them were budding Hunters.

But seeing Erika’s file unsettled me. Was it just chance that the student who’d suffered the worst during the moraghin attack was included in this stack of papers? I shoved those files back into their folder and took out another sheaf from farther back in the drawer. More student records, though these were for students who were seniors now.

Xander Conant was a Hand who I’d taught in Combat for four years. He was one of the top students in his class, from what I heard. Next came Haley Marx, a Hexer. She had quick reflexes but startled easily. I knew little else about her. Then Kevin Gomez, another Hexer. He disdained combat unless it involved battle magic.

Not that you’d know any of that from these files, since they showed each student as a freshman. I put those papers away and pulled out another handful of files, these from the very back of the drawer. Freshmen student records again, but from the first students we’d ever had, back when Isaac had reopened Vesperwood.

What the hell was Teresa doing with all of these? As head of Hex, she chose which classes to teach, and she worked mostly with upperclassmen and graduate students. It wasn’t sinister, exactly. Faculty had every right to access student records. But why hoard seven years of freshmen files?

It wasn’t evidence of wrongdoing. I wasn’t even sure it was evidence of something odd. But seeing Erika’s file made me uneasy. I’d mention it to Isaac and see what he thought. That was the best I could do, for now.

After leaving Teresa’s rooms, I still had a bit of time before lunch ended. I decided to swing past Autumn’s classroom. The teaching rooms didn’t lock, and I doubted she would have left anything there, but it couldn’t hurt to check.

Most of the students were still down in the refectory, along with the majority of the faculty. The east wing of the second floor was empty, save Orlando, taking his turn at guard duty. Most of the faculty had been slacking off at this, as the weeks progressed and no repeat attack occurred. But Orlando was serious, and he gave me a brief nod before continuing his patrol along the corridors of the second floor.

My footsteps sounded uncomfortably loud. In the bigger hallways, Vesperwood dispensed with carpets, and countless feet had worn the wooden floorboards white in places. I slowed my pace and made my steps silent. It was harder to do in boots than sneakers, but years of practice had taught me how, and I still felt the desire, even when I wasn’t trying to sneak up on anyone.

Room 207 was at the end of the hall, and sure enough, it was as empty and uninteresting as I’d predicted. I rifled through the papers on Autumn’s desk, pulled out some drawers, but the search revealed nothing useful. I’d wasted my time.

The hall felt even quieter when I stepped back into it. There were dim, muted sounds coming up from the main staircase in the center of the building, but they were far away, and Orlando hadn’t returned from whatever circuit he was making.

I padded back down the hall on silent feet and froze when I heard a noise in one of the other classrooms. Room 204, the one Nat used.

I shifted into hunting mode without thought. My body felt electrified, all my senses straining to catch stray information as I stalked closer to the room. The door was open, and I hadn’t heard anything when I’d walked by it the first time. But now…

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