Page 65 of The Deadliest Candidate

Lautric shook his head. “Not now.” He stood, testing the strength of his leg. “We need to go or we’ll be too late.”

Fern swallowed back the torrent of questions pouring through her and followed Lautric as he set off once more. Lautric had not lied about knowing a shortcut to the grounds; they soon emerged from a side door into the peace garden.

The moon, with its cataract of clouds, cast a milky pallor over the junipers, climbing roses and winter jasmines. A low mist clung to the grass in a pale mire. Hedges, evergreens and cedars towered like waiting guardians, blocking out the horizon.

Lautric paused and looked around while Fern caught her breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She touched his arm. “Follow me.”

The way to the Arboretum was instinctive. Heart pounding, she ran through the maze of hedges, past the moss-ridden fountains and underneath the arch of a skyway dripping with ivy and moonflowers. Lautric, pale but determined, limped behind her, doing his best to keep up.

When they arrived under the canopy of the Arboretum, they confirmed what the silence had already told them: whoever had been there earlier was long gone now. Fern’s heart sank. She threw her head back with a sigh of repressed frustration.

“We’re too late.”

Lautric nodded but kept on walking, his eyes roving the ground. In whatever faint light managed to filter down through the branches, he was unlikely to find anything. Fern jumped when he called out, “Over here!”

She ran through the underbrush, shoving aside low branches and tangles of bramble. Lautric stood between two trees, pointing at the ground.

Snapped twigs, footsteps imprinted deep into the mud and porous moss, and long grooves flattening the grass. Something heavy had been dragged through the Arboretum.

They followed the tracks through the trees. Based on the footsteps, there must have been at least three people in the Arboretum earlier.

But who? And why? What had they been carrying, and who had called out?

The tracks came to a sudden end in a pool of shadows, forcing Fern to stop. She looked up, chest tight. They were at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower.

Chapter thirty

The Storm

Frustration and fear chokedFern as she watched Lautric walk up to the tower, skirting it with one hand against the ancient stone.

“There’s no way in,” she called out to him.

He turned with a frown, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes. “How do you know?”

“This is the Astronomy Tower. Housemistress Sarlet told us it was closed due to internal structural damage.”

Lautric shook his head, looking between Fern and the Astronomy Tower. “The tracks stop right here, though. There must be a way in.”

He had to be right, of course, but even if they found a way in, it was unlikely they would find anything within. The tower was dangerous enough to have killed two people, so why would the Grand Archivists keep it shut but accessible? It made no sense. None of it made any sense.

Fern couldn’t tell Lautric what she knew without betraying her secret, so she said, “Alright. Let’s look.”

They circled the tower several times, trudging over the high grass and fallen leaves. On the north face of the tower there was an entrance that was completely walled up, and a narrow door at the back, but it was locked tight.

“Should we risk an unlocking spell?” Lautric asked, hovering a hand over the door’s handle.

Fern cast a glance back towards Carthane. “The Sentinels can sense hermetic spells.”

Lautric gazed at her and was silent for a moment. Earlier, he’d realised it was Fern who had set the Sentinels on them. Was he figuring out that she had done so by using a hermetic spell?

If he did, he kept it to himself.

“We’re probably far enough from the central building to risk it,” he said. “There might still be time to help whoever we heard.”

Fern was not so sure anymore, but she drew closer, standing next to him in front of the narrow door, her shoulder almost touching his.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

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