Page 140 of The Midnight Order
Staring up at me are files packed from front to back. The first of which is labeledbirth information.
I smudge my index fingertip across the lettering scrawled there. It’s Soliel’s writing. The first file contains only one document.
The baptism record for one: Silver Tenebris.
At least my name is correct. I’ve already been grappling with the idea that I wasn’t a Dormund. If my first name had been something like Katherine, I would have lost it.
The document trembles in my hands as I gaze over its worn, dark brown edges and fading, hand-scrawled ink.
My mind is whirring, and the gears are turning. I pull the file from the box, turn it upside down, and shake it to see if anything else is inside.
There isn’t.
There are so many more file folders in the box, but I can’t get my hands to put the registry down to search them. Before I know it, my feet are carrying me onto the porch.
The scent of newly applied paint and sealant wafts up my nose, and tears warm my cheeks.
This is the first evidence supporting Corvin’s findings in my blood and its lineage. The first evidence of who I truly am.
Part of me wishes I would’ve stayed out of that damned attic because there’s no going back now.
You can’t unknow something once it’s been revealed, and knowing this feels monumental.
“I don’t know which of you is out there today, but I need you,” I squeak, emotion choking off any more words before Lowell is before me, cupping my cheek and looking down at me in concern.
“Little lamb, what is it? Another dream?”
So Jasper has already relayed my nightmare to them. Great.
I know it’s for the best, but it makes me feel splayed open like I’m something they’re examining, like their project.
“I found something,” I whisper, unable to help the warmth bleeding into my tone that his touch is causing.
Looking down, he takes in the paper before I hand it over.
He carefully examines it as if he can sense the document’s age.
“Silver Tenebris. So, Corvin was correct,” he says, more to himself than to me.
“Seems so.”
“Where did you find this?” His red eyes lock on mine, and I can’t breathe beneath their glow.
“A box in the attic. It had my name on it. Only my name. The file that was in saidbirth record, but that’s not a birth record at all.”
“Birth records didn’t exist until much later. This serves as your birth record. You’d have been a year old when you were baptized.”
“Baptized. Into a church? It’s very lacking in information.”
“It’s not. You see that seal?” He turns the page toward me, and my eyes travel down to the bright red seal on the bottom. “That’s the seal of The Griceoferi.”
“The what?”
“The Griceoferi was a holy order. They operated the Church of the Damned.”
A shocked chuckle rumbles out of me. “Why does that sound like it’s straight out of a horror film?”
Lowell doesn’t laugh or look away from the seal at the bottom of my baptism registry.
